Foresters Brass 2000 has announced it has reached its ambitious target of raising £20,000 during 2008 to replace worn out instruments and equipment.

Grant win

The Leicester-based band won a £10,000 grant from the National Lottery and has gone on to match that amount through several fundraising activities.

Sponsored run

Perhaps the most significant event saw MD Pete Collins and solo horn player Oliver Hatton completing a gruelling 20 mile sponsored run around Rutland Water, accompanied by half the band on tandems – quite a sight!

The band is also extremely grateful to its sponsors, the Foresters Friendly Society, for additional support and to its trustees Barrie and Vera Edwards who also made a significant donation.

We finally got our own permanent band room a year ago, to now fill that with new instruments and equipment is a fantastic achievementMD, Peter Collins

New set

Foresters can now boast an entire new set of percussion equipment, two euphoniums, an Eb bass, a Bb bass, two tenor horns and four cornets.

Fantastic achievement

An order for a baritone and another Eb bass are also about to be placed. Musical Director Peter Collins told 4BR: "We finally got our own permanent band room a year ago, to now fill that with new instruments and equipment is a fantastic achievement. You don’t really appreciate the difference new instruments will make until you have them – the sound, the tuning and of course the morale of the band – this is an incredibly positive start to 2009."

New toys

Even with all those new toys, there is one gap in the band — but Chairman Dan Baker says that should now be a little easier to fill:

"Just as all the new percussion equipment arrived – including three timps, a glockenspiel, xylophone, tam tam, bass drum and more toys than you can shake a stick at – our regular percussionist had to step down for personal reasons. I’m hoping that we’ll have a better chance of luring a new percussionist – kit or tuned – along to the band now that he or she will have all this fantastic new equipment to get stuck into!"