Brass Bands England statement regarding the selection of English Band Representative for European Youth Championships
Published in General on 2014-01-02 by Empty Chairs
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Following numerous enquiries Brass Bands England is to clarify their choice of representative for the European Youth Championships to held in Perth in 2014.
Brass Bands England is the appointed body to administer entries to all European events, organised by EBBA, having taken over this roll from the former BFBB. In October 2013 the organisation was asked to provide a band to represent England in a new contest for Youth Bands to be held during the European Championship weekend in Perth Scotland. As we administer and organise the National Youth Championships of Great Britain, we decided to invite the highest placed band from our Premier Section, and used the 2013 event to do this. A look at the results for 2013 showed we had two bands from England with equal standing, and after consulting the adjudicators and talking to the bands it was decided that as one of them would have difficulty fulfilling the invitation, we would invite Northamptonshire Youth to represent England. The Youth committee asked the main BBE board to ratify this decision, and they endorsed I and decided this was the fairest, and probably our only option for selecting the English band.
The European Youth Championships are not an open contest, each of the EBBA countries has been asked to nominate one band. In England our decision to choose our highest placed English Band, from the Premier section at the National Youth Contest, is similar to the way next years National Brass Band Championships will nominate the highest placed English Band, to represent the country in Freiburg Germany in 2015. If the Youth Contest continues at future European Festivals, we will continue to use this selection method.
Brass Bands England is pleased that a lot of interest has been generated with regard to entry to the Perth Contest. We would encourage bands that want to be invited and participate in prestigious events like the Europeans to join the governing body and enter our National contest. All future invites to events will be chosen from our pool of bands that enter the National Youth Championships. We will base our nominations on the results from the contest, working down the list if circumstances mean that our first choice is not available. BBE will ask the adjudicators to award places for competing bands at the contest. This will not effect the awarding of Gold Silver and Bronze certificates.
BBE is the European governing representative for the Europeans. We will continue to review our procedures and selection processes and will publicise any changes we make in the future. It is the intention of the organisation to continue to work in the best interests of all Brass Bands and we welcome new members to help us promote and raise the profile of Brass Banding in England.