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16 November 2025 -
Lydbrook Training Band November 2025 update
Once again, it’s been a busy year for the Training Band and as regular supporters know, the band is a mixture of young players and those not so young! Our youngest member at the moment is 8 years old and our oldest member is 78. One of the exciting things from my point of view is to see the relationships develop between people of different ages when making music - it does make me smile.
Our main band committee has worked hard this year to upgrade all our membership and safeguarding policies, and our thanks are due to out Chairperson Emily Dodsworth, senior band safeguarding officer Wendy Jury and Training Band safeguarding officer Rachel Danks. All our policies are available for anyone to view, and you can do this by looking at the home page on our website, click on the red arrow and then scroll down to the bottom of the page. If you then click on safeguarding policies, you can view all the pdfs that are in place.
Our relationship with Lydbrook Primary School continues where we supply instruments and tuition free of charge to any pupil wishing to learn a brass instrument. Looking back at our records, I see this has been ongoing for 35 years and keeps a regular inflow of a few children into the Training Band every year. Thanks are of course due to Tracey Gwynne, a cornet player in the senior band, who visits the school once a week to give these lessons.
Our annual Christmas concert with the Training Band and the school will take place this year on Monday 15th December in Lydbrook Parish Church starting at 7.00pm. If previous years are anything to go by, the church will once again be packed with children and parents getting their Christmas off to a good start with carols and numerous verses of Jingle Bells!!
The Training band have this year carried out concerts in and around the village, supporting the Orchard Trust, Lydbrook Recreation Ground, Scarr Bandstand, Soudley Village Hall and the Coleford Festival of Brass.
Lydbrook Band as an organisation is 102 years old this year and since its formation in 1923, has a tradition of performing Christmas carols in the village on Christmas Day. A few years ago, I thought this tradition might come to an end, but last year we had 25 players performing in the village, including many from the Training Band, some of whom were members back from university - long may it continue.
A mention here for Sophie Danks, a past member of the Training Band, who this year with a friend, is starting a brass band at Newcastle University - from an 8-year-old at Lydbrook School to starting a university band - how good is that and what a legacy for our band.
Jack Lythaby, another 10-year-old from the Lydbrook School initiative, is now the principal horn of the world-famous Tredegar Band - well done Jack.
The latest players to join the Training Band are Albert Cox on cornet age 8, Clara Gilson on cornet age 11 and Lucy Thomas also on cornet, age 12 - I’m sure they will all do brilliantly well under Tracey’s tutelage. If you’re reading this and have a child or grandchild who would like to learn a brass instrument, please give me a call 07796 442463.
The next couple of weeks will be busy with the GBBA Contest and Christmas events, so I’ll give another update at the end of December.
Robert Morgan
Secretary and Training Band Conductor