Goodwick Brass Band rehearse twice a week at their bandroom overlooking the harbour of Fishguard and Goodwick. We meet on Mondays from 19-30hrs to 21-00hrs and Fridays from 19-30hrs to 21-30. We also have a junior band and a youth band, the junior band are taught from 5:00-6:00 on Wednesdays and the youth band follows between 6:00 and 7:30.
The band's musical director is Matthew Jenkins. Matthew, our former principal euphonium player has been with us since his early years, and it's nice to say that even in that short space of time he has made an astounding difference to the standard of the band. Matthew is a member of the infamous Cory band playing alongside David Childs.
There's a friendly atmosphere that exists within the Band. We have over forty five members whose ages range from 9 to 77, a real community spirit. The average age is somewhere around 23. This allows for the numerous teenagers we have, which is great for any band, as having so many youngsters enables the band to continue building.
We are proud of our achievements over the past few years, setting up a band involves introducing music to young people as well as public entertainment. We have a policy of offering free tuition to anyone who would like to join us regardless of whether they have any musical knowledge or not. Our oldest "beginner" is 63. We provide instruments to Band members and the young ones are able to take them to school for lessons (which also helps a stretched Education Authority). This policy is reflected in the high standard of playing of our young members - have you heard the Quartet? - Some of our players are hoping to study music as a career. Three of our members have been selected to play with the National Youth Brass Band of Wales.
In addition to the concerts, carnivals, fetes and competitions that we perform at, there's also a great social side to the Band.