scaba works hard to put the interests of its member bands and brass players first, and there’s a lot more to us than just contesting! The association is a member of Brass Bands England (BBE) and Making Music UK, and has representatives on the committee of the London & Southern Counties region of the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain.
scaba is run by a team of volunteers and we can’t keep going or offer more services to our local bands without some support! Membership of the association helps to support all of our activities including the Southern Counties Youth Band and development of new, no-competitive events.
In return for a small subscription, members of scaba enjoy the following benefits:
♪ Free advertising on the scaba website and social media
♪ Discounted subs for SCYB
♪ Free information, advice and resources
♪ Priority entry and discounted tickets for workshops and other events
♪ Priority entry and discounted fees for scaba contests
Membership of the Association is just £90 a year for Senior Bands and £45 for Youth Bands (with discounts for connected groups). In light of the Covid-19 pandemic, membership for all bands who took up membership of the Association in 2020 was extended to 2021 with no additional charge.
THE SOUTHERN COUNTIES YOUTH BAND
The Southern Counties Youth Band or “SCYB” was set up by scaba to give young brass and percussion players an opportunity to improve their playing ability, expand their banding experience and to have fun making music in a band of players their own age.
Whilst we’ve enjoyed a stable membership over the past few years, and owe huge thanks to our current membership, conductors Richard and Ian and team of volunteers for this, during our enforced shut-down because of Covid a number of our older members have now reached or passed 18, and we know there are dozens of children out there in bands in the area who have never taken part in SCYB.
To get a clearer picture of what, if anything, we could do differently to help the band reach and support even more young players going forward as we start to plan a return towards the end of 2021, we’re asking all bands and families in the scaba region with children eligible to participate in SCYB to complete a short survey. Noone’s suggesting that anything is wrong with the current model, we just want to find out what does, or might, work best for the biggest number of people.
We’d be grateful if any young players and people with an interest in youth banding could spare a couple of minutes to complete the survey linked below before 18th June. We want to hear from everyone – you don’t have to be in a scaba member band to complete the survey, or to play in SCYB!
Please see the SCYB section of this website for more news, photos and information about SCYB.
