Leyland Accordion Club - 8th December 1999
David Batty hanging on and playing the accordion with Harry and Audrey
sailing around Preston Docks. This photo was taken by a spectator at the
dockside and was recently given to me for inclusion in the newsletter.
Rebecca Postlewhite then made her first appearance of the
night playing My Florence Waltz, Bourrasque and Reveile Musette. Elaine
had decided to play as long as she was on early so I called her up next
playing Highland Cathedral and Maggie on her 48 bass Parrot before playing
two tunes she had been learning for Christmas - Silent Night and Auld
Lang Syne. I mentioned the make of her accordion because someone asked
me if I would mention the make of accordion people play, I will do this
for one or two each issue so you know what makes are being played. I must
confess I tend to listen to the playing and have no idea what make of
accordion anyone at the club plays, so in future I will have to take notice
of one or two each month. Basil was up next playing Edelweiss, Under Paris
Skies, Charade and Autumn Leaves. Basil has written a guide to chords
and chord production which he gave me along with permission for the club
to sell it at a nominal fee to cover photocopying. I will let you know
when it is ready, thanks Basil. Jay and Jeff Ward followed Basil with
the job of playing us up to the break, they started with I Have A Dream,
Oh Marie, Making Whoopee, Laura and Paihciana. I am glad they spelt that
last one for me. I was pleased that they were clear about the titles of
the tunes because, in order to be accurate in this newsletter, I have
to listen hard to the players announcing the titles. If you are a player
then please make sure you give out the title of the piece clearly so I
can credit you with playing it. This was Jeff's first appearance playing
the accordion since his hospitalisation, I must say he looked well and
his playing was as good as ever. It is going to take more than a knock
on the head to bring him down to my level! During the break we had a great
meal with more food than you could shake a stick at. Thanks to those of
you who helped make it a feast. After the break we started the second
half with George Ricardo playing Return to Sorrento and Sweet Georgia
Brown, George was then joined by Jean Southern and the pair of them played
It's Now or Never, another tune the title of which I missed, Spanish Eyes,
Oslo Waltz, Perfidia and Sway. Ian Carter then played Bonnie Lass Of Bon
Accord, The Barren Rocks Of Aiden and Terribus. Dugald Mcallum was up
next with the instuction to make it short because we were running short
of time, Dugald played a French waltz called Rivalry. I was also subject
to the same limitation and played Whispering Hope before bringing Franco
on to demonstrate two accordions he had brought as demonstration models.
Franco has contacts in Italy and has started selling accordions, he rang
me to ask if he could bring two models down to demonstrate the quality.
Franco played Roll Out The Barrel and Autumn Leaves before being joined
by Rebecca to play three duets on the two accordions Franco had brought,
the pair of them played Granada, That's Amore and Indifference. Franco
said that he can get accordions at up to half the price you would normally
expect to pay for them as well as other items such as straps, cases and
soft cases. If you want to contact Franco then you can contact him direct
on 01772 864037 or Mobile 07808 013104. It was now 11pm and throwing out
time, after a request for people to help themselves to the buffet because
we had plenty left. Everyone helped out and took away plates of cake,
biscuits, sandwiches, sausage rolls and pies. I hope you had a nice supper
that night, I had sandwiches for all meals for the next two days! This
month we have the return by popular demand of Johnny Coleclough. Johnny
was our guest artist in July 1998, and his return to the club is now long
overdue. His return was requested by the audience on the night who had
been treated to such classic tunes as The William Tell Overture, Sabre
Dance, Dambusters and Blaze Away amongst many many others. Johnny is President
of Stockport Accordion Club and was accordionist at Blackpool Tower for
8 years and a regular player on the North West Bierkeller Scene. Johnny
has just purchased a new accordion in his search for the perfect sound
and will be giving it it's debut at Leyland on Wednesday as a test of
both his new accordion and the new material for his forthcoming appearance
as a guest player at the Accordion Festival in March. This is guaranteed
to be another night of quality entertainment which you have come to expect
from our guest artists who have all been superb. I have my work cut out
finding the best in accordion entertainment for the club but the end result
is worth it. I will be at the Blackpool Accordion Festival in March checking
out the players with a view to including one or two of them in our future
programme. I will let you know how I get on. If anyone wants details of
the forthcoming accordion festival which is on at Blackpool from the 16th
to the 20th of March they can ring Tom on 01253 852648 for more details.
I know we are in for another good night this Wednesday and I look forward
to seeing you there. Local players don't forget your accordion
David Batty
Membership Fees
Many thanks to those of you who have paid your membership fees at the club or by post, if you are at the club this month you can renew it there, if not then you can use the form included with this newsletter to make sure you get the newsletter next month. The system is now computerised so all I do is tell my program who has paid and it updates records, prints the labels and by printing codes on the labels the software informs whoever is filling the envelopes if other enclosures such as a membership form need to be included. When a new person comes to the club their details are entered on the computer and they get a free newsletter for two months after visiting the club, after this they get a membership form and the computer keeps track of whether they have visited the club. If the software detects that the person is a club member or they are not a member but they have visited the club in the last two months then they get a newsletter. You can see that this process is a headache to do manually and should save me hours each month trying to work out where the newsletters go. If a person has joined the club then there is no problem because they get a newsletter every month of the year. We do have some people who ring me up and ask to be added to our mailing list and despite promises they never send any money for the newsletter, this system will control who gets the newsletter and give me more time to work on the contents of it rather than the administration which takes a few hours each month simply sorting out the membership details. The database is currently 223 strong so you can see how much work is needed each month simply checking and updating all 223 records. Please ensure your membership is paid promptly to ensure you don't miss out on future newsletters.
Millennium Bug
You may have heard on the TV that the Millennium bug was hardly seen, there is another truth. Just before new year Racal credit card machines stopped accepting credit cards, this was something I had predicted months earlier when people told me that they had a credit card with 00 as the year of expiry, the software that handles 00 years and beyond has been well tested and was not expected to cause any problems, what did occur was forseen, but not by Racal, their machines set a date 4 days ahead of the day the card is used, this is the transaction window and was the cause of the problem, when the software read four days ahead and found the year to end 00 it had never seen this before and it fell over. The good bit is Racal issued a statement saying that it was a Y2k problem but they were sorting it out, then the government issued an official statement that it was not a Y2K problem and was just hype! Racal still insist it was a Y2K problem so you would think the government would have the sense to not lie about something the manufacturer of the equipment admits to. The government had a website designed to catalogue anything bug related so we could learn from others having any kind of problems, it basically had a message saying 'no significant problems reported', they must not have heard that the US military lost contact with one of their satellites and said it was "a significant problem", Hewlett Packard the computer manufacturer's own website had the time reading "January 1 ** Date Invalid **", Microsoft admitted two problems with it's email system Hotmail and Internet Explorer it's Internet software. Seven US nuclear power stations had problems and the monitoring system at a Japanese nuclear plant crashed. Some Italian jail sentences had 100 years added to them while others found that they had 100 years removed from their sentences, court officials were forced to close the court offices. The BBC Radio 1 website went back to 1st Jan 1900, this was then fixed to 1st January 0020 but is now back at the year 2000. In Korea 900 families were without heating, Tokyo had problems in brokers information systems, In Upsala in Sweden electrocardiograph machines in hospitals stopped working. The Unidanmark Bank in Copenhagen Denmark had problems with it's payments and information systems and in Washington ground systems processing satellite information failed. Sainsburys closed a Sussex store when the tills failed, customers were waved through the tills and told to keep the goods courtesy of Sainsburys, they then denied that the store had been closed but when pressed, later admitted that it had been closed and customers given their trolley contents free but said the failure of the tills was not Y2K related. This is just the tip of the iceberg, there were thousands of things that went wrong but you were not supposed to know about them in case you thought the government got it wrong in it's leaflet, so you did not hear it from me J Why are those men in black at my door?
Club Member Playing On Radio Lancashire
Robert Thorn, who many of you saw when Tom Alexander invited him to get up and play Tom's own Hohner Gola at the club was on Radio Lancashire this week. Robert played two tunes with a backing track and impressed Jim Bowen who was presenting the programme, Robert chose two difficult pieces and played them very well. Well done Robert, keep up the good work promoting the accordion. Hang on a minute… I've just remembered, Robert is the one who forced me to accept second place at last years accordion competition when he came first in the section. Just watch out this March Robert, East Lancashire versus West Lancashire J He knows I like him really.
New Manager At The Highfield
At the risk of you saying 'oh no not again' I will inform you that we have another new Manager at The Highfield, this is about the 9th one since the club started and ….wait… news just coming in …. there is another one due later this month. If they keep this up they will have more Managers per year than customers on a Tuesday night! I have made sure that this weeks Manager has our forthcoming dates in the diary, a copy of which is below for your perusal
Our Internet Website
Our Internet website has had 20394 visitors as at 10th January 2000, that's 1511 visitors since last month. The website has been having 60 to 74 visitors per day since the new year. This is our best monthly total ever. I have just added a chat area on the site where people visiting the site can type messages to each other in real time, this should encourage people to meet on the site where they can talk to other accordionists anywhere in the world in real time. Whatever they type is seen on the screens of all the visitors to the site at the same time and all of them can reply. Because many of you could not remember the web address when visiting friends with computers I have simplified it to www.accordionclub.co.uk.
Gordon Glen Playing At Stockport Club
Gordon Glen will be playing at Stockport Accordion Club on 8th February. Contact Rob Howard on 0161 480 8858 for further details.
Guest Speaker on Accordions
I have been asked to be guest speaker on 20th January in Preston, the subject is the accordion and linking it to computers. This talk to around 80 people may get us some new members, lets hope so.
Second Club Tape ReleasedThe second club tape has now been released, the recording quality is superb even though I say so myself. This second volume comprises of 26 tracks giving an hour of accordion solo's and one duet. The tape costs £5 if purchased at the club or £7 by mail order. Copies of the first and second tape both priced £5 each will be on sale at the club on Wednesday. It was a lot of work to produce a tape which sounds as though it was recorded in a studio but the effort was worth it. Many thanks to the players who donated their time to produce this club fundraiser and excellent source of ideas for accordionists. |
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