​The SA Band Association would like to acknowledge and congratulate our President, Bruce Raymond (OAM) on his Award in the 2020 Queen's Birthday Honours for service to music and particularly brass bands. Bruce has been a driving force in SA Brass Banding for many years, as Musical Director, adjudicator, teacher, leader, mentor, musical entrepreneur, encourager and friend to many.
Our sincere congratulations to you Bruce …. a very worthy recipient!

Article from The Murray Pioneer, Friday September 20 2014, Page 12.

Please read the letter below from SABA President, Bronwyn Dolman, regarding the decision to ammend the results after the competition.

2014 South Australian State Band Championships have sucessfully showcased the vaiety of bands, soloits and ensembles this state has to offer in the scenic township of Hahndorf. SABA congratulates all the participants from the weekend.

Open A Concert Band - Unley Concert Band
Open B Concert Band - Trinity College 
Open C Concert Band - Holdfast Concert Band
Junior Concert Band - Pulteney Grammar School

Open A Brass Band - Tanunda Town Band
Open B Brass Band - Marion City Band
Open C Brass Band - Enfield Brass
Open D Brass Band - Warriparinga Brass
For a full list of band, party and solo results, see results page.

SABA would like to thank those involved in the weekend, in particular adjudicators, accompanists, volunteers and those who assisted the association with providing necessary equipment and logistics for such a busy event. SABA would like to thank Brass Banned for attending and streaming the event and the township of Hahndorf for being such cooperative hosts. It was pleasing to see band members participating in the massed march and rotunda events across the weekend. This was very well received and brought the event out into the public where it is seldom seen. Unfortunately a administrative error prompted a change in the final results that were announced on the day but this has been rectified with the bands involved. If you would like clarification on this, please speak to your band secretary or band SABA delegate.

SABA supports all member bands from South Australia and aims to promote all banding events, competitions, concerts and fundraising initiatives. SABA encourages all band members to get involved - the SABA AGM will be held this Friday 26th September at Enfield Band Hall - see your band secretary for more details.

This is a reminder to all those who won perpetual trophies at the last State Championships to bring them with them to the competition before the scheduled events so they can be presented. If you are not attending the championships before the scheduled events, you can return the trophies to your band secretary or directly to SABA before this weekend.

Keeping up to date with other bands is easy to do through email and online social networking. Gone are the days of newsletter mail outs, most band members and keen audiences are able to find out all the latest news on concerts, players and events from facebook, e-newsletters and websites.

SABA has an active facebook page that facilitates a dialoge between bands, the associaton, memebers and friends. Over the last few years, facebook has been a vital resource for the National Band Championships and Australian state competitions as a way of communicating en masse on short notice. Many bands also have facebook pages that allow members to post photos of events, publish results and have topical conversations. 4 Bars Rest facebook page is a global discussion about brass banding, music and player requests, competition discussion and instrument sales. Concert Bands of Australia facebook group has facilitated valuable discussion on repertoire between conductors, composers and players. Whether you're an active member or just a 'lurker', It's easy to keep in the loop about common trends and band activities.

e-newsletters are a fantastic tool for communicating directly to an audience and a great way of condensing a band's activities into a short, informative publication. Three local bands that regularly post e-newsletters are K&N, Marion and Tanunda Town Band. Any interested people are welome to sign up online.

Tanunda Town Band - http://tanundatownband.com/?page_id=5
Marion City Band - http://mad.ly/signups/60527/join
K&N Brass - http://www.knband.org.au/news.html

 www.brassbanned.com is rapidly becoming an integral part of the Australian Banding Scene and has streamed National and State competitions internationally to interested viewers. It is a great way that family and friends can see the result of all those times that you have said 'sorry, I have band'.

It is becoming eaiser to access information with mobile devices, increasing bandwidth and greater 4G coverage. Troglodytes and technophobes needn't worry because there's always someone close by who can keep them up to date with what is going on.

The SABA website welcomes all band news and information for publication.

SABA are running a drill accreditation course on Saturday 16th August to get some of our drum majors nationally certified to be capable of adjudicating marching competitions.

To do this, we have David Peters coming from Tasmania for the weekend. Part of the accreditation requires our drum majors to run drill with a band, so we are seeking between 12 - 20 people who have marched before to form up this band - no playing will be required.

Our volunteers will meet at Mitcham band hall (corner Belair / Grange Roads, Lower Mitcham - opposite the Mitcham Council Offices) at 12.30pm for a BBQ lunch supplied by SABA before commencing the drill section of the accreditation at 1.30pm. Our volunteers will be needed for around 3 hours in total (but may be less).

This is a great social opportunity to get to know members from other bands, and also to build the skills of some of our drum majors.

If you are interested, please register your interest with your band secretary so they can email your details to Tamina, the SABA Secretary. Further information will be supplied to your band secretary / Facebook in the weeks leading to the event.

Looking forward to seeing you there.
SABA