Members Blogs
Craig Sherratt’s Weblog – “A different perspective”
Toynbee School & CGN Finals Weekend
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Saturday 25 March 2006 – CGN Finals Day
7.00am – Breakfast, everyone seems refreshed, the anticipation for the day plus a decent night’s sleep. The food is good, buffet style so you can make a number of trips, plus like a few did, you can also make yourself a packed lunch, sandwiches, fruit, yoghurt, biscuits, drinks, people were nipping to there rooms for carrier bags to help shift supplies out, the kitchen department must have thought they had catered for about 600 people, no it was just The Senators once again thinking on there feet.
8.30am – We leave the hotel to head over to the arena. We head on in front to go and to get passes for everyone. The organisation of the event is first class which also means security is, anyone losing a pass will not be let back in, certain passes get you certain places, they even give us a diagram on how you must where your wrist band, stopping us turning them over like usual!
Once we are all sorted we head on out to warm up, the rain again is lashing down, so many people asked us if we had brought the rain from England, didn’t realise Holland was a hot spot….. We go about half a mile away to local football team’s stadium, nice set up, they have a over hanging stand so we can set up there out of the rain, John Mc organises it all in broad Yorkshire Dutch and we get the nod we can stay. The Pit get all set up and being outside it’s the second day Dan “Clapton” Hein hasn’t been able to join in on his electric guitar, like we do John and I push our luck, we walk back into the stadium and into a team tactics meeting and explain or try and explain we want to plug our extension in, when he said “No” we did what any normal English man does, we laughed and smiled and then plugged it in and reeled 100 foot of cable to where that the pit were, not cheeky enough, we then ask if he could make us a brew in exchange for some chocolate we had, if you don’t ask you don’t get….. Warm up gathered a crowd and the percussion buzzed of the attention, we ran chunks of the show to the appreciation of the watching wet audience.
Prelims – Every was set, we had all our gear placed in the main holding area designated for us, you then move around into a backstage area and wait for your turn, all good and all adding to the tension. We set up in our order and waited behind a Starts in your Eyes style curtain, one pull of the string and your on, clock ticking, trying to set up more gear than U2 use, an audience and basically bad preparation from us, me, the start of my problems. The show was more than OK, John and I sat right at the top which was higher than it looked good view but hard to come across performance wise compared to looking above Jan’s café. End of the show and we get the gear off, again in a fashion of organised madness but it’s off, we talked to the members they kind of know how it was and agree there is a better one in them.
Penalties – Let me start by saying, we are the master’s of organisation, we know the DCUK rule book inside out, I thought I had done my research on the indoor gig, but what followed next will be up there with the worse fifteen minutes of my life, along with John and Joe, we are out of our comfort zone on foreign ground and we were nearly up the creek, without paddle or boat.
Over the years we have learnt to read Joe’s face like a book, a slight muscle twitch can tell us what captions we have won, where we had come, things are good/bad etc… Joe gave John the look of doom and John kicked me to say something’s not right. As we are clearing the arena the show organiser pulls Joe and asked him “how did you make that siren noise” first rule of sales, buy sometime to answer, Joe informs him that he has no clue to how it works and he would need to see either John or myself, Joe then manages to give us a “heads up” to what is ensuing.
John is taken to one side and has to show them the siren and the torch and he is informed that batteries can not be used plus we have penalties for crossing the boundary lines. The show host says leave it with him and he will see what he can do, we stand out of sight of the members in a corridor and to say we are speechless is an understatement, we are shaking and I feel totally lost, I felt out of my depth because I could not argue, I cannot remember ever getting penalties over here, I was gob smacked. I knew in my heart of hearts it was my fault, I had done it, I had thought of it, even the week prior to going looked into a blue disco light so all the arena would flash blue when the jewel was lifted, for that I guess I would have been given the firing squad.
He finally came back to us with his decision; the opening line will stick with me for a long time “You can breathe”, which we did. The CGN board had given us enough penalties to put us third out of the three finalists. This meant the other unit from the UK, Vintage, had now been pushed out of finals, they also had penalties, so the decision was made it would only be fair to also let them perform on the night also, so it was now four in finals. The massive plus point was that we knew we had “won” the Prelims show by nearly 8 points, so if we eliminate the penalties and produce a show on the night, our fate is our own destiny again.
Quite a few people had said I didn’t need to admit what had happened, but to me I did. We are in this together and if it was a performance thing we would have told them. While John explained what had happened to the members we were all still reeling in the shock of it all, I could not stop shaking, at this point Ben Collins like he does put his hand on my shoulder and said “Craig dude – it’s a funny story now though bro” it was cool of him and pulled me around a little.
So we were through, by the skin of our teeth and we needed to prepare for it. We as a staff needed to practice also; we needed to rehearse our bit, we went to the same place we had been earlier, and set up everything, the tarpaulin, the tables, and the screens, everything, we felt like we had our jobs to do too, we could make it run smoother for the members. We did all that, ran a few chunks and did a full performance again in front of an audience. This trip was full of times when things felt just right and this was one of those times, it was alright again and we were ready for the night. We spent the next few hours getting fed and watered before getting ready, At this point can I make a reference to our feet, not Mark Abbott but the things on the end of our legs that took a battering during the day, we had walked, walked and walked some more and by now we were looking like we were walking on ice trying to keep the pressure off our feet.
Finals Night – Again it felt so right, the Battery had gone outside to do a relaxed warm up, the Pit had everything in place and the Staff had there new action plan ready to go. I nipped outside to witness the “relaxed warm up from the Battery” only to find Bertie, Kev , Schumie, Ben and a large crowd watching them showboat through the show, clapping, cheering, whooping with John doing his best PR work on the crowd, the preparation was perfect.
Personally I felt so much better about myself, everyone was on such a buzz and we had not gone on yet. We got everyone together before we went on, it was one of those moments when nothing needed saying, Ben said is piece, then John and I just felt like laughing because we were in finals, a weird feeling for us.
Everything went to plan, the show was what it needed to be, the adrenalin was flowing, the performance was brilliant, thank god, a finals night performance for everyone. As we cleared the floor off the drums ran off with their own gear, dropped it down and returned to gather left over pit equipment, when we knew we were clear without any prompting everyone let out a huge cheer, everyone was hugging and cheering, an emotion that cannot be faked, it just happened and boy did we enjoy it. We decided to get everything loaded up as we were done, and then we could relax until retreat at 10pm. We sat around chatting and relaxing and you could just feel that everyone was on a high.
Retreat – We decided a while back that for retreat we would wear the full Corps uniform, it will go down in history now any photos will show Senators and not a group in black with black beanies. We looked so good and smart on retreat, Ian and Shannon leading us on was so nice to see. We had a slight shock when they started to read out results in Dutch, but it was ok, as they got to our class the announcer changed to English as he proclaimed the Senators the 2006 CGN Marching Percussion Class Champions.
John and I had the honour of giving out the medals and it was a nice touch that everyone involved got one, members, staff, helpers etc... We spent the next half hour taking pictures, everyone walking around in there medals it was a really good time. We headed back to the hotel and everyone seemed to walk in and get a drink, pure elation and relief. Again the drinks flowed, we had chance to catch up on Joe’s laptop with the good wishes from everyone back home. Time ticked away and I headed to bed at 3am leaving some people still drinking and chatting, including Shannon and Xena!!!!.
To try and summarise, the trip could not have been better, everyone of the group with us got on well. It has been a long time coming to enjoy something so much as we did. All the work paid of, the nights at the centre; the endless nights planning, ringing John in the middle of the night because something had come to me, it was all so worth it. I think we all made new friends while away, people stepped up to the plate and did there bit. Leaving was hard but the trip gave us time to reflect, so much happened that I could go on and on but will never be able to express it all. Thank you to everyone involved it has been a storm, bring on the summer and bring on next winter.
Craig Sherratt
