Leyland Accordion Club, Leyland, Lancashire, England.

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Leyland Accordion Club - 16th November 2005

Suggestions

If you have any suggestions for improvements to the club, new things we might do or anything else to improve our nights then I will be pleased to hear from you. I can't promise that any suggestion will be implemented but all will be given careful consideration. I have said in the past that I prefer it when we add new things to what we do, or when we improve something. This approach ensures that we have lots of interesting get togethers with no two nights being the same.

Unashamed Advert

If you know of someone who owns a computer, who would like to learn to use the keyboard properly, then please let them know about two of my websites which sell my software to teach keyboard skills, www.typingtutor.co.uk and www.learntotype.org.uk

This Wednesday

This Wednesday is our Jacobs Join Christmas party night. This is traditionally a very enjoyable party night with plenty of variety in the acts seen on the stage. The first part of the evening is like a normal club night while we lay out the plates and food brought by club members. Once the food is out and ready to be served, the lights go up and we have a very informal evening of eating while listening to whoever chooses to get up on stage next. We often see new duets or acts on stage at our December night, and this is an ideal time for nervous players to take to the stage because the rest of us are busy eating (and listening at the same time even if not watching you play). The doors open at 7.30pm for an 8pm start. See you there on Wednesday. Remember to bring your accordion if you have not played at the club before, there has never been a better time to make your debut.
See you there.....
David Batty

Club Membership

Thanks to those of you who have already paid your club membership fee at one of the past nights or by post. I can now start to stock up on paper and ink for the forthcoming year's newsletters.
If you haven't already paid your membership, then you can pay this Wednesday or at our January club nights. I am keeping the club membership at £5 for the year despite the recent postage increase. The £5 fee gets you a £1 discount on the door on each concert nght and a nice newsletter lovingly sent to your home each month. I might consider increasing the membership fee to £6 at the end of 2006 following the announcement that there is going to be another postage increase in the first few months of 2006. The extra £1 will help towards the increased postage and printing costs over the last few years. But it's still only £5 for this year. What a bargain...

Brendan Shine

In the last newsletter, I told you about the Brendan Shine concert held on Friday, the 25th Of November, at St. Edmund Arrowsmith Catholic High School, Wigan. Three of us from the club were at that concert and it was a most enjoyable evening. The tickets were £12.50 but we did get a one hour first half and a 90 minute second half during the evening. Brendan played two accordions, constantly swapping between the two of them or leaving them alone while he sung, leaving the rest of his band to play the music. The whole night was enjoyable. Although we did feel a bit lost at first in a big school hall we did have the best table in the house because we were almost the first people there. Our ticket price included a hot supper which also went down well. If you get the chance to see Brendan in concert then I can recommend it as a good night out. We got to have a chat with Brendan at the end of the night and had a closer look at his accordions (as any decent accordionist would do).

Christmas Party - This Wednesday

We are holding our usual Christmas party Jacob's Join this December the 21st. For those that don't know the term, a Jacob's Join is where we all bring along some item/s of food to club together and make a feast. People bring along some sandwiches, a cake, some sausage rolls, pork pies or something similar and we all tuck into more food than you can shake a stick at while listening to whoever is on stage. Once the food is set up and ready, we have an open stage for players. This is an excellent night for people who haven't played at the club (you know who you are) to have a go while everyone else is eating and half ignoring them. It is traditionally a night where new duets are formed, members show us their 'other' skills and we have a good entertaining night. I know of possibly two, but definitely one, of our past guest artists is making an appearance on Wednesday and I know they are bringing their accordion to give us some entertainment. See you there...........

Our Website

Our internet website has had 87,203 vistors as at 16th of December 2005, that's 1171 visitors to the main page of our website since last month. This month I added a multi page document to the site for people to download and print out. This document details what we do at the club, what we have done in the past and how we work. I hope it will be printed out and passed around at various clubs in order to inspire people to do new things with their club. I have heard of many clubs that have only a small membership, who discourage audiences and even who discourage women from attending! It is with these types of clubs in mind that I decided to publish the document on the Internet so that people who want to inspire change can hand it to the club members and ask "Shouldn't we be doing some of these types of things?". I will let you know if I get any feedback from the document, lets hope it does some good.

A to Z Of The Accordion Vol 2

The second volume of Rob Howard's Book has now been released. With 200+ new and archive articles plus 250 photographs and pictures. The cost is £15 (+ £4 p/p), from Rob Howard. I managed to get a small number of the books from Rob in an effort to save you postage costs, most of these went at the last practice night. Ask at the club on Wednesday if you want one of the final few, but you will have to be quick as there are only a few left at £15.

Fleetwood Accordion Festival

The NAO North West Accordion Festival was held at The Marine Hall, Fleetwood, on Sunday November 27th. It was a good day out for accordionists listening to the various competitors playing their best pieces in the competitions. It was nice to see our own club members Rebecca Parker, Ann Parker and Mary Hall collecting their prizes including Rebecca getting a 1st Prize with a very impressive score of 90 out of 100 marks.

Accordions For Sale

George Booth is selling a number of professional accordions, a few of which are listed below. Contact George for further details.

Black/Chrome Allesandrini, 4/5 voice, 15/7 couplers. Hand made Octavino reeds with New York tuning and double cassotto. High response bellows, full diamante ornamentation plus enamelled flying eagle on the grille and enamelled dancing girls on the front. Senheiser mike system and factory fitted MIDI. £7,000

Black/Chrome custom build Allesandrini with 41 keys, 120 bass, 4/5 voice, 15/7 couplers, Double Cassotto on both bass and treble, High Response Bellows, finest handmade reeds. Deep 16' bass reeds £3,950

Allesandrini custom built super musette model in Black. 41/120 keys, 11/5 couplers, 4/5 voice, White patterned high response bellows. strong musette. Also attractive straight tone with rounded bass sound quality. Factory fitted mikes. £3,500

Allesandrini super musette model in Black/Chrome, 41/120 keys, deep bass, 4/5 voice (one treble in cassotto), Extra broad bellows, Factory Fitted Mikes. £3,200

Sonola accordion in black, light weight, 2 sets of hand made cassotto reeds, New York Tuning Jazz or Classical. 41/120 keys, 4 treble couplers, 5 sets of bass reeds, Fast keyboard, factory fitted mikes and midi unit. £2000

Excelsior 940 accordion in black/chrome. 41/120 keys, 4/5 voice hand made reeds, factory maintained. Perfect condition. £2,500

Black & Chrome Alessandrini accordion, 41/120 mother of pearl keys, Finest handmade reeds, deep sounding bass reeds, extra response bellows, Luxury straps. £2,500

For further details of any of the above accordions,
telephone George on 01253 875551