3rd March 2003
West Country Success
Two coaches pulled out of Brighton on Saturday 1st March to take all three SK guards for a "West Country weekend" - Saturday at Pontins, Brean Sands and then the Sunday at the WGUK contest in Chippenham.
On the Saturday the younger guards took in the Pontins experience, including the pool and arcade, whilst the Seniors rehearsal "entertained" the BYBA brass players in Lunars nightclub who were also rehearsing in the same venue!! That night the Queen Vic bar had the pleasure of our company until the wee small hours. Sunday morning came (all too quickly for some!) and we were off to Chippenham to a new venue for Winterguard and one of the biggest contests of the season.
The Rugrats had made a number of changes since Dagenham and although they had a couple of shaky moments they pulled off a great performance, increased their score and were awarded 3rd Place (out of 5) only being a couple of points off second place.
The Juniors had continued to impress since their promotion to A Class at the end of January and whilst they dropped a place to 4th (out of 10) they are still very much in contention with the units above having come first or second in 3 out of the 4 captions with the fifth place in the final caption dropping them down the rankings.
With no Thurrock Academy in competition at this event could this be the chance for the Seniors to secure a first place? The main opposition today would be the Forgemen, who beat us at the opening contest of the season and we hadn't been up against them since, however an excellent performance by the 10 girls gave us the 1st Place (out of 9) - this being our first Open Class win for nearly 12 years.
A weeks break before the Juniors and Seniors travel to Stoke to attend the last contest of the season before the British Championships on 29th March. It's becoming an exciting climax to the season.