30th January 2006
Great Result @ Burgess Hill
There was a certain amount of trepidation when the contest staff arrived at The Triangle Centre in Burgess Hill on Sunday 29th January ready to start setting up for the Southern Knights sponsored Southern Classic WinterGuard Contest as the night before over 1,500 people had descended on the venue to watch recent Celebrity Big Brother evictee Dennis Rodman play for the Brighton Bears Basketball team. Thankfully the Centre staff had pulled out all the stops to ensure the arena was ready for us and this boded well for another great day of competition with all 4 SK units performing - the Rugrats and Juniors for the first time this season.
Kicking off the days proceedings were the Rugrats with their "Puzzle" show. This year the membership of this Guard has increased to 16 members and they are, once again, showing such a great understanding of the principals of the activity whilst still having fun. They were up again 2 other units at this contest and the score of 68.5 was over double their nearest rival as they won the Cadet Class in resounding style.
The Junior Guard, also up on numbers and performing with 16 members, showed they were up for the challenge with their "One Opportunity" show. In their new piercing blue costumes they gave an excellent performance and came in a close 2nd out of 6 and they still have a fair amount of extras to add as the season progresses.
The 9 members of the A Guard had filled in a lot of the "missing" bits from their show in the two weeks since the contest in Stoke and also were in a position to now showcase their new autumnal costumes to compliment their "The Giving Tree" show. The performance was much improved from Stoke and this was rewarded with a well deserved 1st Place in the A Class (out of 7).
And so finally the Open Guard. The previous 2 weeks, since the Stoke contest, had been used to great effect, adding subtle touches and changes to their "Hymn To Love" show plus the first set of new flags and the new costumes were on show for the first time. All these factors helped the 14 members make a marked improvement and this was rewarded with 2nd Place (out of 5) and almost halving the points gap from the previous contest.
So the day ended with two 1st Places and two 2nd Places and another excellent day for the Southern Knights organisation. Thanks to all the people that helped at the event and we look forward to another successful contest when we return to The Triangle Centre on Sunday 12th March - in the meantime all 4 Guards will be back in action in 2 weeks time at their next contest at Crystal Palace.