Minding History, Moving Forward

I read this post on the JWT Reedmakers blog with much interest, it’ll help if you read it first:  And the Winner Is…

James W. Troy and his son James T. Troy and daughter Jacquie Troy are and have a long history with the Vancouver Island Pipers’ Club. Jacquie stepped into club leadership in 2006 when the club was on the brink of extinction.  Her father, James W. was a founding member of the club and the family believed in the value of providing a competition and performance venue in the Victoria area, especially for youth interested in piping and drumming.  Jacquie and the Executive have worked to increase attendance, talent and opportunities at their events, on the first weekend of the month between October and May each year with success.  Vancouver Island has many military connected pipe bands that have slowly started to attend the events over time.

A fun feature of the post was these photos of perpetual trophies that haven’t been awarded since the 80′s

SFU Pipe Major Terry Lee won this as a youth in 1969

continue reading… 

Bruce Gandy winning in 77 and 78

I stepped into the President role with WPA in 2008 because the very capable leadership at that time had built a great organization, but many of the vounteers had served in the positions for a very long time and were ready (deservedly so) to move on.  They worked to recruit replacements for without success and finally announced that they would let WPA shut down in the 2008 season rather than continue volunteering.  I had learned a lot about the value local and international competitions provide to Washington area pipers and drummers from a relatively short amount of experience in my volunteer position with Northwest Junior Pipe Band, so after much discussion with my wife Weatherly and NWJPB Band Director Kevin, decided that we would step up to help WPA continue, but I was clear that we would try to “maintain” what had been built but could not do as much as had been done before.  NWJPB takes a significant amount of our time and we would not be able to continue building and investing as had been done in the past.

Of course, any important project takes time, and our first challenge was the loss of the facility in Redmond and a scramble over several months to find a replacement in time to begin our 2009 season.  We’re very happy and have been welcomed and supported in the new Lynnwood location, however we’ve lost some of our former regulars from the south end and Eastside.  At April’s event, we were excited to see a competitor from Pierce County Firefighters Pipes & Drums. Washington is seeing rapid growth in Police and Fire related pipe bands, but today was the first competition we’ve seen one of their members attend, but we’re excited about it and hope more can find the time to make it soon.  Further, we’re thrilled to have several members attending regularly from Portland, OR; members of Portland Metro Youth Pipe Band and have seen residents from British Columbia, occasionaly.

I don’t know too much of the organization’s history, but WPA is blessed to have Colin MacRae Sr and John Dally, the founding members of the organization around still.  You’ll see Colin Sr in the audience at most of our events watching students, former students, and providing feedback and support.  John Dally also returned to judge piping for us this year. 

2010 will be my last year in the President role with NWJPB (though I will continue to volunteer on some tasks with them occasionally) and I hope to focus some more energy building Washington Pipers’ Association up some more, providing more entertainment and educational opportunities, and hopefully some new events to delight us all and celebrate the talent in our region.

One of the questions Jacquie’s post raised for me; should we seek sponosrship of perpetual trophies?  It’s fun for both future winners and for us to look back on these trophies and recognize the names from our community.  What year did we actually start? What about history of competitions?  Luckily the BCPA website archives some of our old results archived still through their old site, but only as far back as 2002.  Interestingly, Micah Babinski, who judged April’s event for us, was the first place winner of the Grade 2 Jig competition at the May 2002 event.  There are many other recognizable names there.  This is one of the benefits of our move to this blog format in 2008, all of our posts are maintained and you’ll theoretically be able to explore results on our site regardless of theme/design changes on the website, which I’d like to work on soon as well.

It just inspires me to know there are so many caring and devoted talented people in our community who think it’s important to volunteer for organizations like ours because we’ve seen the very positive impacts piping and drumming and the community can make in the lives of young and old alike.  Thanks Jacquie, Jamie, and James Troy and the many other volunteers for the work you’ve done and are doing for the Vancouver Island Pipers’ Club!  Thanks to the many volunteers of the British Columbia Pipers’ Association, and the Oregon Pipers Society and especially to the volunteers helping keep Washington Pipers Association going strong.  I look forward to helping the organization grow and giving piping and drumming more opportunity to thrive in Washington.