Brass Band Logo

NJH Music Logo

Some of the contents of the pages on this site are Copyright © 2016 NJH Music
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: RE: Licensing

> ... be immensely harmful to an amateur music-making scene that is the envy
> of much of the world ...

Not necessarily envy, but most certainly respect - a far more noble
sentiment.

Governments in our countries have little interest in, and pay little
attention to, their citizens, unless they are whiners.  The vocal minorities
get their way to keep them quiet.

The solution is clear, you have to start whining louder than those who are
causing the tax to be put on in the first place.  :-)

The citizens involved in banding need to start complaining loudly to their
elected representatives.  "Citizens" includes all amateur players (but not
paid players or MDs) and all audience members.  With the strength of the
Brass Band movement in the UK, you can surely arrange to pester the life out
of every MP in the country.

Don't forget to enlist your audience members, they outnumber the players
(hopefully!) and also present a relatively unbiased point of view.  Make it
easy for them to pester their own MPs by providing them all the information
they need. Collect signatures on petitions at every performance.

Also don't forget local (County, City?) government MPs.  They'll be very
sensitive to the loss of the entertainment from their parks and other venues
caused by something imposed by central government.  Also consider advising
them you'll not be available for official engagements if the new tax comes
in.

Last but not least ... there's been mention of support for excellent causes
by band fund-raising.  The CEOs of these causes will already be well known
to high-ranking MPs - not least because they're presumably always asking
them for more funds.  When they start warning these MPs that this tax will
mean that the Government will need to increase funding to keep the causes
afloat because the bands will no longer be able to support them, they'll
certainly get attention.  And the newspapers will love it - "Brass
Tax Nails Another Charity".

Regards, David Smart

Principal Horn, Assistant Conductor
Manly District Band
manlybrassband@xxxxxxxxxxxx
http://members.optushome.com.au/djsmart/ManlyBand/

--


	NJH Sheet Music, bandsman.co.uk/music.htm,
	Prima Arts, quality music for quality bands, www.prima-arts.co.uk,
	Toot-Sweet, instrument repairers, www.toot-sweet.co.uk,
	Free e-mail address with spam and virus removal, bandsman.co.uk/mail.htm

this list, send a plain text mail to listproc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx with the following
body (not subject):

[Services] [Contact Us] [Advertise with us] [About] [Tell a friend about us] [Copyright © 2016 NJH Music]