Getting down to business in 2014: Suppers, concerts and tattoo’s.

The last Christmas lights have been taken down, the plastic Santa Claus and his elves packed away and the tree chipped into mulch. It’s time to get down to the business of 2014.

With the memories of Christmas and New Year starting to fade, it’s band preparation time for a very busy 2014, starting with the traditional Robert Burns Dinner celebrations at the end of January. This year the RCMP E. Division Pipe Band will kick off the new year on January 25 as part of the 2014 Tam O’Shanter Dancers Burns Night celebration at the Star of the Sea Community Hall on Pacific Ave., in White Rock. This is always an entertaining and enjoyable night of music and dancing, and will be the first public event for the E. Division Pipe Band in 2014.

A few days later on Wednesday, January 29, the band will again perform for the 15th Field Regiment Robbie Burns Dinner at the London Aviation Centre, 4580 Cowley Crescent, Richmond. This is a major event for first responders in British Columbia, and has been appropriately called “The Big Shake”. On January 29th, Honorary Colonel Grant Smith will host a meal of fine Scottish fare, while the Band of the Fifteenth Field Regiment and our band, the RCMP E. Division Pipes and Drums provide musical entertainment. Members of the regiment and local first responders from across the Lower Mainland will also demonstrate what you can do to be best prepared when “the big shake” (earthquake) arrives. Let’s hope the rumbling, tossing and turning is not our stomach’s response to haggis.

After all this performing, it will be time for our band to host its own major fundraising event.

On Saturday, April 5, 2014, the RCMP E. Division Pipe Band will perform in our own concert as part of International Tartan Day, 2014.  We will be holding “A Highland Celebration” featuring dinner & dancing, the Tam O’Shanter Dancers, the Stave Falls Highland Dancers and a scotch tasting and silent auction.  All this fun takes place at the Riverside Palace Banquet Hall, 230-14500 River Road, in Richmond. Check back at this website in the next few months as more details become available.

Our pipe major, Hugh Peden has provided the band a new set of great tunes that we are diligently working on now. Expect to hear new marches, strathspey’s, reels and hornpipes when the band is turned-out and tuned-in over the next few months.

We are also gearing up as the headliners at the Okanagan Tattoo on the first long weekend of August. And of course, there are a few parades planned, so get out and enjoy. It may be the dregs of winter right now, but before you know it, the sun will be out, the birds will be returning and the sound of pipes will again echo over the land.