Flutewise in Peterlee, Co Durham

This Sunday I was in Peterlee for a Flutewise funday. It had been made possible with the help of Fiona Coleman who is mum of our member, Rebecca. Fiona had read about events in our magazine and was able to offer their church hall as a venue. I was really thrilled when I got there to discover that Fiona was also a flute player and she happily joined in!
We didn't have loads of people for a variety of reasons, but we did have fun and I hope everyone there learnt something. I was very pleased that Nicola Mirams, a very long-term Flutewise member and now at Durham university, came to help me.

This is what we did:
We had an introductory chat where we got to know everyone's names and a bit about each other.
Then I demonstrated how I took my flute out of its case and generally looked after it - someone had asked on arrival about cleaning between keys which isn't a good idea.
We had a warm up using the A minor natural scale.
South Africa by Mike Mower* was next. We clapped and danced along to the excellent backing track, then had a go at playing it, then practised a few bits and then played it again. Then it was breathing with my great friend the breathing toy, Philip and bubble blowing. Everyone loves doing this.
We worked on an ensemble piece next, Soldiers Joy Hornpipe.
Erich's game was next on the menu and, as I expected, everyone loved it once they understood what was happening. We could have played for hours and hours.
The two hours were up and the parents arrived so we played them the two pieces we had worked on. Everyone went away very happy with their tub of bubbles, some music, a Flutewise magazine and card.

As I said before the numbers were low for a number of reasons. One important one being there was a massive event at the Sage which involved lots of young players and we didn't know about that when we organised the event. Possibly the most important one was this business of child protection issues that seems to be gripping the schools in the North East. I spent time sending information to every single school in the area and yet not one replied. I'm really not sure how to address this issue.

However, the people who came were all great and it was wonderful to meet and work with them. I'm looking forward to doing it again soon.

•I promised the parents I'd give them book details - the piece was from Junior Musical Postcards by Mike Mower, published by Boosey and Hawkes and is suitable for players from about Grade 1 to Grade 4 standard. In my opinion it is the best thing written for players of this standard. You can get it from www.justflutes.com or www.allflutesplus.co.uk or www.topwind.com They all offer an excellent mail order service.