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I am attempting to learn the trumpet from scratch in approximately 7 weeks, along with other professional musicians who are similarly embarking on instruments they have never touched before. The culmination of our efforts is a competition in a concert in West Road Concert Hall on Sunday 22nd February, between the different sectionals, The Brassed Off, The Highly Strung and The Long-Winded. We are doing this to raise money for Medecins Sans Frontieres.

Medecins Sans Frontieres is a non-governmental agency working to save lives, relieve suffering and provide temoignage in many areas of the world other agencies can simply not venture to. They look after the displaced, including the internally displaced, who often have no other protection for example in Ethiopia. They care for those with malnutrition, and starvation, many of whom are babies and children. 50p would feed a baby with no food.

With the current Ebola epidemic raging in Western Africa, Medecins Sans Frontieres are there trying to save lives, and more realistically in many cases to relieve suffering. Just today they set up special centres for pregnant women suffering from Ebola. The women's chances are survival are very poor, yet they have such need of care during labour and miscarriage, and these procedures, involving the loss of so many bodily fluids, obviously provide a very high level of risk to those caring for them. It takes on hour and twenty minutes for an MSF worker to robe up in an Ebola kit. They can wear it in the local conditions and heat for 20-45 minutes. It then takes on hour and thirty minutes to disrobe, and this of course is the most dangerous time for them. An Ebola kit costs 40 pounds and must be burned after use, with the exception of the boots. One can only imagine how many of these kits are need over the course of 24 hours.

Anything at all that you can donate to MSF, including the 50p to feed a baby, is so valuable and will be so gratefully received.

On a lighter note, this is the link for the concert in West Road. 

https://www.adcticketing.com/whats-on/concert/cambridge-grade-one-a-thon-reunion-clueless-in-competition.aspx

It will be a very fun evening, and any support you can lend to those of us in Brassed Off would be very much appreciated!  

All I can say about my trumpet playing at the moment is that it remains difficult to play quietly!

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