Welcome from the Director’s Desk

RAN BAND NEWS EDITION NUMBER 2 14 JULY 2003

BEAT TO QUARTERS LIVE ON THE MORNING SHOW USING THE CEREMONIAL SILVER DRUMS WELCOME FROM THE DIRECTOR’S DESK

Welcome to the second edition of the RAN Band News. There has been much achievement and acknowledgment during the previous twelve months period, and it is timely that I review that achievement and acknowledgement in this edition as we transfer from Maritime Command to Navy System Command. Our effort to reinvigorate the band’s contribution to the Fleet has been a resounding success. Since July last year we have embarked elements of the band on four separate occasions; in all, a total of 25 musicians have been deployed on Major Fleet Units. You would be aware of the costs associated in getting back to sea. To remind you; this time last year no one was qualified for sea and we had a significant shortfall in personnel, and getting people re-qualified resulted in a lot of disruption to each of the permanent detachments. This disruption, combined with the high training liability for the January to June period had to be managed carefully, and required some of our reserves to undertake continuous full time service. I would like to acknowledge Lieutenant Steve Cottier and Lieutenant Paul Cottier for their support of this initiative and their ability to manage any disruption within their detachments. I am pleased to report that our recruiting effort has also been a resounding success. As we move into the next financial year all of our allowed positions are full, and we have a significant list of applicants waiting for positions to become vacant. There is still some mismatch with regard to instrumentation balance; but I expect this to be resolved over the coming year. Despite a budget that is less than we would all hope for, we have managed to achieve impressive outcomes; these outcomes are reported at the end of this newsletter in ‘Progress on National Goals’. Our new public relations material and recordings have been very well received, and our position within Navy as an organisation able to present a worldclass product was recently acknowledged by a Maritime Commendation.