From the Director’s Desk

RAN BAND NEWS EDITION NUMBER 8 5 JULY 2006

ABLE SEAMAN OTTENS AND ABLE SEAMAN MCGANN IN THE SHIPS FIRE ATTACK PARTY

FROM THE DIRECTOR’S DESK

We come to the close of another very busy period with many more articles in this edition of RAN Band News to add to the story of the Navy Band. As this edition goes to print, our 11 musicians embarked in HMAS Manoora are performing with the United States Navy’s Pacific Fleet Band for the 4th of July celebrations in Hawaii. We look forward to reading stories in the next edition about the many performances that these musicians will undertake during their five weeks in and about Honolulu. Three of our musicians have just left Australia to provide technical and production support for a small musical tour of the Middle East Area of Operations, which is being conducted by the Forces Advisory Council on Entertainment. We wish them all a safe and successful deployment. Over the last two-year period 34 of Navy’s musicians have been awarded the Australian Active Service Medal with 11 also earning the Iraq campaign medal. This is a very significant achievement of which we can all be proud. The Melbourne detachment was force assigned to OPERATION ACOLYTE in March to support the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games. One highlight for the musicians during that operation was a performance at the formal luncheon held in the Exhibition Building in the presence of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. We provided musical and ceremonial support to a number of ship commissioning and decommissioning ceremonies held in Darwin and an inauguration ceremony for the Attack crew members of the Patrol Boat Force Element Group. Support to these ceremonies was provided by a mix of permanent and reserve personnel. In February, I was fortunate to be in attendance with the Queensland detachment when Petty Officer Alan Early was presented an Australia Day Commendation. I first met Alan when, as a young Navy cadet, I began to work with the Queensland Naval Band, as it was then known, as a bugler before enlisting as a reservist some 30 years ago. Alan has been a stalwart of the Navy Band and it was a personal pleasure for me to see his contribution being acknowledged.