The 69th Annual Gathering has ended, and it was a great success. (And it seems they always are. humm.. these folks really know what they're doing.)
As is the tradition, the Professional and Grade One Piobaireachd, and the Professional Drumming contests were held on Good Friday, in Vancouver at the United Scottish Cultural Centre.
[Interesting (for me at least) is that the first pipers to compete in this year's AG were Megan Harrington (Grade 1 - from Northern California), and Alison Dunsire (Professional - from my house) . Yes indeed, two teenage, female pipers (both born in California) started it off.. (I think this was kind of neat for the dads - we graduated from the same High School in Northern California - it is a small world..)]
The Saturday events were held at the Simon Fraser University, a venue last used by the
BCPA Annual gathering in 1982 (I think?). 
The SFU campus is quite unique in architecture, and quite
large. All events of the AG were held in one part of the SFU Campus - the Academic
Quadrangle - to the left is a photo of a part of the AQ.
Any well run large event, like this one, is the result of months of planning and behind the scenes work, and what seems like endless efforts on the 'day of''. There is a very large group of volunteer workers (more than 30 I think) that each year help put together and run this most enjoyable and memorable two day competition.
Just to give you an idea of the scale of this event - more than 20 rooms (lecture halls, class rooms, theatre) were used by the Saturday events of the Annual Gathering. BCPA Board member Dan Weeks made the arrangements for the use of the SFU facilities for the A.G. (Thanks)
A few hours
before the first entrants were expected (I'm trying to say it was early Saturday morning),
Len Leroux, and David Bruce started setting up the rooms, and setting out signs,
information, and maps. (Thanks) An example of the excellent signs created by Len is shown
to the right. Every room was clearly marked - it was great. Their efforts were
obviously a great success too, as is seems there were no problems finding event or tuning
rooms (and this is a big University!).
Lynn Bullis and Mary MacKinnon put together the schedule of events - imagine the challenge of this - all the competitors, judges, and available rooms, must be put into some order that works (It did - thanks).
And then the registration, the competition, the results, the awards.. whew.. Lots and lots of work by the crew(s).. (Thanks)
Solos started at 9:00 and were completed by about 2:00. Then many folks walked over to the theatre to watch the Pro Piping - which was an afternoon event, in an excellent venue - the same used for mini bands in the evening.
Throughout the day, the
very large halls of the Academic Quadrangle were filled with pipers, drummers, parents,
spectators, and a few surprised university students (!).
For most of the morning, the rule that no pipes or drums were to be played in the halls was followed.. then.. it got a bit noisy at times. A bit like herding cats, was the task of trying to get the pipers into their tuning rooms.
Solo competition rooms were typically quite large lecture halls, with good acoustics, and seating for a hundred or more. Yep - lots of room for friends and family, and anyone else..
The evenings'
mini-band contest was a great success too. Although there was a conflict with the
Vancouver Canuck's second playoff game (hockey) - the Images Theatre was filled, and a bit
more. In this photo you can see about half of the audience. The mini band
stage (and it was small too) is to your immediate left, as you view the photo.
For the first time in who knows how long, there was no Grade 1 mini-band contest - but the event was still most enjoyable and filled with excellent, high standard band music.
There were 22 mini bands competing, the first started just before 6:00 and the last was done by shortly after 9:00PM. Smoothly run, lots of memorable things, and great fun for all.
Another tradition here is that the very large audience stays for the trophy and other award presentations. This, I know, is a great thrill for the winners.
And then there was the Ceilidh at the SFU pub - for those with a love for piping, this was one of the best Ceilidhs in recent memory - a complete version of the winning Grade 2 (Maple Ridge) and Grade 3 (RMM) bands gave us memorable performances. Then we were wowed by the Grade 4 solo winner (Alex Gandy - Bruce's son). Then 5 pipers from the Grade1 Alberta Caledonia band entertained us as well - great stuff indeed! The only problem with the evening - a long line and wait for adult beverages.. Oh well..
Much more (web stuff) to come (later) - for those with an interest: I have video of winning G2 & G2 mini-bands and I'll share something (from the BCPA web site) in the not too distant future. And as soon as my 5 rolls of film are processed, I will be creating some new photo albums for the BCPA web site.
Tired of my words? OK - here are the results: