PBNews || December 2020

PB

2020

A look back

SQUARE DAY

First major contest in the World

2021

What’s instore

#1

DEC 2020

NEWS

HAS COMPETING

CHANGED FOR EVER?

PBNEWS

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Liam Kernaghan

Email: liam.kernaghan@gmail.com

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2 PBNEWS Online Magazine

CONTENTS

10

Has competing

changed forever?

12

News News

One of our own

16

A look back at

what was 2020

PBNEWS Online Magazine

3

EDITORIAL

liam.kernaghan@gmail.com

Eque pelitatin eossitatque

exceptas quas modis explige

nimusda enitiae pa sa ni velit, quia

volupta se lam quissit quatiam,

omnim eos ex essinveria que abo.

Nem quiderestium cum fugit,

ipsam doluptam ipidus.

Tem aut volorer atiorerat voluptati

consequis mi, quia sit hit accum

quibusc iundaniatem. Et faceper

iorepel icitibus nist, sequas eium

as mo volora dolori blabore quam,

cuptaer umquiandit et quiatis

et asit expeliquia volorem cus

et rereratum volupti bustiorem

excessi nullaborum alibusae etur se

alicatusa istiunt hiciur, omnimi.

Al ad mos volestis sit volorem

faccum facerit aboreru

pturionestia quiam num qui

beaqui ut aute la dolo et quam sa

esequam, nusapissunt eos digent

volo estiatecata aut autem comnis

in cumquamus experumque ne.






Nem quiderestium cum fugit, ipsam

doluptam ipidus. Eque pelitatin

eossitatque exceptas quas modis

explige nimusda enitiae pa sa ni

velit, quia volupta se lam quissit

quatiam.

Et faceper iorepel icitibus nist,

sequas eium as mo volora dolori

blabore quam, cuptaer umquiandit

et quiatis et asit expeliquia

volorem cus et rereratum volupti

bustiorem excessi nullaborum

alibusae etur se alicatusa istiunt

hiciur, omnimi.

Al ad mos volestis sit volorem

faccum facerit aboreru

pturionestia quiam num qui

beaqui ut aute la dolo et quam sa

esequam, nusapissunt eos digent

volo estiatecata aut autem comnis

in cumquamus experumque ne.






Nem quiderestium cum fugit, ipsam

doluptam ipidus. Eque pelitatin

eossitatque exceptas quas modis

explige nimusda enitiae pa sa ni

velit, quia volupta se lame.

Al omnim eos ex essinveria que

abo. Nem quiderestium cum fugit,

ipsam doluptam ipidus.

Liam Kernaghan


NEWS

2020 NZ SOLO

CHAMPION

STUART EASTON

Staff Reporters

Highland Piping Society of Canterbury

STUART Easton was crowned Open

New Zealand Solo Champion in

October at the Annual Labour

Weekend Solo Championships in

Christchurch.

Rescheduled from June due to

the COVID-19 pandemic, Easton

claimed the title with wins in the

Open Strathspey and Reel and

Piobaireachd. He finished the

weekend in style winning the

Former Winner’s Clasp Double

MSR.

Earlier in the weekend, Greg Wilson

won the Comunn Na Piobaireachd

Gold Clasp - the first time the

competition has been held outside

of Hastings. The annual CNP

competitions could not be held

earlier this year, also due to the

COVID-19 pandemic.

Hayden Pullan won the Silver

Chanter MSR. Louis Davis won

the overall William Boyle U21

Scholarship for the year.

New Zealand Championships

Open Piobaireachd

1st Stuart Easton

2nd WIllie Rowe

3rd Greg Wilson

4th Scott Armstrong

Open 2/4 March

1st Liam Kernaghan

2nd Greg Wilson

3rd George Mason

4th Sebastian George

Open Strathspey and Reel

1st Stuart Easton

2nd Liam Kernaghan

3rd Greg Wilson

4th Alasdair Mackenzie

Open Hornpipe and Jig

1st Liam Kernaghan

2nd Stuart Easton

3rd Greg Wilson

4th Alasdair Mackenzie

NZ Champion: Stuart Easton

Runner Up: Liam Kernaghan

Comunn Na Piobaireachd Events

Gold Clasp

1st Greg Wilson

2nd WIllie Rowe

3rd Stuart Easton

4th Campbell Wilson

Gold Medal

1st Scott Armstrong

2nd Jordan Johnston

3rd Daniel Milosavljevic

4th Lewis MacDonald

Silver Medal

1st Louis Davis

2nd Phil Nielson

3rd Nicola Pivac

Bronze Medal

1st Marco Davis

2nd Mackenzie Louden

3rd Oskar Trafford

Clasp and Silver Chanter Results

Silver Chanter

1st Hayden Pullan

2nd Lewis MacDonald

3rd Sebastian George

4th Logan Dale

Former Winners Clasp

1st Stuart Easton

2nd Campbell Wilson

3rd Liam Kernaghan

For more results, videos and pictures,

check out the Highland Piping Society of

Canterbury’s facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/PipersClub-

Canterbury/


5

NEWS

MANAWATU

SWEEP PALMY

Staff Reporters

Manawatu Scottish Society

MANAWATU Scottish Society

claimed almost perfect scores

at the 41st Annual Jenny

Mair Highland Square Day at

Palmerston North.

Three of New Zealand’s five grade

one pipe bands attended the

December event, marked as the

biggest contest outside of the

National Championships.

Incidentally, outside of the

Nationals earlier in March, this

was the second largest pipe

band event to be held throughout

the world this year due to the

COVID-19 pandemic.

Hamtilon Caledonian won a

hotly contested grade two event,

tying overall with Wellington Red

Hackle for points. City of Tauranga

won the grade three event while

Papakura won the grade four

event. The Lewis Turrell Memorial

PB won the Juvenile event.

Director-General of Health, Dr

Ashley Bloomfield, attended the

event to watch his son compete

with Scots College PB who finished

fifth in grade four.

Grade One

MSR

1st Manawatu Scottish (2,2,1,1)

2nd Auckland and District (1,1,2,3)

3rd New Zealand Police (3,3,3,2)

Judges: Ian Ferguson, Lance

Turnbull (piping), Chris Stevens

(ensemble), Scott Mitchell

(drumming)

Medley

1st Manawatu Scottish (1,2,1,1)

2nd New Zealand Police (3,1,3,2)

3rd Auckland and District (2,3,2,3)

Judges: Liam Kernaghan, Iain

Blakely (piping), Graeme Bryce

(ensemble), Adam Alexander

(drumming)

Grade Two

MSR

1st Hamilton Caledonian (1,1,1,2)

2nd Wellington Red Hackle (2,2,2,1)




(drumming)

Medley

1st Wellington Red Hackle (1,2,1,1)

2nd Hamilton Caledonian (2,1,2,2)




(drumming)

Grade Three

MSR

1st Hamilton Caledonian (1,1,1,2)

2nd Wellington Red Hackle (2,2,2,1)




(drumming)

Medley

1st Wellington Red Hackle (1,2,1,1)

2nd Hamilton Caledonian (2,1,2,2)




(drumming)



7



9


PBNEWS Online Magazine 11

ONE OF OUR

OWN

dr ashley bloomfield is synonymous with the success of new

zealand’s covid-19 response. he’s also probably new zealand’s most

famous pipe band drummer, as liam kernaghan writes.

For no other reason – and don’t

get me wrong, there are plenty

– we will remember 2020 as the

year many thousands of pipers

and drummers could not descend

onto Glasgow Green for the World

Pipe Band Championships. Not

since the World Wars have pipers

not competed for the Highland

Society of London’s Gold Medals

at the Argyllshire Gathering or the

Northern Meetings. It would have

been unimaginable this time last

year for anyone to claim we would

go an entire season without RSPBA

major championships.

And while many around the world

are still grappling with new waves

of COVID-19, including our friends

across the ditch in New South

Wales, New Zealand is looking

forward to a summer of music

festivals, long days at the beach,

and piping and drumming events

right up and down the country.

New Zealand is, by most measures,

incredibly fortunate. We are

essentially COVID-19 free (barring

managed isolation and quarantine

cases returning from overseas),

and any cases that do appear

in the community are isolated

relatively quickly. We also have

benefits other countries do not –

we are an isolated island nation far

away from other countries, we live

more disparately than many other

developed nations. Our apparent

desire to acquiesce to power and

control in the face of the global

pandemic meant our adherence

to lockdown rules was almost

unquestioned.

By way of a disclaimer here, I ran

for parliament this year for the

major opposition party against the

current New Zealand Government.

I wouldn’t recommend the idea

of running against potentially the

most popular prime minister in

the world today. It is worse than

drawing first on a wet and chilly

Glasgow Green day.

While there are many valid

criticisms of the New Zealand

response and, at the time

of writing, a major report

commissioned by the government

has come out scathing of New

Zealand’s planned long term

response, I can acknowledge the

response has mostly meant New

Zealand has been more successful

than many of our friends in the

Commonwealth and across the

world.

So it will come as no surprise to you

that the success of New Zealand’s

response is, in part, attributable to

one of our own from the piping and

drumming world.

Dr. Ashley Bloomfield is New

Zealand’s Director-General of

Health. He has been responsible

for New Zealand’s public health

system since 2018. Alongside

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern,

he is deified as being critical to

the success of our response. He

became the “public face” of the

crisis when the actual Minister of

Health breached New Zealand’s

lockdown rules three times and

resigned his warrant.

Dr. Bloomfield attended Scots

College Wellington in the 1970s

and 1980s and was the Head

Prefect and dux, played 1st XV

rugby and was a member of the

cast of the college’s production of

Oklahoma!

He was also a bass drummer in the

Scots College Pipe Band. He did

not continue with his pipe band

career after Scots College, but his

family’s involvement has. His two

sons, Matt and Tom, have both

played with the Scots College,

and, most recently, Matt went to

play with the Grade 2 Scottish



Society of New Zealand Pipe Band

based in Christchurch.

Having spent a lot of my career

in Wellington and around the

public service, it is unusual (for New

Zealand anyway) that I have only

met Dr. Bloomfield twice, and both

times in the last week.

The first of them was at an

end of year party for members

of parliament, journalists and

guests. He had been speaking

at an event before the party but

showed up and was instantly the

centre of attention. I introduced

myself and, rather than talk

about politics like everyone else

wanted to, I mentioned I had

taught his son Matt at one of

our RNZPBA Summer Schools

one year. He instantly beamed

at the opportunity to talk about

bagpipes and pipe bands, and

we spent a long time just talking

about our experiences and what

piping and pipe bands meant for

us. It was a privilege, and he feels

a strong affinity for our movement.

Long may that continue.

One of the final significant events

held in New Zealand that Dr.

Bloomfield attended was the New

Zealand Pipe Band Championships


in Invercargill. The competition

was the week before New Zealand

instigated Alert Levels and

lockdown provisions.

Although he had no official

involvement with the event, I

understand he was hesitancy

about the massed bands at the

end of the event. The clusters were

emerging throughout the south of

the South Island. In some respects,

we are lucky there were no cases

associated with the event that

drew bands from Australia and the

United States.

The second one was at our recent

Palmerston North Square Day. He

watched his son Tom compete with

the Scots College Pipe Band and

was pulled aside by Libby O’Brien

and Courtney Williamson for a

brief chat on the live stream. It was

one of the rare days Dr. Bloomfield

has taken off during the year, but

again it was a privilege to have

him attend a pipe band event and

take a keen interest in what we

were doing.

It was probably this weekend

where many of us in the New

Zealand piping and pipe band

community felt genuinely privileged

to have the ability to compete and

do what we love.

New Zealand is lucky that we

have been able to hold in-person

competitions. We have celebrated

the online successes of Dr. Brendon

Eade and Campbell Wilson

throughout 2020. Still, as we finish

this year, we can celebrate the fact

we have held the New Zealand

Pipe Band Championships, the

New Zealand Open Solo Piping

Championships, our annual

Commun na Piobaireachd

competitions, at least three major

pipe band events and, without

wanting to jinx anything, we are on

track to hold the annual New Year’s

Day solo contest at Waipu, centre

championships throughout New

Zealand and then our 2021 New

Zealand Pipe Band Championships

in Napier.

And all of that, in large part, is due

to one of our own.

This feature was first produced for

Pipes|Drums online magazine in early

December. To read it there, please visit

https://www.pipesdrums.com/article/

new-zealands-owes-pandemic-successto-one-of-our-own/

MAIN GRAPHIC

TheBold.nz for Women’s Refuge

LEFT TOP

Dr Ashley Bloomfield - Getty Images

TOP MIDDLE

Dr Ashley Bloomfield being interviewed by

Libby O’Brien and Courtney Williamson - Neil

McIntosh


15

2020

YEAR IN REVIEW

JANUARY

WAIPU hosts possibly the final

outdoor solo competition as the

world begins to recognise the

imapcts of COVID-19.

SUMMER SCHOOL is held

in Wellington for the first

time in decades, with a new

programme and teaching line

up.

FEBRUARY

JAMES LAUGHLIN leaves his

Head of Drumming role at St

Andrews College after 14 years

in the role.

MARCH

TEN DAYS before New Zealand

enters Alert Level Four for six weeks,

Canterbury Caledonian Society PB

claim their second NZ title in a row

at Invercargill

MANAWATU SCOTTISH

officially pull out of the

2020 World Pipe Band

Championships as New

Zealand enters lockdown for

the first time.

THE RSPBA cancel the first

three major championships

of 2020 as COVID-19 begins

to grip the United Kingdom

and Europe.

APRIL

THE RSPBA cancel the

Worlds and the final

championship as the rest of

the planet shuts down.










PBNews || December 2020

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