This year’s weather made up for a cold and wet 2009 event; it was drop dead Chamber of Commerce gorgeous weather. Twenty-nine bands from the southeast as far as Texas competed in Grades 3, 4, and 5 in basically the final competition of the year.

We practiced and rehearsed very hard leading up to the games; during the Saturday morning and afternoon warm ups we sounded the best ever - ready to take on the world (well at least the Gr. 5 bands at Stone Mountain).

We headed to the competition area for our appointed 3:30 time, formed up, and when the judges gave the okay marched into the circle playing our competition set. From there it went downhill! We finished the approximately 3-minute QMM none too soon and marched off to Scotland the Brave. Away from the circle, and as the next band started their set, we looked at each other and knew that this was not the band’s best overall performance.

Not looking forward to the closing ceremonies and awards presentations we finally were brave enough to retrieve the results fully expecting to finish last. Thankfully or mercifully we weren’t last. Amazingly we took 9^th out of 12 Gr. 5 bands. One band was disqualified.

It was probably our worst outing. As one judge wrote on the score sheet “It wasn’t your day.” Trying to look on the positive side and knowing how bad we sounded we must have done something right to finish 9^th. We can only imagine where we would have placed if we had fired on all cylinders. As our P/M likes to remind us it’s not a sprint but a marathon.

Two band members also competed in solo events Saturday and Sunday. Piper Robbie Rogers finished 2^nd in Piobaireachd and 5^th in March in Gr. Sr. 4. A big congratulations to Robbie! Our bass drummer, Gary Derbridge, competed for the first time in the Medley (and not the QMM) and played an MSR. It was perhaps a little premature to enter a competition as we have only rehearsed the MSR three times and the results showed. Though not disappointed Gary finished 4^th of four bass drummers. It was a good experience though.

This year we participated in the “great-on-and-on” (the parade of the tartans) and closing ceremonies. Between the two we performed at different clan tents and other areas and had a great time imbibing in a wee dram of Scotch for our efforts. Though exhausted from all the playing and marching it was a great day for the band to regroup after Saturday’s competition.

Some excellent bands competed this year. Congratulations to our friends, Atlanta Pipe Band (Gr. 3), North Texas Caledonia (Gr. 4) and Ballantyne (Gr. 5) for their first place finishes.