Hello and my name is Musn Linden, and I have been in the Band Service for just over a year, I play the cornet and piano.
Monday
This week's report is a bit different to the normal ones as I have not been
down in Portsmouth, instead I was asked to go to Nottingham to recruit for the
Band Service for the week. Today I started the week by going into a secondary
school in Mansfield; I am going to be there for today and tomorrow talking to
students about the band service. The school is called Sherwood Hall, I started
off walking around and as I was in my uniform, so I stood out, I thought that
it might get the students who were curious as to who I was to come and talk
to me about what I did. I also spoke to certain classes about my job and what
I do; I was mainly aiming at music classes. It was a very productive day, and
I am looking forward to tomorrow to follow up what happened today.
Tuesday
Today I had more of a planned day; I was also joined at the school by our
Physical Training Instructors' (PTI) from the school of music, C/Sgt McGough
and Sgt Grounsell. All of us were based in the school library first thing, where
we did individual group talks to pupils in Year 11; they are aged 15/16. I started
off by showing them the brand new promotional video for the Band Service, then
I moved on to explaining what you can do to join and also who to contact and
outlined what our training involves. The pupils enjoyed it, but the majority
have already identified what career they are aiming for. I then was moved on
to the music classes and spent time with the head of music and helped out but
it was amazing how many questions I got whilst doing it so I managed to give
younger pupils an outlook on what you can do. Whilst I was doing this our PTIs
were giving some of the pupils a sample of what our phys is like, it looked
like they enjoyed it but I think they were quite tired after it!
We then went back to the library again to greet a different age group of pupils,
these were a year younger than this morning,year 10's. There was a lot more
interest in this class, I managed to get about 10 pupils interested and considering
joining, so after this session I was really pleased that they had enjoyed it
and were considering it. For the rest of the day I was in other classes, generally
helping out. All in all it was a very eventful day.
Wednesday
Today I travelled into Nottingham on the train and met up with one of our careers
advisers for Nottingham and he took me to Toot Hill School, another 11-18 school.
Unfortunately almost all of their sixth form were out on a trip so I couldn't
talk to them but I managed to talk to a lot of the younger pupils. I sat in
with the brass teacher and saw all sorts of pupils playing instruments from
the trumpet to tenor horn. It was good to see how the teacher taught the pupils
and to see how their music worked in the school from and outsider's point of
view. At this school they are known in Nottingham area for having a good Dance
band and blues band, a lot of the pupils playing the brass instruments are involved
in a band of some sort. I went in to watch the choir at lunchtime and see them
practise for their Christmas concerts. During all of this I was able to speak
to pupils about what they enjoy and about my job, quite a few of these pupils
came down to visit the school of music last May so they had already had some
insight on to what it is like. I was used more today as a helping hand and spoke
to pupils throughout the day. It was another good day and I felt like maybe
the pupils knew a bit more about what we do.
Thursday
Today there were no schools for me to visit so I stayed at home and managed
to get a day's worth of practise in, as I have my T3 exams in December. I need
to practise both my instruments, as I have not been able to do much practise
this week and the weeks before I came here I was in Iceland so today was constructive
for me.
My pieces seem to be getting there, all I need to do now is learn how to confront
my nerves, hopefully I will on the day. Tomorrow is back to the schools, I am
off to another 11-18, it is one of the biggest schools in the region, and hopefully
I will be as successful as I have been over the past couple of days.
Friday
Today I am going to Ashfield School. I am based with the head of music and
I am able to show year 11 the video and then talk to them about what the Band
Service does. I based it around what I did at the first school I went to as
it seemed to work well, the pupils again seemed generally interested and I managed
to give them something else to think about. I was also able to walk round at
break and lunch time so that if there were other pupils who were not in the
classes that I had been in, they could then ask me questions and see what the
Royal Marines Band involved. I think with the other schools a lot of the pupils
were surprised to see a girl in the Royal Marines. It helped the girls who had
considered the Sevices as a career showing it was not impossible for them. So
all in all this week, I hope I have achieved what I set out to do. I have promoted
the Royal Marines Band Service, as quite a few pupils didn't realise it existed.