EUSPBA gets its Voice back, relaunching publication in podcast form

Until 2015, the Eastern United States Pipe Band Association published The Voice, a quarterly print magazine that reported on association activities and informative feature articles for its thousands of members.

After a hiatus due to financial constraints, the organization is relaunching “The Voice” as a monthly podcast with regular features like interviews with all living past EUSPBA presidents, recordings and highlights from historical competitions and events, and features that EUSPBA President Bill Caudill said will “evolve over time based on volunteers and particular interests.”

In a message to EUSPBA members, Caudill called for submissions and ideas: “Everyone has a cell phone. Everyone is out and about in our piping and drumming community in some way. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to be able to contribute! This is a way for YOU to share with our membership what is happening in your community, which will better connect us all as an Association. We need YOU to help in this effort.”

The effort is being organized by EUSPBA members like Andrew Douglas, Vince Janoski, who was directly involved in the print version of The Voice, and Vice-President Joe McGonigal.

A team has been compiling a content library to help get the project off the ground. They will look for quasi-reporters across the EUSPBA’s vast geographical area.

“No other association in the world has this type of format for sharing activities and stories, so we are breaking new ground and will be evolving and improving as we go.” – EUSPBA President Bill Caudill

“My own philosophy is that we have members who pay membership fees to our association just so that they can pay further fees to be allowed to compete,” Caudill said. “We haven’t had anything to give back to our membership since the discontinuation of ‘The Voice’ in print form, so this is an effort to give something back to our membership which will not only better inform them of the things happening within our association but also to be able to allow them to celebrate and get to know more about the events we have going on over such a wide geographical area as well as the personalities within our association, both present and historical.

“No other association in the world has this type of format for sharing activities and stories, so we are breaking new ground and will be evolving and improving as we go.”

The EUSPBA is the world’s largest non-collective piping and drumming association both by geography and membership. The organization has both band and individual memberships for those who wish to compete in solo contests. Members of bands who don’t compete solo are not required to have an individual membership.

Be sure to watch pipes|drums’ interview with Bill Caudill, part of our ongoing Association Leadership Spotlight series.