Well away! or Blooterville! – our picks for great intros and patchy mistakes from 2018
Blooterville! – Rarely in piping and drumming do you hear calls of “fraud” and “scandal” – ha, ha, just kidding. Still, we rarely hear of issues on the scale of this one at Maxville. One of the side stories of all Highland games and big events is that they all move large amounts of money. Over the years, there have been several well-known cases where a person with the reins has been too tempted or in too vulnerable place themselves, and have misappropriated organization money. Protect everyone with appropriate process and oversight, and there will be fewer stories like this. Usually, it takes a problem to become better, and, as with Pipe Bands Australia’s financial mess of a few years ago, there’s a bright side to these cautionary tales.
Well Away! – What was originally intended when the National Piping Centre was launched finally came to pass last year with the College of Piping becoming part of the NPC. This makes great sense for both institutions, and was widely applauded, except by the most curmudgeonly. Besides, it was the original strategy for the Piping Centre until egos got in the way.
Glasgow College and Piping Centre merge
Blooterville! – Early 2018 saw some bad press for the piping community regarding the release of private emails, and the fallout from comments therein. Really, this seemed to be little more than an attempt to keep the pot boiling for the sake of readership, both in the case of the offensive blog and in the case of the Glasgow tabloid press that published the stories. Reinforced here was the idea that the piping community has its share of malcontents, “nursing their wrath to keep it warm,” as Burns might have said. This was an attack with two honking drones that no one wanted to see.
Dispute summarized after tabloid attention
NO COMMENTS YET