Musicians
Our Talented Musicians
All our musicians are recruited from our local community. We are all volunteers and nobody in the organisation gets paid for their attendance at Band. Any profits we make are invested back into the band and our community.
Our musicians are trained up to ABRSM grade eight standard and we all strive to be the very best brass players we can. High standards in attendance, attitude and ability are the corner stones of all our musicians and a prerequisite of new members.
Musical Director
Mark Quinn
Mark has been a member of The Haydock Band since September 1987 and in the intervening years he has been principal tuba for twenty years and Musical Director since 2007.
Mark has also been a driving force on our committee, having served the band as manager for over twenty seven years. In this period Mark was instrumental in reshaping the band and working with a succession of musical directors to enable the musicians at Haydock Band to be promoted to the Championship section of the National Brass Band Championships.
This culminated in the band being asked to represent the North West Area at the National finals in 2003 playing at the Championship section contest held annually at The Royal Albert Hall in London.
Since taking over as Musical Director the band has become a modern arts organisation under Marks guidance and spread its wings into all manner of projects to enhance the musicians experience at Haydock Band.
Concerts are always well attended and audiences return again and again to listen to the fantastic programmes performed under Marks leadership. The band has had National contest wins being crowned Butlins National Champions in 2018 and winning the North West area championships in 2017.
Born in Haydock with all his family running through the town Mark is a true “Yicker” and works tirelessly to promote the band and our town.
PRINCIPAL CORNET
LISA FORBES
Lisa has been in the band since 1998 joining as assistant principal cornet. 18 years on she finally accepted the position of Principal Cornet and continues to lead the Haydock Band from that seat.
Lisa is from Wigan and has only ever played for three bands. She has been voted player of the year and Bandsman of the year in 2012, 2014 and 2018.
Lisa is the current holder of the Terry Quinn Memorial award for outstanding achievement and she is also the band secretary working constantly to improve the band in all aspects.
band personnel
| Musical Director | Mark Quinn |
| Principal Cornet | Lisa Forbes |
| Soprano Cornet | Martin Halliwell |
| Cornets | Ted Griffiths Iain McIntyre Fay Kerr Eleanor Waring Janice Fitch Nicola Moran Jennifer Cunniffe Peter Eddleston Carmela Southward |
| Flugel Horn | Alison Waring |
| Tenor Horns | Stacey Hall Phillip Taylor Shauni Tyrer |
| Baritones | Mike Harrison Julie Ratcliffe |
| Trombones | Vacancy Hannah Roughley Seth Hamill Godfrey Irving (Chairman) |
| Euphoniums | Helen Geoghegan Jack Marshall |
| Eb Basses | Steve Roscoe Ray Waring |
| Bb Basses | John Ellis Steve Longden |
| Percussion | Carolyn Warburton Isaac Harthill Jack Geoghegan Daniel Meadowcroft |
| Chairman | Godfrey Irving |
| Band Manager | Mark Quinn |
| Contest/Concert Secretary | Lisa Forbes |
| Library | |
| Treasury | Stacey Hall |
| Committee Members | Nicola Moran Hannah Roughley |
SOPRANO CORNET
MARTIN HALLIWELL
Martin joined the band in 2012 and plays Soprano Cornet. He has been voted bandsman of the year in 2013 and 2015 and also won the Terry Quinn memorial award for outstanding achievement in 2017.
Martin looks after all the transport and logistic arrangements for the band and also runs his own successful vehicle transport company.
SOLO EUPHONIUM
HELEN GEOGHEGAN
Helen is originally from Haydock and still lives in St. Helens where she is a Maths teacher. Helen started learning to play the piano aged 10 and began brass lessons just before starting secondary school; originally on tenor horn before later switching to euphonium and baritone. During this time, Helen was a member of the St Helens Youth Brass Band, conducted at the time by her teacher Lynda Nicholson. Helen also successfully auditioned to become a member of the
National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain and attended 5 courses. She is still proud to be able to say that she was awarded the principal baritone position on the summer 1997 course all these years later!
Helen originally joined Haydock Band at the start of 2004 before the NW area contest, having previously played for Hoover (Bolton) Band (1994-1998), The Marple Band (1998-2002) and Besses O’Th’ Barn (2002-2004). After a 4 year break from playing completely, Helen rejoined Haydock Band at the end of 2013.
ABOUT US
Haydock Band is the oldest community run organisation in St Helens. Established in 1861, we have been providing music and tuition to our community for over one hundred and fifty years.