Green Freighter THIS will be at the playing field car park tomorrow, from 10.45am to noon for collections of larger household items that are not normally collected with the weekly refuse.

Church Services SUNDAY, 10am Eucharist at St Mary's, Langham; 10.30am service at the Methodist Church.

Cricket Club The first match of the season is on Sunday, at 1pm against West Mersea in the PDQ Division 1 League. The sports and social club will be open for both bar drinks and refreshments. All welcome to come along and follow the club's progress through the summer. New players always welcome.

The next match will be on May 5.

Boxted Airfield Group ROGER Cook's Bits and Pieces on Tuesday, at 7.30pm in the village hall. Before his retirement Roger worked as an aviation photographer and travelled all over the world working for magazines, government agencies, aircraft manufacturers etc. He will be showing his photos and talking about life behind the camera.

Open Garden Weekend IN aid of St Peter's Church this will be held the weekend of May 27 and 28.

Boxted Methodist Silver Band BOXTED Methodist Silver Band belongs to Boxted Methodist Church. A band was formed in the 1850's to provide music for church services. This became the Wesley Guild Brass band - a sort of Methodist Social Club band if you like - in 1898 and then changed its name to Boxted Methodist Silver Band in 1938.

The Band's constitution states foremost that the band plays To the Honour and Glory of God.

This doesn't mean to say that you have to be a Methodist, or come to that, a Christian to be a member of the band. Our membership consists of people who are associated with various churches and those who are not but just enjoy playing with the band.

Our door is open to people of all ages who want to play or learn to play.

The band plays in the Chapel the first Sunday afternoon of each month for the band service, in which we accompany the hymns and play three pieces of music. We don't play every Sunday at every service. We also play at services for Church Anniversary, Good Friday, Harvest Festival, Remembrance Sunday and Christmas as well as for occasional services at other churches.

But the church services are just one part of what the band does throughout the year. At present the band has 28 members. Only a few of them live in Boxted - some come from as far away as Harwich.

We rehearse every Wednesday night from 7.30pm to 9.30pm in the Methodist Schoolroom next to the Chapel. We also have a training band that rehearses from 7.30pm to 8.30pm on a Monday night and is open to learners of all ages.

Our conductor, Chris Lewis is probably the youngest the band has ever had. However, despite his relative youth, Chris brings with him a wealth of brass band experience, having played with bands at the highest level from an early age.

A typical rehearsal would consist of playing some hymn tunes - perhaps for a forthcoming band service, running through music for a concert programme, trying out new music, or working on a more challenging piece to try and improve our ability as players.

This year we have introduced occasional sectional practices where the different sections of the band ie. cornets, horns etc. rehearse as a group.

In addition to the church services mentioned earlier, the band plays at various concerts, fetes, garden parties and charity fundraising events.

This year we have concerts at Wimpole Road Methodist Church; Mile End Church and a joint concert with the Harwich Royal British Legion Band at Harwich to name but a few. We also play on the Bandstand in Colchester's Castle Park. 2007 sees us trying something new. A weekend of rehearsing followed by a concert in Pontefract in Yorkshire, at the end of April and later in the year, plans for another band weekend closer to home.

Another idea we introduced last year and plan to repeat in 2007 is an open practice night, where we invite the public to come along to our rehearsal night and see what we do.

Our year always ends with two weeks of carol playing in Boxted and the surrounding area, when we aim to raise money for the band funds and NCH action for Children - normally in the region of £2,000 in recent years.

After a week off for the Christmas holiday we start again, normally just finding time to fit in our annual meeting and our band dinner.

The emphasis in the future is on trying to encourage new players to join the band and building up the training band. With schools spending less money on music, local bands have to do their bit to encourage and train young people to play musical instruments.

Our training band is a mixed group of learners, improvers and helpers from the main band. There is no age limit for learning to play a brass instrument, but we are trying to encourage under-16's to learn to play.

For those who are learning to play from scratch, Chris is providing some one to one tuition before our main Wednesday night rehearsal.

All of the training and tuition is provided completely voluntarily and is therefore free of charge. This is one of the few social activities currently available to young (and old) people in Boxted.

We have always been a busy band, taking on a lot of engagements compared to some other bands, and we aim to continue this. One of the main ways people in this area and beyond get to know about the band is by hearing us play. By staying active as a band and continually encouraging others to join us, we aim to safeguard our future.

No matter where we play and what type of venue we play at one thing remains the same - we do play to the Honour and Glory of God (some of us truly believe that this is why the band is still here).

Through our music we witness for God and for Boxted Methodist Church and we are proud to represent the village of Boxted wherever we go. Long may it continue.