News
April 30, 2008

Maple Ridge now New Westminster Police

The 60-year history of the Maple Ridge Pipe Band has come to end, but in name only, as the Grade 2 group will now be known as the New Westminster Police Pipe Band after a sponsorship agreement was reached with the British Columbia city’s police force.

The newly named band will continue to be affiliated with the Simon Fraser University organization, a relationship that was struck in 2006 after all of the members of SFU’s previous Grade 2 band, Robert-Malcolm Memorial II, left the organization, eventually merging with Triumph Street.

“As all bands that are offered sponsorship opportunities know, one of the hardest decisions to address is a possible name change,” said New Westminster Police Pipe-Major Angus MacPherson. “Both the membership of the band and senior management of the police are extremely excited about this new venture and are looking forward to a long relationship which will benefit both parties.”

MacPherson said that the number of band-members who actually lived in the city of Maple Ridge had dwindled to none, and that ties to previous sponsors had been lost.

“The current leadership of this band, which took the reins some 13 seasons ago, had never approached the community for any assistance, financial or otherwise, mainly because there was no connection with Maple Ridge,” he said. The sponsorship will allow the New Westminster Police band to travel more, replace and update uniforms and “fulfill projects identified over the years but postponed due to financial restraints.”

MacPherson said that the band has 22 pipers, 11 snare-drummers, five tenors and two bass-drummers on its competition roster, and that it will compete at the North American Pipe Band Championships at Maxville, Ontario, and the Montreal Highland Games in August – a 5,000 kilometer journey.He hinted that a celebration of 60 years of the Maple Ridge Pipe Band and formal introduction of the “New West Cops” will happen soon.

6 COMMENTS

  1. I guess we should expect a huge run of maple fudge donuts at Tim Horton’s in New West? Hopefully, band members will get the same discounts as regular members of the force.

  2. Can we have a nickname please? New Westminster Police is quite the mouthful.. Shame that we just bought pretty new Maple Ridge bag covers a couple of years back.. (can i have one?)

  3. Congratulations Angus, Jack and the rest of the gang at NWPSPB! Sponsorship in todays pipe band environment is essential. And police organizations realize the positive affects that come from sponsoring a pipe band. The community of New Westminister is the benificiary as are the police service and pipe band. Good luck in 2008 !

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