During the late stage of the afternoon we slowly went over the tapes, did a bit of drill, warmed up and got ready to go on.
The consequences of a lax afternoon were a bit hard for some to take. The Bluewater Bucaneers took the Provincial Championship with a 1.3 point spread over the Ambassadors.
PERSONAL NOTE:
Most of the weekend was fun (meaning little work) and losing for the first time this year was perhaps the best thing that could have happened. Many people had forgotten that we could lose, and to have that reality slapped in their faces should have made them strive to be better and tightened the corps up. (This turned into a major issue later in the year)
CONTEST #7 - JULY 28TH - SCARBOROUGH
Scarborough seemed a very promising contest after last weekends' defeat. The show had been worked on during the week, so the act was a little more together.
Upon arriving in Scarborough, Paul told us that we were on last (3:10) so that gave us that much more time to refine the show. Practice went, and just before we went on Bob Strachan gave the corps a few pointers on a 'humorous form of anger' (ask someone).
Anyway, the show went well. It must have - Ray clapped!! We received a first place score of 69.7 and a 'wheelbarrow of trophies'. Meaning that we took everything but best DM. Probably because there was no trophy for it. And the only reason they gave us best M&M was, there was no judge.
During retreat, rain threatened every corps that left the field, but when we left, the sun shone. It never rains on the Ambassadors - only at rehearsals.
CONTEST #8 - AUGUST 5TH - SIMCOE
To break a curse while under a curse - in Simcoe.
For the Ambassadors, every year they have competed there (3 years) has turned out to be utterly disastrous.
Here's how it went:
1976 - the show fell apart in concert for reasons unknown (??).
1977 - our first year in 'C' class and we weren't ready for the stiffer competition.
1978 - the business meeting was screwed up, resulting in our having to be first on; being late and having no warm-up.
1979 - the curse hit again, but was sucessfully broken.
To be safe this year we left early, and the equipment was loaded onto onto one of the buses instead of using the truck.
But, bad luck struck just outside of Cambridge at 11:00. Most of the corps was on the bus that died, and the other bus not knowing this, kept right on going. Even arrived on time.
We were scheduled to go on fourth, in the 'C' class.
The instruments were polished - a dozen times. The contest was stalled a little - still no bus. All the 'C' class corps went on - no bus. Being unable to wait any longer the 'A' class corps went on, before our bus finally came in, this was at 3:45.
Ambassadors 1979 Yearbook ©1979 Dan Brooks and Garry Summers