Holtwood Mission Band (HMB) have been a group of musicians and vocalists for whom I’ve been a guitarist and songwriter since 1977 although the Band itself was formed in 1970 – so I’m still the new boy!
HMB was formed in 1970 to provide worship and outreach opportunities for young people from Holtwood and nearby churches, many of whom had “grown out” of Sunday School but didn’t feel completely at ease with the more traditional forms of worship at that time. Since then many young people had passed through the ranks of HMB before leaving the area for university, work or marriage.
In 2026, for a number of reasons and after a period of deep reflection HMB concluded that, after more than 50 years of service, the time was right to say that this part of our service was ‘task completed’. So we took the difficult decision to ‘retire’ from leading regular services although we will continue to help out with occasional services in our area and will also contribute to musical occasions across the Christchurch & Wimborne Methodist Circuit. We would like to say a huge ‘thank you’ to the dozens of churches where we’ve been honoured to lead services during the past half-century! Our remaining appointments for 2026 are below:-
Dates in 2026
4 October – Three Legged Cross URC Harvest Festival (2.30)
20 December – Three Legged Cross URC Carol Service (2.30)