The Bagpipe Society

Secrets of the Website

Tucked away on our website, there’s a seldom visited and possibly less well known page I am keen to develop further: the ‘Members’ page’.

This is where you will find Bagpipe Society documents, such as the loan policy for our student pipes and criteria for grant applications and access to the Member Directory, but that’s not all: half way down the page, you come to ‘Member-only content’. This is where I am putting all bagpipe plans and any other documents that may be of interest. Some of these were produced specifically for the Society and were not originally intended for wide circulation and others that do not easily fit into other categories elsewhere. Plus, I liked the idea of having a resource reserved as a “bonus” for current members! You sign in with your registered email address and the Society’s current password (see inside back cover of the latest Chanter).

Currently you can find all the plans ever published in Chanter plus assorted technical drawings and sketches (with measurements) of various pipes.

There are more documents due to be uploaded in the very near future, which have been freely donated by pipe makers and researchers.

Other items so far include facsimiles of the Cocks and Bryan book ‘The Northumbrian Bagpipes’ and the Geoghegan Tutor for the Pastoral bagpipes, as featured in Chanter Autumn 2021. The copyright of all material, where pertinent, remains with the authors and is reproduced with their consent. I am currently working through an extensive collection of resources provided by a piping enthusiast from Germany and will be adding them once I have checked copyright and gained permission to do so.

Naturally, you are invited to submit items you may have either come across and kept as interesting or are the results of personal research. All I ask is that the work is your own, in the public domain or you have gained permission from the originator, where possible. The authors I have contacted so far have been delighted to know that their work is valued by a respected Society (Us!) and made accessible to fellow piping enthusiasts!

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Ian (info@bagpipesociety.org.uk)