St, Neots Sentinels majorettes started in 1989 when Anne Steel and her family moved to St. Neots from felixstowe. In the augest of 89 Anne and her daughter watched the carnival (in the rain) and noticed there wasn't a troupe from the area, the carnival had asked other troupes from St Ives and serounding places to join in. this is when Anne decided to start her own troupe as her daughter mas was already a majorette and wanted to continue with the sport. So in september 1989 St, Neots Sentinels was born.
Comming up with a name was hard work for Anne. But after agonising days of thinking and writing different names down, Jim (annes husband) noticed when looking at the towns logo there was a culis (drop down gate) and to have one of these you need guards, but he didn't think St. Neots guards would sound that good, and after looking for alternitive words he came up with Sentinel. This is only one person so we added an s on the end as there would be more of us.
St Neots soon learned ther was a new troupe formed and we soon had our own standard with our name and the towns logo and colours on it. once this standard had been made Anne asked if the standard could be dedicated to the town and it was then blessed in church.
Anne has been involved with majorettes for about 26 years as her sons started out in a band and as soon as mas at the age of 6 she joined too, but as she couldnt play an instrument they put her on a gerzu, mas didn't really enjoy that so she took up twirling instead and has kept twirling since, she has been twirling now for 21 years.
When the first training night came Anne was suprised just to see how many girls came. As she did say if no-one turns up then we will forget all about doing this troupe, but lucky for us we had about 20 girls turn up and just kept going.
This year the St Neots Sentinels are celebrating their 18th year this year.
St Neots Sentinels are members of the UKFM ( United Kingdom Federation of Majorettes ) and have made menny friends with other troupes. The troupe competes in many comps with this federation either as solo, duos, trios, small groups or whole troupe displays. Not only do we do comps we also do displays and carnivals.
The troupe train on a friday night for 3 hours 6 - 9, mondays for seniors 6-9, and sometimes on a saturday if needed
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If you are interested in booking the St. Neots Sentinels for carnivals, displays, fetes or anything then please call Mrs Anne Steel on (01480) 399940.
With the number of girls The St. Neots Sentinels have we are looking for sponsership if anyone is interested or can help then please ring the above number.