On the 25th May 2008, the Aveley and Newham Band competed in the All England International Master contest held in Cambridge. Entry to this competition is by invitation only. Twenty one bands from all across Europe took part. This year's line up of bands was once again extremely strong. The difficult task of choosing between them was left to the well respected trio of David Read, Eric Cress and Philip Sparke.

The test piece was a newly commisioned work by Martin Ellerby. The piece was call Malcolm Arnold Variations and took inspiration from the lives and characteristics of the famous composer, Malcolm Arnold. The piece contained many technical and musical challenges. With the ‘Masters’ occurring so soon after other contests, the Aveley and Newham Band had to work extremely hard to prepare for this competition.

This contest runs a progressive structure were bands are pre-allocated into three sections (early, middle and late) with the order of play determined on the day for each section. This is to avoid bands having prolonged waiting periods. On the day of the contest, The Aveley and Newham band already knew they had been allocated the late slot. However,news that they would in fact be the last band to perform on the day only came that morning!

Once again, the band performed admirably producing a tight and well balanced performance. However, some minor blemishes detracted and the result was a respectable eleventh place. This was a definite improvement on the previous two years which was especially pleasing. The day was eventually won by the Desford Colliery Band in a close run battle with the Tredegar Band who came second. Congratulations to them both on two fine performances!