Calls from the Bruce District Pipe Band for a financial helping hand may be answered from another former Milton group that also once made music in the town.
The Clutha District Council's corporate services committee last week was poised to allocate the annual interest income from a $12,542 fund from the defunct Milton Brass Band to help offset the pipe band's struggle to make ends meet, but the entire matter is now likely to be debated again in full at the last council meeting of the year on Thursday.
Any grant may come with the proviso that the band looks at ways it can try to secure its financial future.
The committee voted 8-6 against a motion that would have given the band the entire fund.
Pipe band treasurer Bill McDonald, in a letter to council, said it was struggling to pay its annual rates bill of $1209 plus high insurance and power charges.
"This amount has now become a major problem for a community organisation with extremely limited means of producing money to meet this demand."
The growing expenses were "eating into" its capital to the point where closing down completely might be the only option.
The council provided a rates rebate of $401.95 on the band's 2007-08 rates demand of $1612.80, but these costs did not include water, stormwater, solid waste and wastewater charges.
The band's annual electricity bill is $1200 while insurance costs another $900 annually.
Bruce ward councillor Bruce Vollweiler, in a report to the committee, said the band was a community group providing music services to the district as well as musical instruction to young people.
The council holds trust funds from the town's former brass band, partly funded by the former Milton Borough Council, which has been in recess since the early 1980s.
Corporate services manager Alan Dickson recommended the entire fund be transferred to the pipe band.
Mayor Juno Hayes said the money was "just sitting there with no home to go to" and it would be appropriate for it to benefit the pipe band.
Bruce ward councillor Bruce McCorkindale said the money would eventually run out in time and the band should consider relocating to the warmer Milton Coronation Hall and possibly sell their building, which he acknowledged they regarded as part of their identity."
The committee agreed granting the money was a short-term solution to a long-term problem.
Chief executive Charles Hakkaart said the band should not be given the money without being encouraged to look at its long-term sustainability and come up with answers on how to avoid the problem in the future.
