As I sort of intimated in my first post, I am not a competitive sort and found that similar to Lawrie's experience or at least his friends, the band MD was only interested in winning contest after contest and was slowly in the process of removing players he didn't think were up to it. I just got out before I got pushed out.
Another comment also from Lawrie is the music or so called, written as contest pieces and so obviously written to be technically difficult! Yet I have heard more interesting sounds coming from a well worn diesel railway locomotive's gear box. I was driving the thing at the time.
Unfortunately it is the entire thing of contesting and the horrible music it uses that has driven me away from even being interested in playing.