I am writing you to give you an update to things happening this week:
First, students remember to collect as many phone numbers as you can to help out with the event that we are having tomorrow for the first hour of practice after school. You will be using these numbers for the entire hour, so please don't forget to get as many as you can and bring a fully charged phone and a phone charger! Darrell Gast and his company will be showing us some things through this activity that could really benefit the band. We will be having practice immediately after this event, so please don't leave us!
I want to also let you all know what our plan of action is going to be this week for the Jamboree exhibition game on Friday at Bowdon High School, just down the road from RHS (about 15ish minutes):
- Our plan is to arrive at 4:15PM central time at the RHS band room and start getting ready/loading up everything on to the bus and trailer. DON'T BE LATE!
- The bus and trailer will be leaving at 5:30PM central time from RHS so that we will arrive in plenty of time to get ready and set up for the kickoff of the game at 6:30PM central time.
- Students will be wearing the same outfit to the Jamboree game that we wore to the County Fair performance this past Saturday. Wear your BAND SHIRT and some sort of KHAKI shorts (or similar color) to the event. Auxiliary should know what their coordinated attire will be as well. We are wearing this instead of our uniforms because I have been informed that this is what the band did last year and that we will not be marching on the field during this game, we will only be playing in the stands.
- If you are planning on leaving with someone other than the band bus after the game on Friday, you MUST turn in a PARENT RELEASE FORM to me before we leave to go to the game on Friday. This form is the only thing that gives you permission to not ride back with us. You can find a copy of this form that you can download and print out by clicking the "2016 Marching Band" link at the top line of our webpage.
- We will head back to the RHS band room after the game to unload and drop off any/all equipment before we head our separate ways.
- If you have any questions regarding the Jamboree game this Friday, please email me at jaron.smith@cleburneschools.net
I also want to add a note in this blog post that recognizes the success we had at our instrument rental night this past Tuesday. Thank you to all of the parents and students that showed up to get their instruments. As of right now, we officially have exactly 23 students in our 6th grade beginning band class. I am so excited to see where this can take the band if our recruiting continues to trend positively in this direction!
You all may have also noticed that I have updated and added a few things to our website this week. I have added a long overdue subsection under "The Doghouse" link at the top of our webpage titled "2016 Pics and Video". This section contains pictures of the band during random activities in a slideshow that will continue to be updated throughout the year. This section also contains video clips from our performance this past weekend at the Cleburne County Fair (which I thought went very well!). You may also notice that I have added another subsection under "The Doghouse" link at the top of our webpage that is titled "2016 Stand Tune Videos". This section contains videos of every single stand tune that we will be playing throughout every football game this season. This section is designed to help us out as well as our danceline, colorguard, and cheerleaders in learning their dances for each of these tunes.
Don't forget that our Homecoming Shirt Design Competition is still underway and we are still looking for a winning design to print on to our shirts. The winners will receive two tickets to the Homecoming dance and all designs can be submitted to me at jaron.smith@cleburneschools.net
Another VERY IMPORTANT bit of information that you all need to make a note of in your planners and calendars:
You will need to mark off October 22nd and October 8th in your calendars as the two dates that we will be going to marching band competitions (both on Saturdays). Students will be required to be with us as we travel to these competitions. What specific competitions that we will be going to on these dates will be announced later, but I can go ahead and tell you all that these competitions have potential to allow us to bring home a lot of trophy hardware after it is all said and done. I have updated our band calendar on our website to reflect these dates.
One more thing: We still have a couple of students who have not had their parents sign up to work a game in the concession stand. Remember: each student is required to have at least one person work for at least half of a home football game. Any additional time that the parents/workers sign up for in the concession stand will factor in to the student's dues for next season. For our sign up link, go to http://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090f4dadab2ea6f85-parent and sign up for any available times. I will be sending reminders to those that have signed up to work our first home game next week. We can use all of the help that we can get!
Mr Smith