Thank you all for your support this past week in what was a busy week! We saw many people out for the Beginning Band Drive, and then our first game! Thank you for supporting the students so well! This week marks the first varsity home game of the season as we play Tidehaven. The boosters have preassigned nights for concession stand help through the season for HS parents. If you haven’t received your night information please let me know and we’ll get that to you. We ask that if you can’t work that shift that you contact Mrs. Mandi Edwards to help arrange for a swap. 

We also have plenty of spots where we need help from JH parents as well. Please contact Mrs. Edwards if you are available to help on a Friday night!

Speaking of volunteers, we want to make sure that we’re being very forward thinking about September 24^thand October 29^th, as we are hosting first our own inaugural pre-UIL marching contest, and then the UIL 2A Area E marching contest. We will need every family to help at both events, but in particular for the September 24^th Contest we need a ton of help! As of right now we have 16 Bands, plus our own, who will be performing that day in a Prelims/Finals contest. That essentially means we’ll have 30 performances! We are expecting 1300+ student participants at this event, and hope that this can become a fundraiser that is the crown jewel for the bands in the coming years. It is not uncommon for events like this to raise tens of thousands of dollars, and we hope this will benefit our students in many ways!

This week we want to get a jump on some of our volunteer needs. We plan to have a meeting at 10am on Saturday the 24^th in the HS Cafetorium to quickly go over the contest flow, rules, and what to expect as a volunteer. Our first band should be arriving some time at 11am into the lot, and finals/awards will end with people leaving by about 11:30pm. It is going to be a long day, but offers us a great opportunity to raise funds for the band program! Please visit this link and sign-up for a role!

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0f4fa8a92aa7fac25-owlmarching

Beginning Band Student Instruments

At this time, we expect instruments to be delivered from our drive sometime Tuesday, so we will begin with instruments on Wednesday or Thursday with Beginning Band students. Please make sure that your student has an instrument, or reach out to us to let us know what’s going on by then. 

Our biggest philosophy of all is that we will never let a student not be in the band program due to a financial situation. If you have a financial situation that leaves you unable to provide an instrument please contact Mr. Williams and we will figure out an option for your student. This may be on a different instrument that we provide, but we will make certain your student can be a part of our program!

Fall Fees

Our fall fees for marching band should have been paid at this time ($50 everyone, $40 more for freshmen and anyone who needs shoes). JH Band Fees are also due this week of $25.

Guard members should have paid a total of $400 by the date they tried out. The final fee for them is $100 as long as they were paid in full. (Full 2023 fee is $500 between the two payments) They do not pay the regular band fall fee.

Payments need to be made in CHECK or MONEY ORDER only please to OEISD Memo: Band. We do not accept cash for these items. 

This Week’s Schedule:

Day:	Event:
Monday:	Evening Rehearsal: 6:30pm-8:30pm
Tuesday:	Evening Rehearsal: Band Hall Closed After School
Wednesday:	Evening Rehearsal: 4:00pm-6:00pm
Thursday:	Evening Rehearsal: 6:30pm-8:30pm
Friday:	Odem vs. Tidehaven (Home) 5:30pm – Students at Band Hall 7:30pm – Kickoff ~9:45pm – Game ends

Note: Once the Odem CCD program starts up we will go Wednesdays 4pm-5:30pm. 

Upcoming Events:

Day:	Event:	Time:
Friday	Odem vs. Tidehaven	7:30pm
September 5th	Spirit of OHS Evening Rehearsal  We do rehearse on Labor Day! Please make sure students are there!	6:30pm-8:30pm
September 8th	Odem vs. Mathis (Televised Thursday Game)	6:55pm
September 16th	Odem vs. San Diego (San Diego)	7:30pm
September 17th	All-Region/All-State Jazz Auditions	All Day
September 23rd	Odem vs. Taft (Taft)	7:30pm
September 24th	Odem Owl Marching Invitational (Need at least one volunteer for every student this day)	All Day
September 30th	Odem vs. Santa Rosa (Santa Rosa)
October 1st	USBands Marching Showcase (Goliad)
October 6th	Homecoming Parade/Burning of the ‘O’	7pm
October 7th	Odem vs. Monte Alto (Homecoming)
October 8th	Marching Band Clinic/Rehearsal at Owl Stadium	3pm-6pm

You may find our full 2022-2023 Odem Bands Calendar here (Includes JH Dates as well): http://www.odembands.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-2023-Odem-Bands-Calendar-v1.pdf

Thank you for your help and support of these amazing students! Please contact us if you have any questions!