Odem Bands Schedule: Week of 8/22/2016

Welcome to another great year with the Odem Bands! Hard to believe summer has come to a close… but it always must! This week there are quite a few items to be aware of for the week. I’ll address the Junior High program first, and then the High School items will follow. First though please note that there is a mandatory parent meeting for all band students in grades 7-12 on Monday, August 29th at 6pm. It will most likely take place in the Cafetorium, but I have to confirm its availability first.

We will address many things for the program and also allow parents the chance to sign-up for Friday night concession stand slots for the season. Due to adding a second concession stand to the Visitors side it will be imperative that we have about 24 volunteers each evening. Volunteering on a single Friday night game will count towards the discounting of the spring band fee ($50). If you have multiple students in our program from your family you only need to work one evening. More information will be given at that meeting and in your students band handbooks.

Odem Junior High students will not need their instruments tomorrow on the first day of school. All students in Concert Band and Symphonic Winds must have them in class on Tuesday.

Beginning Band students will have their instrument drive on Wednesday from 5-7:30pm in the Odem Band Hall. Hillje Music from San Antonio will come and setup shop that evening to do rentals. They make a weekly trip to our band hall for picking up repairs and offer a much more competitively priced set of plans than we have been receiving elsewhere. Over the past few years we have been doing repair and other business through them and have been very pleased. You are welcome to also go to South Texas Music Mart if you wish, just please let them know you’re from Odem. If they have questions on our preferences for instruments please contact us. For all clarinet and saxophone students we use Vandoren reeds. Please keep that in mind if you go somewhere other than the drive on Wednesday night. Hillje will deliver the instruments to us the next week.

Beginning Band students will need their instruments to be at school on Wednesday, August 31st if they do not order them from the drive.

One other item of note with them is they do run step-up programs as well. Often times as a student progresses on their instrument they surpass the sound qualities that they can get on their instrument. For instance on flute it is advantageous to move to a solid silver head, or even fully solid silver for their instrument. With brass instruments there are better options as students get older as well. Hillje’s program will allow you to trade in an instrument in the middle of the payment plans and upgrade to the next one.

Now that we are in the fall there will be many events each week. I ask that you keep track each week with these e-mails/Facebook posts/website posts as sometimes we have different plans each week.

This week it’s imperative that any student who has not paid their Fall Band Fees please get them in. We will not issue a band shirt to a student who has not yet paid. We are more than happy to work with them on a payment plan if needed, but we must receive something in order to pass that out. Tomorrow students will receive their handbooks with medical release forms and handbook agreement forms. Those forms must be turned in by the next day so we can be adequately prepared for our game on Thursday.

Yes, in case you missed that, the varsity football game versus Taft is Thursday this week! Essentially it will work the same as a Friday game, but just switch days. As always it is a performance and a graded event. Students will then have Friday evening off from events. Saturday will be the JV game at 10am. We will need some students to help volunteer to run that concession stand if available.

Monday:      First Day of School

                  HS Evening Practice 6:30pm-8:30pm

                  At 8:15pm we will host an abbreviated “Meet the Band”

Tuesday:     JH Concert Band and Symphonic Winds students need instruments

                  Handbook Forms Due

Wednesday: JH Beginning Band Instrument Drive 5-7:30pm

                  HS Evening Practice 5pm-6:30pm

Thursday:     Varsity Football Game versus Taft at Taft

                    4:30pm – Band Students Need to be at Band Hall

                    ~5:30pm – Board Buses

                    7:30pm – Game Begins

                    ~10:30pm – Return Home to Odem

I’m sure there may be some details that were left out in this posting, if you have any questions or concerns as always please let us know!

Mr. Steven Rash

Director of Bands

Odem High School

www.odembands.org