Odem Bands Schedule Week of April 4th, 2016

How are we already in April? Time flies fast this time of year! This week we have a number of Carnegie Hall Trip items occurring, but our main focus in class with the bands competing on UIL will be refining our performances from this past Thursday. Thank you for helping us make that performance a successful one!

Before I get to this weeks events I would like to first congratulate the Odem High School Screeching Owl Jazz Band on earning a Superior Rating at the Texas A&M University Kingsville’s 49th Annual Jazz Festival on Saturday! They also won 1st Place in Class 3A Competition! This is an outstanding accomplishment for these students since this competition is geared much more towards the large schools. There were many 4A, 5A, and 6A bands that did not earn Superior Ratings yesterday; and that our students earned a Superior from all three judges is a sign that the students genuinely performed well at a very competitive festival! Congratulations again to those students!

The monthly meeting of the Owl Band Boosters will be Tuesday night at 7pm at the Band Hall. At this meeting we will have the annual nomination of officers with elections for the 2016-2017 year taking place in May. If you think you might be able or willing to serve I believe there will be a couple of vacancies for next year.

All trips should be Paid in Full at this time. I will send out balances again here in a while. Please be sure that those trips are paid off completely! We have paid off the major bills as of Friday, but we would like to be able to add in some additional items for the students and need to make those decisions with the money in the account. Thank you to majority of you who have completed those payments!

For the group traveling to Carnegie this week is a big week! We will first rehearse on Thursday evening as usual so we can work on some of our pieces and refining them. Saturday though is our recording date for our submission for our final approval from DCINY. It is imperative that every student is at the rehearsal on Saturday! Please be sure that your student is there no later than 1pm at the Band Hall. We have blocked out two hours in case we need to re-record anything.

At 3PM then on Saturday we will begin our meeting to discuss all of the details of the trip. Every student needs to be present with a parent/guardian for this meeting. I will go over every detail that I have thought of and will answer any questions afterwards of items that aren’t answered through the presentation. Forms will be handed out at that time and we would prefer to have them filled out and returned at that time. We have a copy machine in our office that may be used to make copies of insurance cards. I would also like to have copies of any student’s drivers license/ID who is over 18 at the time of our trip.

Following that meeting at around 4pm we will begin our Chaperone meeting with all adults who will be traveling on the trip with us. I will go over the expectations of sponsors on the trip and we’ll work to make sure we’re all on the same page heading into everything.

Finally jumping back in time about 6 hours, beginning at eleven or so I am hoping to be able to start getting students to try on their dresses and tuxedos for us to check lengths. The students formalwear all arrived Friday, and during this we discovered the dresses were not hemmed to size. I will be finding someone to assist us with getting those hemmed to their proper lengths. More information about that fitting session will go out Wednesday.

Monday:  Open until 5pm

Tuesday: Open until 5pm. (Guard Practice) Booster Meeting

Wednesday: Open until 4:45pm (Guard Practice)

Thursday: Open until 4:15pm, then 5:30pm-End of Carnegie Rehearsal

Friday: Open until 4:00pm

Saturday: Carnegie Recording Day

1pm-3pm: Recording in Band Hall

3pm-4pm: Mandatory Parent/Student Meeting

4pm-5pm: Chaperone Meeting

Thank you again for all of your help and support of these amazing students! If you have any questions please feel free to contact us!

Mr. Steven Rash

Director of Bands

Odem High School

www.odembands.org