MINUTES FROM BAND PARENT MEETING 4/29/2010

IN ATTENDANCE: Tina Ziencina, Kevin McAvoy, Matt Babiec, Rich & Edie Chenevert, Nancy Crowe, Odette Taylor, Mary Crowley

TREASURER’S REPORT Beginning balance from last month $3,318.88; $103.65 in deposits, $783.96 in withdrawals. Current balance: $3,571.57

SPRING CONCERT The music at the spring concert was VERY enjoyable as always. I’m always very impressed by the talents of our kids! At this concert, Edie and Rich Chenevert set up a table with the memory books Edie is making for the seniors to show the parents what they will be receiving. Edie prepared a handout for the senior parents letting them know what she needs from them. I hope all the senior parents picked one up. If you didn’t and are unsure of what Edie needs from you, please e-mail her at ccc355@verizon.net. Michelle Dennis supplied flowers for the seniors to wear and will again for the banquet. Thank You Michelle! We had alumni sign up sheets for both band and chorus in preparation for our alumni concert we are planning to do next spring. We picked up quite a few names! For the fundraisers, we made $105.00 on the 50/50. The winner generously donated their portion back to the music dept. and we split the total amount with the chorus, as usual. On the bake sale, we made $119.82.

MUSIC IN THE PARKS Our first date for Music in the Parks is Friday, May 21st. (The next 2 are the following two Fridays) Kevin has received the schedule for the 21st and we have 8 groups coming in. We will sell concessions, the same as last year. This year we will also sell novelties from what we have left from last year’s Celebrate Ludlow. The times on the groups are from approximately 8:30am–1:00pm. We need help during this time to sell concessions and sign in/register the groups. I know it’s a Friday and many of you have to work however if you can, please let me know if you are able to help for any amount of time.

MEMORIAL DAY PARADE The parade is on May 31st this year. Students meet at 8:00am at the high school. Kevin would like about 6 parent volunteers to walk with the band. We have 3 already. Please let me or Kevin know if you would like to walk with the band. Rich Chenevert will again be walking with the “water wagon”. The temperature outside will determine what the kids will wear – under 80 degrees they’ll wear the uniforms, over 80 degrees they’ll wear the polo shirts. The Portugese Club has once again asked the band to play the Portugese National Anthem and will give us a donation of $600.00.

BAND BANQUET The Band Banquet will be on FRIDAY, June 18th from 5-10pm. This has been changed from our traditional Thursday night because it conflicts with the Middle School concert which creates a problem for many parents who have students in both bands. The price will remain the same as last year, $5.00 for students, to be returned at the banquet, and $20.00 for guests. We will again have flowers on the tables from Randall’s available for purchase. Those not purchased will be returned to Randall’s. Kevin will prepare and present a slide show of the students during the year. Blankets will be purchased for the seniors from Lil Dogs. Tyler Silva will come and DJ again. We will give him $100.00 this year for doing it. We are going to invite some special guests this year. Those guests are: Mrs. Mancuso, Mr. Smith (since it’s their last year with us), Mr. & Mrs. Ed Mazur (they have always been VERY generous to the band), and Mr. & Mrs. Bamford (they let us use their popcorn machine ANY time we want).

DRUM MAJOR ACADAMEY Kevin was sent a brochure and enrollment form from UMASS about their drum major academy. He feels this is a good opportunity for a student and the committee agrees. It was discussed to have kids that are interested in attending drum major academy write a letter expressing their interest in it. After all the letters are submitted, the committee will review them and choose the one we feel will be the best to go. Kevin will let the kids know about it.

MUSIC DEPARTMENT PICNIC The Music Department Picnic will be on Saturday, June 19th at Look Park. We will again be combined with the chorus for this. Everyone will bring something, like last year. I will be coordinating that with their president, Garrett Day, through e-mail.

CELEBRATE LUDLOW Celebrate Ludlow will be on Saturday, July 31st. This is a MAJOR FUNDRAISER for us. With our big trip coming up next year, it will greatly benefit us and lower our cost to do well at this. This year we were fortunate and I was able to pick twice for us. We have an inflatable bounce house as one fundraiser and chicken fingers & mozzarella sticks as another. Both of these should do VERY well. For them to do very well however, WE NEED VOLUNTEERS TO HELP!!! I’ve had some people come forward already. Thank You to those who did. However, it goes from 3:30 – 10:30 or later with the food. If you can spare even an hour or two, that will help tremendously. Please let me know if you can help out at this. It’s a lot of fun volunteering at this too. You see a lot of people you know so it’s socializing at the same time.

Meeting adjourned at 6:15 pm.
Next meeting Thursday, May 20th at 7pm.


MINUTES FROM BAND PARENT MEETING 3/4/2010

IN ATTENDANCE: Tina Ziencina, Kevin McAvoy, Rich & Edie Chenevert, Nancy Crowe, Odette Taylor

TREASURER’S REPORT Beginning balance from last month $2,812.33; $542.20 in deposits, $35.65 in withdrawals. Current balance: $3,318.88

SUBWAY COUPON BOOKS Sue Egan volunteered to sell them at Randall’s on Sunday, March 7th between 12:00 – 2:30. Over $200.00 was made during this time. Thank You Sue and family! Kevin will call the Subway representative to find out what the busy times are during the week at Subway so that we can sell them outside of there. All of the sales of these books are completely profit for us now as they have been paid for.

SPRING POPS CONCERT W/CHORUS This was on March 10th at 7pm. We enjoyed wonderful performances by the musical groups, as always. When the band played “Highlights from Wicked” it was a nice prelude to our trip to New York to see it. The 50/50 raffle was split with the chorus. The winner generously donated their winnings back to the music program. The bake sale looked yummy and did well. Thank You to those who brought in goodies. Thank You to those who volunteered with the fundraisers that evening.

WICKED TRIP The show “Wicked” was EXCELLENT! I think everyone had a WICKED good time (couldn’t resist!) We left pretty much on time and the trip went smoothly without major incident. Everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves.

SHAMROCK LOLLIPOP SALE This just didn’t happen this year. One major reason is that Mr. McAvoy, myself, and half the band were in New York for “Wicked” on St. Patrick’s Day. There are also still issues to address with the wellness policy in order to sell lollipops.

BAND ROOM STEREO Edie Chenevert composed a letter to the Fire Dept. Social Club requesting funding for the new band room stereo. This club is established to help local organizations with funding for things that they need. The letter was sent out on 3/5/10. Now we’re just waiting to hear back from them. Thank You Edie.

BAND SOCIAL EVENT We were tossing around ideas of something the band students could do that wouldn’t cost a lot of money. Sue Egan brought up the idea of gym games. She described different games – “electric” net fence, pickle ball, obstacle course. These could be done in teams if they wanted. This sounded like a good low cost option. Kevin is going to look into the availability of this for the band. Thank You Sue.

SENIOR BOOKS It was definitely decided that the memory books Edie Chenevert is making for the seniors will be given to them as gifts. Edie is still looking for more pictures for some. If your child is a senior and you haven’t given any pictures to Edie yet, please get some to her.

BAND BANQUET The date of the Band Banquet is Thursday, June 17th, from 5pm-10pm. at the Polish Club. We will ask Tyler Silva to DJ again. Tickets will be available at a later date.

ALUMNI CONCERT The Alumni concert will not be until next year. There was not enough time this year to contact ALL of the alumni and put it all together. It is now planned for April 2011 and will be a combined Band and Chorus concert. If you are or know of any Alumni who are interested, please contact Ron Saloio at rsaloio@juno.com

ETHAN BARRIEAU Ethan Barrieau is a freshman percussionist in the band. He recently made it into the All State Band and participated in the All State Music Festival. This is an outstanding accomplishment and shows Ethan’s dedication to music. The trip to the festival is quite costly. Kevin asked if the Band Parents Association would be interested in contributing to this at all to supplement his expenses. I spoke up first and immediately said yes. I feel that this is the core of what we’re supporting – the music. The “trinkets” are nice, the jackets, sweatshirts, etc. but the main reason for the band is the music and the development of talent for it. For Ethan to have such a strong interest in it as just a freshman is remarkable and we should do everything we can to support this. We voted to contribute $200.00 toward his trip. I hope we get the opportunity to do the same for many other students.

CINDY KOCH Cindy is home recovering from recent surgery. She is of course still near and dear to us and it was decided that we would send a flower arrangement to her from the band. Kevin passed a card around the band and everyone signed it. This was sent to her along with the flower arrangement.

PORTUGESE NATIONAL ANTHEM The band was asked again to play the Portugese National Anthem in the Memorial Day Parade this year. We receive a substantial donation for doing this. Meeting Adjourned at 8:30 pm Next Meeting Thursday, April 15th at 7pm in the Band Room

MINUTES FROM BAND PARENT MEETING 1/14/2010

IN ATTENDANCE: Tina Ziencina, Lisa Teixeira, Kevin McAvoy, Matt & Dana Babiec, Rich & Edie Chenevert, Nancy Crowe, Trish DelNegro, Beth Oliveira, Odette Taylor

TREASURER’S REPORT Beginning balance from last month $1,274.50; $2789.25 in deposits, $1,251.42 in withdrawals. Current balance: $2,812.33

SUBWAY COUPON BOOKS Subway coupon books are selling slowly. No response was made to the e-mail for someone to make calls to Walgreen’s and Randall’s for permission to sell them outside of these places. Tina will make these calls and set dates to do this on a Saturday. Parent and student volunteers will be needed. Discussion was made as how to increase sales in the future. The possibility of sending groups of kids out next year to sell them, similar to what soccer does with the gold cards, was made. We will address that again when the time comes.

RED ROBIN FUNDRAISER This fundraiser went VERY WELL!!! Thank You Edie Chenevert for making the arrangements and promoting it. Thank You also to all who helped and attended. It was a fun night and I believe we did well. I don’t have the exact total figure of our profit from that evening yet but it will be reported at the next Band Parent’s Meeting. Pictures from the evening are or will be on the band website.

WICKED TRIP There are 18 tickets left. We need to sell 8 of these so we won’t have to pay for empty seats of the guaranteed number. Chaperones will have to pay the cost of the trip which is $80.00. Money is due into Kevin by February 12th.

VALENTINE LOLLIPOP SALE Justin will check with Mr. Smith to see if we will be allowed to do the Valentine lollipop sale again this year. We did well on it last year and it’s a nice easy fundraiser for us to do.

AMOUNT OF FUNDRAISERS We discussed if we were having too many fundraisers and that is possibly why some of the ones we have where things are sold go slowly. It was decided that most kids at this age aren’t that aggressive about selling. It was also decided that the amount of fundraisers is ok as long as we have different kinds, which we do.

GETTING MORE PARENTS INVOLVED We talked about how to get more parents involved, ie: come to the meetings, respond to volunteer opportunities, etc. Acknowledgement was made that some peoples’ schedules just do not permit them to, but a lot more could be involved then are. We could not actually come up with a viable reason why someone would not want to be involved in an organization for their child’s benefit. We deduced that some people just have it in them to be involved.

ALUMNI CONCERT The Alumni concert is still being planned for April. Kevin will check to see what a good date is. Tina is working on the Alumni list. Ron & Lisa Saloio will call the alumni members to see how many are interested in playing. We will sell tickets to this as a fundraiser.

SENIOR SCRAPBOOKS It was decided that Edie Chenevert will make mini scrapbooks for the seniors. She will be looking for pictures and any type of memorabilia from the parents to put into the books. The cost of the books will be between $10-$15.

BAND KIDS SOCIAL ACTIVITIES Justin talked about organizing some type of social get together for the kids in band. He talked about trying to plan a sliding date but the snow hasn’t cooperated yet. They may try that during February vacation, depending on the weather. Interskate 91 was another possibility discussed. Nothing was definitely decided on.

STEREO FOR BAND ROOM Kevin explained the need for a new stereo for the band room. The current speakers were wired with alarm wire so he will also need new wiring. Rich Chenevert said he had some of that and will provide that. The cost of the new stereo would be around $250.00. Edie Chenevert said that if you write to the Fire Department Social Activities Fund, they will give you a donation. That is what it is established for, to give to organizations in the community for things that they need. Edie and Kevin made arrangements to work on that.

Meeting Adjourned at 8:00 pm