# Musical Club Reinstated



## Smatticus (Oct 31, 2004)

This year in the Norwich School Distrcit we have been on a contingency budget because the community voted down the proposed budget. All of our extracurricular activities and programs (with the exception of some sports) were cut for this year. In the summer we created Norwich CARES (Community Action to Restore ExtracurricularS) to help raise funds and work with the board to reinstate activities as quickly as possible. Norwich CARES was responsible for reinstating the marching band (which won first place in Small School I this season). 

We have been struggling with the school board to reinstate other activities since the beginning of the year and we finally have had some success. Our Musical Club was reinstated last week and we have already had our first meeting. This year's musical will be The Music Man. Other programs that have been reinstated include a variety of other clubs, the FIRST robotics team, and Jazz Band.

Another goal of Norwich CARES will be to promote voter awareness for next year's school budget vote. Thankfully we have been able to work around this year's problems with the budget up to this point. I have heard of some school districts in New York State that have been sued by citizens in order to reinstate activities.


----------



## len (Oct 31, 2004)

Good for you! Amazing what a group of people can do when they try.


----------



## Mayhem (Oct 31, 2004)

Congratulations and well done.


----------



## avkid (Oct 31, 2004)

you want to talk about small marching bands eh? we have a 5 person marching band (6 when i show up to help)for grades 6-12!!!!!!!!


----------



## Peter (Oct 31, 2004)

lol, that's a small marching band!

Last year our school went through something similar. The State (MA) cut its school funding drastically, leaving our school with the choice to A) bankrupt the 7 towns in our district or B) cut nearly everything and let the towns stay afloat. They chose B (because if they had chosen A, the state would have come in and taken control of the towns and not funded the schools anyway!)

We started the school year with only a few sports teams, and those teams could only play "in league" games, wich ment that some teams had as few as 8 games. Student Council and everything were cut, so a group of about 6 or 7 kids (myself included) got together and decided that we were going to have student council meetings anyway, even if they locked us out of the rooms and wouldnt recognize us because we didnt have a faculity advisor. To shorten the story up, we didnt have elections to be on the student council, intestead we just invied the whole school. Within a two meetings we had over 20 people comming to the meetings (if we had elected, we would have had only 12 people)! We rolled several other activities into the umbrella of student council, and were quite active. As the old student coucil used to do, we sent our minutes to the school committee (as a represnetative to the School Committee, i presented them). The school committee did not know what to think of the fact that students took enough initiative of their own to do all the work to run all these orgainizations without outside help. 

This was such a shock to them, they decided right then that if these activities were this important to students the first thing they would do with the next grant they recieved was fund all the extra curricular activities that had been cut. And wouldnt you know it, later that meeting, somone else announced that we had recieved a grant, and we got our activities back, including student council and our drama department!

Anyway, news of what we did got out, and we found out that publicitiy is your friend! Before too long, Brown University was flying me and a few of my friends to San Diego to speak at the National Association of Secondary School Principals national conference, (and of course, we had to see the sights arround Sand Diego!) My piece of advice, keep working hard and try to drum up publicity. (Also, keep a record of the work you are doing for this, because it will look great on college applications!)


----------



## Peter (Oct 31, 2004)

Oh ya, one more thing, how is it that it is always the techs who end up putting in all this work to make good things happen at school? I guess we are just used to working hard in the theator to make things work out well in the end!


----------



## propmonkey (Nov 1, 2004)

we had a competitive marching band my freshman year. we got 7 out 8 in the state it was our first year and we were in the top class(we bet a school who has been marching for 8 years). we had to cut it. our director is also directing the middle school. our distrist is cuting alot of things this year.


----------



## ccfan213 (Nov 1, 2004)

our marching band is awesome and i would join it if it werent for tech and my youth group, they practice for hours every day. they do so much work they even get varsity jackets. i have heard amazing things about it from my friends but i just dont have time, and for the 1st time ever our budget was voted down this year


----------



## Peter (Nov 1, 2004)

Since this is turning into a Marching Band forum, our Concert Band pretends to be a marching band a few times a year (actuallly once in the spring and once in the fall). We do not have a football team (simply because we are such a small school that we do not have enough people to make up a team, and have a soccer team at the same time, and people arround here play more soccer anyway (and soccer is cheaper)) without a football team to play for, we only do actual parades, The Big E (like a state fair, but for all of New England Together, it is a HUGE fair) in the fall and 3 memorial day parades. (there are 7 towns in my disctict, and the HS gets a random 3, the MS gets a different 2 and two of the towns never have a parade)


----------



## Radman (Nov 1, 2004)

Our band wins the Christmas City of the North Parade every year, and partly due to the fact that all band students are automatically required to be in the marching band! Probably 600 kids about~


----------



## ccfan213 (Nov 1, 2004)

since were all talkin bout marching band, what instruments do y'all play?
i play alto sax but im hopin to switch to tenor


----------



## Peter (Nov 1, 2004)

Clarinet for me! I have what is sure to be a fun evening tomorow with my Band. A local college is comming to do a joint concert with my High school's band. That means they will play 2 songs by themselves, then my band will play one song, then both bands will play together for 3 more songs. This means that by the end of the night we will have 150+ people on my tiny stage! I am not sure how we are all going to fit, but I know i am going to have to push back the cyc and tie back all the side curtains! It is going to be a crazy concert, that's for sure! Oh ya, did I mention I have to run lights, and sound, and record the entire concert? (yes, even when I am playing!) There is a chance I will end up bringing the remote control for my sound card up on stage with me, so i can ajust the recording level depending on how loud we are. I dono, it is going to be interesting!


----------



## propmonkey (Nov 2, 2004)

percussion. i played timpani the last 2 years but since we got new ($17,000) timpani from phantom regiment the section leadre plays them. we have a concert band and wind ensemble. freshman year we took i beilve 2nd at the all-americna music festivel at hardrock in orlando. wind ensemble got perfect last year for the state thing and concert band got a 1. we have a pretty strong program. most people come to the football game to hear us and ntot our horrible football team...


----------



## ccfan213 (Nov 2, 2004)

haha same here no one ever watches our football games, but halftime comes and people stop talking to watch the marching band


----------



## len (Nov 2, 2004)

It's so sad that when schools have to trim budgets, the arts is the first place they look, and sports is always the last.

I don't know why people can't get it that arts education stimulates every type of learning in children, from fine and gross motor coordination, to creative and logical thinking, working in groups, etc. And usually nobody gets injured. Yet the football and basketball programs, which usually bring in a little more revenue, never get cut. Hmmm. I thought schools were supposed to be not for profit.

Fortunately, our district doesn't see things that way. In fact, my oldest daughter will be marching in the Rose Bowl parade in January.


----------



## ccfan213 (Nov 2, 2004)

last year governor mcgreevy, and i will not comment on the recent scandal that resulted in his resignation, well he cut state funding for the arts and in protest we held a funeral for the arts. one art class walked through the halls with an open casket that they had made and kids threw in sheet music and paint brushes and clay. it was a really cool protest.


----------



## avkid (Nov 2, 2004)

euphonium(baritone) and some trombone, bass and snare drums


----------



## Peter (Nov 2, 2004)

LoL Ya for the people watching the Band! I personaly dont like watching football at all, so i would defanatly be one of those people watching the band instead!

Ian: Congrats to your daughter! 

Our, Jazz band, Concert and marching band, combined have a budget of $100 this year (not counting the part-time teacher's salary). At least they have a budget though!


----------



## Smatticus (Nov 2, 2004)

I agree with you len, unfortunately it is the arts that go first. It is actually kind of weird at our high school, we have three music teachers and three art teachers; all the music programs are very strong. On the other hand we have basically one technology teacher... and our school just renovated the wood working shop and classrooms... but now there are hardly any classes because we only have one teacher. What sense does this make? 

Speaking of things not making sense our FIRST robotics team builds our robot in the machine shop at BOCES, yet this year BOCES cancelled their machining program. They had said they were going to maintain the shop for us but now they are hastily rearranging very expensive, sensitive milling machines to make more classroom space. We had to get all of our tools out this past weekend. These milling machines were set perfectly level in their proper places according to code and now they have just been rearranged and the leveling plates all mixed up. Why?!?!

Since this kind of did become a topic of marching band I'll share my experience with everyone. Last year I joined our Norwich Purple Tornado Field Band and I learned how to play marching bass drum. Last year I also played keyboard in the pit and this year I played bass drum and conducted backfield for one of the songs of our show. This year our show was Carnival of the Animals. (www.smatticus.com or www.norwichfieldband.org) The previous two years our band has been in Small School II in the New York State Field Band Conference and we took first place in our class both years. This year we actually moved up a class to SSI and, almost unbelievably, took first place. As a personal note to anyone who reads this marching band is an awesome, awesome experience and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in something as musical and high energy as this. I've never been involved in sports and never really had school pride but with marching band you get the best of everything. It's like being on a sports team and playing music at the same time. The only thing I can really think to call it is unique and a whole lot of fun!

PS: How many times have you read to the bottom of the forum and typed a reply message only to realize that you didn't go on to read the second page? :x


----------



## Peter (Nov 4, 2004)

Actually I did that (reading to the end of the page and not going to the next page) with my last post in this thread!


----------



## ccfan213 (Nov 4, 2004)

lol peter... i doubt anyone noticed


----------



## Peter (Nov 5, 2004)

I wouldnt have said anything untill you commented on it! lol


----------



## Smatticus (Nov 5, 2004)

Dude! We had a pep rally at school today (which we very, very rarely do at our school - but it was because the football team has their last big game of the season that decides of they go to championships) but we had the band and drumline with our instruments in the gym with everyone and we played our fight songs during the pep rally. Near the end we started playing this one fight song we end every football game with; we had a couple hundred people dancing in a train around the floor of the gym. We threw our harnesses on for our drums and joined in. They had tried to get us to stop playing and I guess formally end the rally but it didn't work, we just kept playing right out the doors of the gym when it hit three o'clock. On our way back to the music wing all the drumline lined up in the social studies hallway and played the cadence back to the drum room. That's a fun way to end a Friday I'll tell you!


----------



## ccfan213 (Nov 5, 2004)

lol our pep rally for homecoming was terrible, there was absolutely no pep. the marching band with the addition of those of us in concert band who felt like it played all the fight songs, and the teams were all introduced, but no one was paying attention becasue the sound system on the football field is incredibly old and you cant hear anything. there is nothing anyone can do about this short of replacing the whole system or listening to what i have to say about using a portable system :-D which of course the janitors wont do. anyway... absolutely no pep at our pep rally.


----------



## Smatticus (Nov 5, 2004)

Ussually there isn't any pep at any we have either, but this time it was awesome, we're are all pretty much in agreeance that we should do this every Friday so people will want to come back the next week to do it again.  The sound system they used was hardwired in the gymnasium (not that good either)... for the first speaker there was a lot of feedback, it was very sensitive but it was better after that, it was still hard to hear though. We got a new portable sound system for marching band this year, it was too bad we didn't get it set for them to use, it would have been much better.


----------



## ccfan213 (Nov 5, 2004)

our football field isnt just a little bad, you actually have no idea what anyone is saying. there is an echo on top of everything else that is wrong so any possible sound you might hear despite the other problems dissapears into just random noise because of the echo. we are getting an entire new system installed in the auditorium, hopefully they are doing it now since we have this week off, and after they install it we will have the old amp and speakers, which are relatively new and we can use those with our old board or the one that is already in the announcers box. it would be incredibly easy to set up and all they would need to do is bring the speakers into the box after games and put them out or on the roof of the box before them. granted its not the best solution, but it costs absolutley nothing and would be pretty easy to do. unfortunately we have a janitor who thinks he knows sound and told the admin that it wont work. he also completely screwed up the sound during an assembly and then yelled at me for fixing it and actually told our light guy that i dont know what the fu*k im doing. i absolutely hate this janitor, he only causes trouble for me!! but there really isnt anything i can do. wow, i got really sidetracked there. interesting how a topic can go from being about the arts dept to being about marching bands to being about pep rallys to my post now about a janitor who thinks he knows sound.


----------



## Smatticus (Nov 28, 2004)

Since we were talking about marching band here I thought it would be pretty cool to mention this; the last show I just worked on was in our community theater and it was Miracle on 34th Street. For one scene in the first act that is supposed to take place right before the Macy's parade we had almost our entire marching band in uniform perform during the show as if they were part of the parade in the story. I had to run down the back hallway and stairs, get on stage with my drum, play our finale and then we marched out the house doors. I gave somebody else my drum and ran back up the stairs to the booth to continue the show.


----------



## avkid (Nov 28, 2004)

My high school's football team won the NYS class A State championship last friday night!


----------

