November 2, 2020
Please make note of the important upcoming dates including the first playoff game on November 6th.
Important Upcoming Dates
- Tuesday, November 3rd NO school/practice
- Thursday, November 5th Full band practice
- Friday, November 6th Senior Adopter Reveal @Wades Grove pavilion
- Friday, November 6th Home playoff game
- 5:00pm call time for Leadership
- 5:30pm call time for Band
- Tuesday, November 10th – November Parent Meeting location or zoom link to be posted when available
- Wednesday, November 11th ‘Reverse Veteran’s Parade’ details to be distributed by 11/4
- Wednesday, November 11th Veteran’s Day Flag Installation – sign up via this link Veterans Day Flag Install Sign Up
***As the temperatures change for practice after school – sweatpants are acceptable instead of shorts***
Marching Season Reminder
As a reminder – the marching season continues through the end of the football playoffs and/or the Spring Hill Christmas parade. Band students and Color Guard are expected to be present at all football games where the band plays and parades. Football playoffs have been known to extend into early December, including Thanksgiving week!
Senior Adopter REVEAL!!
We are so grateful for our Senior Adopters this year – you all have been so great as you have treated our seniors throughout the season and showed them so much love in this year when not much has gone has planned.
On Friday, November 6th Seniors & their adopters will meet up at the Wades Grove pavilion in the Wades Grove subdivision to celebrate the end of the regular season. The pavilion is covered, but not enclosed and will allow for social distancing for the group, and parking is available. We will meet at 3:30pm after school and wrap up around 5:30pm. Seniors and the adopters will get a complimentary boxed Chick-fil-A meal and any adopter parents or senior parents or siblings who want to attend can purchase a meal for $7 in Charms. Contact Melissa Lahey at missylahey@me.com by Wednesday, November 4th if you have any questions.
Veteran’s Day Flag Install
The US Flag subscription service is one of the BIGGEST fundraisers we have and the next flag installation will be Veteran’s Day on Wednesday, November 11th. We will continue with what has worked so well and respect social distancing guidelines by having separate time slots per driver for flag pick up. Click on this link to sign up Veterans Day Flag Install Sign Up
You are welcome to recruit a second student to help with your flag route according to your social distancing preferences and comfort level. For this program to be all it can be, we NEED drivers AND students to participate in at least 2 installs each year – if you have sold even one flag subscription.
If you haven’t installed flags or driven for a route before here is a video to check out Flag Install Tutorial
For those of you who have new flag program subscribers and/or renewals to turn in, you may submit those until Sunday, November 7th for the Veteran’s Day installation.
Social Media Update
Be sure to follow us on Twitter @wcsSHSband – we are dusting this off and tweeting again!
Financial Update
At the October parent meeting we updated the financial snapshot of where we were in reaching our individual donation/fundraising goal for 2020.
The Mum sale and Letter writing campaign fully funded our 2020 budget, a goal we have NEVER achieved in the past! However, this year we have a drastically reduced budget and we are grateful to have met and surpassed that goal. Our band parents have truly stepped up and jumped in to fundraise and send in donations during these unprecedented times, we are so grateful for your support and hard work.
Keep in mind, we still have some dire needs we would like to address with any surplus we may have – specifically additional instruments and replacement of old instruments or instruments beyond repair. If you haven’t been able to fundraise (through Mum sales, letter campaign donations, Flag subscriptions or Scrips) this year’s donation amount of $250 please send that in so we can move forward with some of those vital purchases to set the students up for excellence for the remainder of this school year and next. Speaking of next year – if we can go back to a regular, full competitive band season our donation amount per student will increase back up to approximately $1,000. That amount includes a meal plan (for band camp and the season), a BOA competition trip (Bands of America) and a fully funded competition season. Fundraising will continue to be very important as we move through the remainder of the fall as the funds we continue to receive over the fall and winter can potentially impact the donation amount for the 2021 season.
Fundraising
Mum Sales Feedback.
Feedback welcome: As you all know, the Mum fundraiser was the first attempt at this type of fundraiser. It was also our first time partnering with the vendor we used for this sale. Now that the mums are blooming, I would like to know if you feel the plants are of good quality. If you have had any issues, can you please email me at spartanbandfundraising@gmail.com? Remember, mums will be impacted by the freezing temps. If they were left outside during the colder nights over the past two weeks, it could impact their blooms. Thanks in advance.Thank you to all for your patience, flexibility and support as we worked through a few hiccups with this specific sale.
We have approval to move forward with the Poinsettia sale in November!! Details and dates will be discussed at the November parent meeting.
Letter Writing Campaign
So far we have had donations of over $5,000 from the letter writing campaign! A thank you postcard will be going out to all who donated through this fundraiser and we will update as more donations come in.
Spirit Night
Stay tuned for our November & December Spirit Night dates & restaurants.
Ongoing Fundraisers
Corporate Matches
Many employers will match or partially match the donations of an employee – check with your HR department to see if this is something your company offers & that you can participate in. If you are eligible this is the best way to proceed:
- Make your monetary donation to the band and email spartanbandtreasurer@gmail.com for a letter confirming receipt (will be needed to turn in to your company)
- Submit for the match through your company – using the Summit High School PTSO tax ID (The band is under the PTSO, we do not have a separate tax ID)
- Email the PTSO treasurer and Band treasurer to let them know the company and amount of donation/match and approximate date (most take 30-90 days to process)
- The PTSO Treasurer will write a check for the amount to the band once it is received from your employer
- You may want to follow up after a reasonable amount of time to make sure the match was received and given to the band
Flag Subscriptions
Veterans Day will be our next flag installation Day, make plans NOW to sign up and volunteer to drive a route! Here is the link to pick your time Veteran’s Day Flag Install Sign Up
Now is the time to sell new flag subscriptions and renewals!
Important Note – Please contact the Bonsons & Leals for flag questions ONLY through the Summitusflag@gmail.com email address, this way your question or concern does not get lost and they can find everything in one place
Kroger Cares
This ongoing fundraiser brings in $600-$700 a quarter!! Be sure to link your Kroger card to Summit High School Band and we receive a % of your grocery bill! You can use the Kroger app and it takes less than five minutes to update your card. Invite all of your family members to link their cards as well. It’s a quick and easy way to help the band just by going to the grocery store!
Shop with Scrip
We raised over $500 in September with Shop with Scrip!!
Shop with e-gift cards via your phone or computer or physical gift cards and earn a 4%-10% (or more) rebate.
You can find a PDF in the Facebook group with step by step instructions to set up your Scrips account and how to purchase gift cards and egift cards.
The holidays are a GREAT time to utilize this fundraising tool if you can plan ahead. E-cards are easy to purchase for point of sales in retail stores or to use for online shopping. If you want to have physical cards, those are sent to the board treasurer twice a month. We will announce ordering deadlines for physical gift cards to arrive in time for the holidays in the next couple weeks.
Volunteering
2020 certainly continues to present opportunities for flexibility and creativity – and this football season is no different! 🙂 But one thing we know for sure is that our Marching Spartan Community is up for the challenge! Currently, Covid Protocols allow for (10) parent volunteers to assist our students at the (5) home football games this season.
We would like to offer our parents of Seniors who would like to sign up to volunteer to fill in slots first. Also, we ask that volunteers please only sign up initially for (one) shift to allow others an opportunity to serve.
Home Game Parent VolunteersThank you so much, Spartan Family! We need you. We appreciate you!
We encourage all parents to think about your interests, skills and talents and how you can use those for the enrichment of this band program. We have many behind-the-scenes opportunities and we are hoping to cultivate and plug in lots of our new parents this year. We will be looking to fill both lead volunteer positions and volunteer support for those areas.
Be sure to fill out this survey to share with us your gifts & talents – so we can find the perfect place for you!
2020 Band Parent Volunteer Form
We specifically will be looking for board members for the 2021-2022 school year – please reach out to spartanbandinfo@gmail.com if you are interested in learning more about a board position.
Stacey Dobecki
Spartan Band Secretary
& Communications
spartanbandinfo@gmail.com
Summit High School Spartan Band 