3rd Competition Update
I just sent the following email through CHARMS a few minutes ago, as we have been informed that the CHARMS email send issue has been fixed. Therefore, all parent and student addresses should be receiving emails through CHARMS once again. However, I’m sending it through our Gmail address book just to be sure everyone gets it. IF you do not receive this email through the CHARMS system, by Tuesday morning, please let me know. Thank you.
I hope everyone had a good Fall break, maybe able to get some time off and rejuvenate. The Souder family sure did!
It was definitely a rocky one out on the field today but I know tomorrow will be better after our students get back in the swing. As I outlined in an email before Fall break, it’s a busy week with Homecoming so PLEASE reinforce to your students that they need to manage their time more carefully, drink lots of water, wash their hands frequently, and sleep as early as they can.
I sent a couple remind texts this afternoon – Bucks Tales due tonight ([email protected]) and JSU lunch/dinner money ($20) being collected by Mrs. Jackson at end of rehearsal Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. The earlier – the better for her job.
I spoke to the band today about the 3rd competition situation. You may recall the original plan was to have our final competition on October 27th. Unfortunately, I have not been able to secure a contest venue for that date. I have been trying for a long time. Several contest venues have changed dates from previous years, others will not accommodate our ACT test-takers (unusual), and others cannot get us in now. However, there is a great opportunity to compete the very next weekend, November 3rd, at the first ever Alabama State Marching Band Championships. The inaugural year will be hosted by Muscle Shoals High School Band in their very nice stadium. In speaking to the band today, they seemed very excited for this opportunity and in hopes that we can work through potential conflicts, our students and staff certainly want to go. If we were not able to participate in this contest, our students’ competition season would end this Saturday, which I know would be an especially big disappointment for our seniors.
With all of this said, only a small handful of students came forward with potential conflicts for Saturday, November 3rd. I believe we were able to work out almost all of them. If your student has a conflict that you are not confident can be adjusted, please send me an email about it immediately.
This is the first time I’ve ever had to change a contest date. I did not want to and will always try to avoid having to do so. Again, the staff and I are very hopeful we can provide our students with a 3rd competition opportunity to really achieve what they’ve been working so hard on all season. Thanks to Mr. David Waters at Muscle Shoals High School, we are already registered and I will find out the specific schedule soon – projected to be a late afternoon – evening performance time – but I need to confirm by tomorrow (Tuesday) evening that we will be attending, so please let me know immediately if your student has a conflict that you do not think can be accommodated for a late afternoon – early evening competition performance at Muscle Shoals High School on Saturday, November 3rd.
*The Alabama State Marching Band Championship will be comparable to BOA (Bands of America) formatting and adjudication with high quality adjudicators from across the country.