Announcements 11/8/2020

I’ve got to brag on the band students! This year has been the hardest year in every regard. Students have been in and out of class, we’d changed plans dozens of times and we’ve had to shift, cancel, or change so many things this semester.

We started this year without knowing if there would be a season, if we would get to travel, or if there would be in class learning. We’ve had masks, social distancing, and not a single indoor rehearsal with the full band.

It would be really easy for bad attitudes to develop or for the students to stop working, but they haven’t. They have had a fantastic spirit and done so much incredibly hard work.

I’m so grateful that we’ve had this opportunity when so many others have not and I’m so impressed by the young men and women of the band that have preserved and worked so hard throughout the passed 7 months of a global pandemic.

A couple of quick updates moving into this next week:

1. We are looking at changing our Christmas concert to December 5th. This is the day of the Eastland Christmas Parade. We will be marching the Christmas Parade (actually leading it!) and then immediately set up and perform our concert in the lyric. This is a really neat opportunity that we don’t normally get to do because it is the same day as all-region. This year all-region is online so we can do this parade. Students will need to wear jeans and dress up “Christmassy.” (Santa hats, red and green, etc)

2. We will continue to perform our Machinations 2.0 show for the next couple of games, but we will put a stand tune performance in front of it (like we usually do for playoff games). This will fill in where we have been featuring various groups throughout the semester.

3. In our continued attempt to feature as many seniors as possible this year, we will have an opportunity for the seniors to form a national anthem senior ensemble to play at the next pep rally as well as the Christmas concert. That music will be available on Tuesday after school.

4. We’re organizing canned food drive and Christmas caroling soon. Stay tuned in.

5. The band is going to be helping with lighting up the square on November 21st at 9:00am. This is voluntary but going to be a really cool community oriented service project. (We’ll also be participating in the first lighting of the square this year at the end of the parade route on December 5th.)

6. The first playoff game is going to be on Thursday against Callisburg in Decatur, TX. I will have details as soon as possible. We are going to push our “Eastland Band Film Festival” one week forward to Tuesday November 17th.