Posted by Craig on June 01, 2003 at 20:31:02:
In Reply to: extravagant student ensemble trips posted by js on June 01, 2003 at 13:09:25:
First off I'll agree that sometimes the trips that bands take are a little bit crazy and extreme. My high school band has taken lots of big trips, but they have a very good organization. Here the band director does not pick the trips, our seniors pick from a list that the Band's Club (a band boosters type deal) comes up with of different competitions in different places. Yes we do have the dreaded fundraisers to raise the money - we have that and a $500 dollar "fair share" to raise as well through fruit and poinsettia sales. In this situation it's up to the band students and their parents to get off their bums, get away from their TV and go around the neighborhood or the office. Most people will chip in. More recently the entire band organization and it's parents came together and raised enough money to fly the band to the Midwest clinic and back (we performed there Dec. 2001) from Raleigh, NC to Chicago. No one in the band had to pay anything and it was great. It was a short trip, but if organizations could do it that way, maybe things would be a little easier. Or maybe I'm just dreaming because of the uniquness (sp?) of that trip. I've been on 3 band trips (2 high school and one in my youth brass band to NABBA) and they've all been a good distance away from where I live, but they were good trips. Why were they good trips? Because we had something to do. We weren't going on vacation we were going to perform and to compete and play the crap out of our music and that's exactly what we did. Can any band do this? Probably not, I'm just trying to say our trips aren't selling band because the directors fail at their jobs - they don't because both of those band are easily the best in the state.
I'm sorry for that long wordy post, but I felt I had to get it out - it's just the opinion of a now FORMER high school student (woohoo).
Craig