Be Prepared – Programming with GSUSA

In the 2011 fall edition of The Podium, chapters were urged to evaluate their current programming and to consider utilizing the National Programs as guideposts for future chapter projects.  In this article, we will consider the use of one of these programs:  “Scouting For Music”.

Girl Scouts of the USA has over 100 Girl Scout councils and 3.2 million Girl Scout members.  You can locate the girls and troops within your area very easily by using GSUSA’s Council Finder.  Programs for the girls are based on the Girl Scout Leadership Experience, where girls discover, connect, take action and become stronger leaders.

The Girl Scouts National Program Portfolio (the materials designed to assist girls along their adventure) includes The Girl’s Guide to Girl Scouting and three themed Journeys:  “It’s Your World – Change It!”, “It’s Your Planet – Love It!”, and “It’s Your Story – Tell It!”.  The new Girl’s Guide to Girl Scouting includes the new Legacy Badges.  In addition, Skill Building badges are also available for the girls to earn.

The transition to the new Program Portfolio has brought about some changes including the retiring of badges such as the Brownie’s “Sounds of Music” Try-It Badge and introduction of new badges like the Junior’s “Musician” Skill Building Activity Badge.

Become an advocate for girls interested in learning about music.  They are the future of our collegiate bands and the future women in music.  Contact the closest council to begin your conversation with local Troop Leaders and girls.

Need help starting your program? Email National VP for Special Projects, Kevin Earnest at kevin+scouting@tbsigma.org.

Musically Yours,

Kevin Earnest, Gamma Mu, Life Member

Tau Beta Sigma

National Vice President for Special Projects

March for Music

Will you join the March? March for Music, that is.

As you may already know, music programs all over the country, and especially in the southeast, are being cut due to lack of funding for the arts. The Southeast District of Tau Beta Sigma, in accordance with the Tau Beta Sigma Alumni Association, aims to raise money for struggling programs through fundraising, donations, and walking at March for Music. As members of our two organizations, we believe music is an important way to grow, learn, and live in life. And so, the Southeast District of Tau Beta Sigma will extend our reach next March, beyond the collegiate field, to strive to keep music in the educational curriculum of the next generation.

March for Music is an 11-hour walk-a-thon style event, where participants join teams to walk or run around a track. Each team is asked to have at least one representative on the track at all times, however, more than one is encouraged. With each team also having a designated “team area” for them to congregate. Each team will also be encouraged to sell merchandise, food, and/or other small items to raise their donation total. The eleven hours you dedicate towards this event represents music and the ability it has to affect our educational, social, and professional periods of life. Music does not cease during a lifetime, and neither will it during this event. Join us for an unforgettable day that will help shape and effect young musicians forever.

The March for Music event will be held in Marietta, GA at Jim Miller Park on March 9, 2013.

Things you need to know to register for March for Music:

• All participants must individually register for the event. Individual Registration is $15 with a mandatory additional direct donation of $5, so $20 total.
• The “Team Leader” must create the team before individuals can join their specific team. Team Registration requires a $100 minimum donation (payable by cash, check, or card). The goal is that each team is sponsored by their individual chapter, band program, or university, as well as raises money to donate to the event. All proceeds will directly benefit the 3 sponsored schools for this year’s event.
• The deadline to register individuals as well as teams, without a late fee, is February 1, 2013.  This will allow shirts to be ordered, as well as allows us to be prepared for the amount of people in attendance. After the February 1 deadline, an individual late fee of $15 and a team late fee of $50 will be imposed.

Although this is a Tau Beta Sigma event, we cannot do this alone. As sisters, we need the brothers of Kappa Kappa Psi to strength us as well as to grow, hence why our organizations were made together in the bond. Invite everyone you know who is a supporter of the arts, this is NOT a strictly ITB event. Create a team made up of band members, or the 4 musical greek organizations, or your neighborhood… this is a community event and a community project. Let us join together to establish music and the related arts as mandatory curriculum in schools.

Visit our website below to read more information about the event, see the schools we are sponsoring from around the Southeast, and TO REGISTER!

Website: http://tbsmarchformusic.webstarts.com/

Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/SEDMarchforMusic

Follow us on Twitter @SEDMarch4Music

If you have any further questions, please email me at sedvpsp@tbsigma.org.

 

With music all around us,

Belinda Baker

Tau Beta Sigma

Southeast District VP of Special Projects

Zeta Eta Chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi Takes Top Honors

Republished from scsu.edu News Archives, 2012 

For more than 30 years, the Zeta Eta Chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi National Honorary Band Fraternity has represented all facets of the University’s Band Program.  This national fraternity is dedicated to service and music performances. Recently, the Zeta Eta Chapter of the Kappa Kappa Psi was recognized during the organizations Southeast District Convention held at the University of Central Florida, Orlando, Fla.

The Southeast District is comprised of seven states; Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and South Carolina. During the convention, members of the organization attended several workshops, meetings and group activities. At the conclusion of the conference there was an awards banquet and the Zeta Eta Chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi captured three of the highest honors; the Raymond D. Shannon District Leadership Award, the Outstanding Service Award and the J. Lee Burke Student Achievement Award.

Devoted to becoming leaders in a global society, the Zeta Eta Chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi received the Raymond D. Shannon District Leadership Award for the following service project: the ‘SC State University Honor Band Clinic.’  In 2011, Florence, S.C. native Latrondrick Hunter, a senior music education major at SC State University, reinstated the SC State University Honor Band Clinic. This four-day clinic recruited high school students across the states of South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia. It presents all participants with the opportunity to rehearse and perform with a renowned band clinician. During the clinic, participants engaged in sectional rehearsals and master classes with members of the University’s Band Program with a closing concert on Sunday with a notable band clinician.

Alphonso Counts, a senior music education major at SC State University and member of the organization since 2009, is elated about the opportunity awarded to high school African-American students. “We reinstated a clinic predominately for African-American students amongst South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia. We are presenting students with the opportunity to become better musicians, helping to keep music in schools.”

The Zeta Eta Chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi also received the Outstanding Service Award for their committed service to the Orangeburg community. The organization also hosts several community service events in the Orangeburg community such as the following; a high school band camp, a high school band day and a band appreciation day.
After receiving two of the highest honors in the district, Latrondrick Hunter took home the most honorable achievement of them all, the J. Lee Burke Student Achievement Award, the award given to student leaders who have made an outstanding contribution to college bands and the Fraternity.  In honor of Dr. J. Lee Burke who served as the grand president from 1925 to 1967. Hunter, who currently serves as the president of the Zeta Eta Chapter, received the highest national award a student can receive. “I was shocked and at a loss of words, when I received this award. As a student from a Historically Black Colleges and Universities, (HBCU) out of the pool of students from six other states, it was a great feeling,” said Hunter. “It is great to know that my name will always be a part of the history and legacy of Kappa Kappa Psi he continued.

Hunter has served in several leadership capacities at SC State University. He has served as a former drum major for the Marching 101 Band, overseeing more than 300 students, and he is also a 2010 alumnus of the Conn-Selmer Institute for Music Educators, one of the most elite manufacturers and distributors of band and orchestral instruments. After graduation from to SC State University, Hunter plans to attend graduate school.

In 2010, Avery Daniels became the advisor to the Zeta Eta Chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi and transformed the organization on campus. Daniels is excited about the direction of the organization. “The Zeta Eta Chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi has evolved and is becoming more visible on campus and in the community. Members of Kappa Kappa Psi have been elected to serve as presidents and vice-presidents in other organizations on campus. We are an organization of leaders. It feels great to be recognized for all of the dedication and commitment that we have for the University’s Band Program,” he exclaimed.

All Theta, All Lambda

By: Jessica Luhrs, Theta Lambda Chapter of Tau Beta Sigma, Auburn University

Occasionally at larger chapters, sisters can experience a lack of contribution from the chapter.  Sisters sometimes rely on others to rise to the occasion and serve their band while they just sit on the sidelines.  At Auburn University, our chapter of Tau Beta Sigma currently has 46 members, and sometimes we fear that we will be one of these larger chapters that don’t have all of their sisters contributing.  However, at Auburn we have a saying called ‘All Auburn, All in’, that was originally used during the 2010 football season to rally support for the team during games.  Now, along with the SED’s new operation 100%, the sisters of Theta Lambda have set a goal to be ‘all in’ in everything that we do, and to have 100% participation in all that we do.
Since we are sisters of Tau Beta Sigma, we know that it has been an honor to be selected for us to serve our band and music department.  We therefore strive to be first and foremost a service organization that is 100% committed to helping our bands and music department in any way possible.  For Theta Lambda, this starts by completing our normal service projects that we have throughout the year, as well as being on call for our graduate assistants in the music department.  This includes helping out during band camp with our marching band by distributing uniforms to all 380 marching band members, including fitting all of our new members for their uniforms.  We’re called upon to help out the marching band when they go on away trips by distributing per diem.  We also help out throughout the season by overseeing plume distribution and mending uniforms throughout the season.

Sometimes these tasks can demand a lot from our sisters, such as when we hurry around our music building trying to find the right uniform for someone knowing that there’s still 10 people waiting in line to be fitted for their uniform.  Being in charge of plumes, we have to make sure to gather the plumes the moment that we finish performing one of our shows, which means that there’s usually sisters running throughout the band in order to collect everyone’s plumes.   Sometimes the marching band is required to leave for away trips as early as 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning, and our sisters are still expected to be up and handing out per diem to the band.  Instead of focusing on the stress that these tasks can sometimes give us, we instead focus on the positive things that we’re getting out of serving our band, such as knowing that because we fit all of the new members for their uniforms, we have an opportunity to get to know our freshmen and interact with them.

We also try to be all in by not only serving our band and music department, but by serving our community and country as well.  Every year we come up with new ideas to help our community out.  For example, this year we’ve decided to buy toys to give to children in the Philippines for Christmas, as they typically don’t receive anything during the holiday times.  By creating new service projects, we can continue to be enthused about helping out our community and country, which helps give us even more of a reason to be all in.

The sisters of Theta Lambda are so all in when it comes to serving our music department and community because of the bond that we’ve developed between us.  Developing the bond between us is something that we are all in to as well, by incorporating Tau Beta Sigma into every aspect of our lives.  For us, this is something as simple as catching up with one another before practice or rehearsal, or grabbing a bite to eat before chapter.  This bond that we’ve developed then helps us get strength to get through a rough week, because we know that we can always count on our sisters to lift us up when we need it.

Our sisters of Theta Lambda come from high schools and bands across the country, and are in different colleges and have different majors from one another.  We have sisters who hold leadership positions such as section leader, and we have sisters that are simply members of a band here at Auburn.  Though we have a large chapter full of differences, as sisters we have learned how to come together to give 100% to our band, music department, community, and ourselves by being all in, all the time.

Mu Iota Reaching Out To The Community

By: Antonio Ferrell, Mu Iota Chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi, Jacksonville State University

Starting Fall 2010, our Vice President of Service, Lauren Nowak, and the service committee came up with the idea to attend local high school football games to show our support for our local bands. We started this because we thought it would be a great way to show our support for local high schools. We know that not everyone goes to college or continues to be in band beyond high school, so we thought it would be a great opportunity to give these kids a chance to play with one of the best marching bands in the country.

The students are always ecstatic to see us and for the opportunity to play with us. They are always bursting with questions about college, the Marching Southerners, our fraternity, and they just love to have conversations with us. The Marching Southerners are a very well-known band, especially in our region of the state, so they are always thrilled to see us show up. We are frequently stopped by fans thanking us for showing up and telling us how much it meant to the kids and how great it was to hear us. We also saw this as a great opportunity to recruit for our school, band program, and chapter. When the students see our enthusiasm to our band and fraternity, it renews a spark in them and gets them excited and thinking about joining a college band, which is our overall goal- to promote the existence and welfare of college and university bands. It’s the small things like these that sway the opinion of someone to go to our school over another and to continue to be in the band program.

Small recruitment activities like this are the secret to the size of our band. We have over a 400 member band at a school of around 9,000 student enrollment, which is a little unusual to see. We started getting the word out by contacting directors asking if we could join them at their games, and most loved the idea and welcomed us to join them. The word has spread of this service and how much the students enjoy it that most directors contact us requesting that we join them. Unfortunately, we only have room in our schedules to go to about four or five high school games a season so we try to mix up where we go each season to play with everyone. So that we play with as many schools as possible, after the 3rd quarter, we also go to the visiting school’s band to play with them for the remainder of the game. This service started with just our chapter but quickly Phi Mu Alpha, Sigma Alpha Iota, and other marching band members started asking if they could join us, and we were more than happy to have more people join us from all different sections and fraternities.

Not only is this good for the high school kids, but it is also good for us to have the opportunity to work together with the other musical organizations for such a good cause showing that we can support one another. We typically have around 50 or more members of the band go to these games, which are usually the size of these high school bands, so it adds to their excitement to have the size of their band doubled for a game.

A Nu Beginning

By: Katie Phillips, Nu Alpha Chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi, Georgia State University

Georgia State University’s Kappa Kappa Psi Chapter, Nu Alpha, will be celebrating its first Founder’s Day on November 28th.  Nu Alpha began its process of getting established in the fall semester of 2010.  “I really wanted to be involved with a student organization, and when I found out Kappa Kappa Psi was a band fraternity that served not only the band but the community, that pretty much made up my mind for me” says Vice President of Service Megan Glasscock. The Chapter took almost one year to fulfill all the requirements of creating a Chapter, which is relatively a short amount of time for a Greek Organization to be formed.

The process of creating the Chapter was not all easy, though. There were many roadblocks and the members ran into some problems along the way.  The biggest roadblock for the Chapter was money. Starting up a new organization requires financial support and the group worked really hard to come up with fundraisers to help offset some costs. Most of the money used to pay off the first set of dues and service projects came out of pocket from the members. Another major obstacle was having the correct information when they were creating the Chapter. Not only did they have to achieve certain basic tasks, like creating the constitution, but they also had to learn about the school’s student organization regulations and procedures as well as those of the Fraternity’s. Many of the members of the Chapter shard many fears as well. “The biggest trouble was finding what kind of role we want to play in the School of Music and how that university would view Kappa Kappa Psi” says Glasscock.

Through all the problems along the way, the Chapter established itself as a talented group of students and musicians who are all there for the sole purpose of helping the band program, community, and creating lasting friendships through the brotherhood. Nu Alpha held a joint service project with Georgia Tech’s Chapter, Iota, last April. The two Chapters assembled a pep band and played music for the kids as they clapped along and listened to the music.

At the reception for Frank Ticheli after a conducting workshop.

The Chapter also held a reception for Frank Ticheli’s conducting workshop that was on their campus last November. This service project has been one of their most unique and honoring ones yet. The future of the Chapter is turning out to look very strong. Marina Peña, the Chapter’s President since day one explains, “As the chapter continues to strive higher ever year, I can see the Chapter being more involved on our campus and in our community both musically and through service”.  The Chapter is already planning to perform at a library next month for kids in honor of the National Month of Musicianship as well as returning to the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta next semester to play for the kids there.

A joint service project with Iota’s chapter playing for the kids at the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

The Chapter still faces one of the many setbacks that an early organization may encounter. Member Michelle Parkos says, “I would really love to see our Chapter get our name around campus. We are one of the only service fraternities on campus and I would love to see us show GSU what Kappa Kappa Psi is all about”.  This only makes the Chapter push to work harder at getting their name out around campus and set standards for their Chapter which will only drive them to work harder in the future. “Our Chapter is going to do big things!” says Peña.

The Chapter will be holding a dinner party November 28th for the members to celebrate their Founder’s Day. With only having been established as a Fraternity for a year, everyone associated with the organization is excited for the future of their Fraternity and proud of the accomplishments that they have made.

The Power of Music

By: Sarah Wilson, Epsilon Theta Chapter of Tau Beta Sigma, Georgia Institute of Technology

Throughout my life music has brought me confidence, opportunities, and friendships that have shaped who I am today. Participating in marching and concert bands allows me to let my creative juices flow and step away from all of the stresses of college life. Quite frankly, it keeps me sane, but my story is only the tiniest fraction of the great impact music can have on peoples’ lives. A recent trip to Augusta, Georgia by the Brothers and Sisters of Kappa Kappa Psi’s Iota chapter and Tau Beta Sigma’s Epsilon Theta chapter reminded us of the bigger picture that can sometimes get lost in the haze of marching sets and sheet music.

One of my sisters, Chelsea Fechter, came from a high school with a music program so small that you could hardly call it a small ensemble, let alone a band. So when she discovered this whole new world with the Georgia Tech Marching Band, she decided she wanted to help out back home. With the support of the Sisterhood, a plan was set in motion to road trip down to Augusta and work with the band director and students to come up with new warm-ups, exercises, and concert pieces.

A daunting schedule for day one of the Augusta Trip

This trip soon blossomed into a series of three visits, one per semester, which gave Brothers and Sisters an opportunity to do service and enjoy being together for a weekend. I want to focus on the last of the three Augusta Trips, as we like to call them, for something powerful happened there that moved us all.

Our final trip was packed to the brim with assemblies, instrument petting zoos, and performances. Kindergartners were amazed by those giant, shiny noisemakers we like to call tubas and even the coolest of high schoolers loved the goofy dances and cheers we did during our fight songs.

Having fun banging on the drums

Seeing the joy in the eyes of the kids who had never touched an instrument before or the band members who finally got that tricky eighth note run under their fingers made the early mornings and long days fly by. On the last day of the trip we decided to visit one of the nearby nursing homes and play for the elderly residents there. They clapped and sang along with us, cheering after every song. When we concluded our little performance, we chatted with the group and listened to their stories. We even met an old Georgia Tech alumnus who still had his RAT (Recruit At Tech) cap.

Proof that a RAT cap looks good at any age!

He proudly showed us the football scores from his first year at Tech and reminisced about all of the quirky RAT rules that have been passed down through the generations by the marching band. The real show stopper though was an elderly woman who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She had trouble remembering her last meal and could not even recognize her own daughter, but when we began playing our fight song, she knew every word. You see, the true power of music is its ability to transcend conscious thought and touch us on a much deeper level. Haven’t we all had that euphoric moment of listening to a song so beautiful and pure that it brings tears to the eyes? Those moments that shake us to the very core are the ones we will never forget. Singing your fight song may seem like an insignificant act now, but when it’s the only thing you have remembered all day, those words suddenly become the most important ones in the world. This woman’s story reminded us that the impact of music is bigger than all of us, so working together to spread music to others is crucial.

Excited for an early morning performance at Augusta Prep

The Brothers and Sisters of KKPsi and TBS here at Georgia Tech have been inspired to push ourselves further with our service to the band and the community and I, for one, wouldn’t have it any other way.