Vandebilt Catholic High School Band

Hey everyone!! This is Anna .. it's my turn again haha!

                Wow! .. I'm not sure where to begin haha .. Band Camp has been absolutely amazing. I know so many people have said that it was so much fun .. which is usually not something anyone would call band camp. Every day the drum majors and the leaders planned a team building activity .. these ranged from things like relays, a water balloon toss, and Ships and Sailors (which is kind of like Simon Says). A contest that lasted all two weeks was called Penny Wars ... as Patrick talked about in the last blog, the band was divided into random color teams .. so Penny Wars was not only a contest to see which team would win the most points, but it's also a way to collect money to donate to an organization of our choosing .. We will probably do this again during the year, but the organization that we chose to give our money to from these two weeks is the Make-A-Wish foundation. Just in the first week of Band Camp we collected over 700 dollars! We think this is a great way to give back to our country and community by working together and having fun at the same time.

                This week, each day had a different dress-down theme.. Monday was Matching Monday, Tuesday was Team Color Tuesday, Wednesday was Wizard of Oz Wednesday (which goes along with the theme of our marching show), and today was Thug Thursday.. It was awesome to see so many people go all out in their outfits this week haha! We definitely grew so much closer and it was great to be able to stand in a huge circle and sing songs together .. haha .. yeah, we did that!

                On a different note .. we've learned so much in these past weeks .. despite the weather, we still got so much work done. We had lots of time to work on music which has improved since the beginning of camp. We didnt get to go on the field at all this week which lost us some good time to get lots of more work done, but Mr. Adams is working on some other ways to gain back that time and we are confident that everything will work out fine and we will be able to get done what we need to get done..

                I want to thank the staff, the other leaders and officers, and especially the drum majors for all of your hard work and time that you devoted to making this band camp a special one! And thanks to every member of the band for pushing yourselves .. your hard work does not go unrecognized, I promise!! This was only the beginning to a really great year!

Keep checking for more updates and feel free to come stop by practice any time!

Hey guys!

         This is my first time doing the blog because Anna is usually the one who does it, but it's my turn!

         A lot has happened since the last time we entered a blog. The Drum Majors had a great time at DMA where we learned many great things about how to be better leaders for our band family. Maria, Shakira, and I had a lot of good DM bonding time, and we really got to know each other pretty well.

         The DMs returned just in time for percussion camp! Percussion Camp went great, and many awesome things were accomplished. The percussionists got a lot done musically and also made great strides as a section. The drum majors were able to get some band camp things taken care of, and now that band camp has started we have begun to see the uses of the leader's ideas help the group grow substantially. 

         We are about to start our third day of Band Camp, and Color Wars is going fairly well! For those who do not know what Color Wars is, it is a fun camp experience that involves everyone being placed on random teams and playing games as a team to build group togetherness. The band has done so great the past two days with being flexible with weather issues. We have gotten more accomplished as a band in the past two days as we did in probably the entire first week last year. I am so pleased with everyone's work ethic and personal goals. All the members have pushed themselves to new heights in these short few days. This persistence will soon give results and we will be a great band. All of the leaders and staff are so excited to see how this year will turn out, and i know personally that this is going to be a great year for us!

         The DMs have come up with a lot of fun games and activities for band camp that will hopefully lighten the mood and bring us closer as a group. Another thing that will bring us closer as a band will be attending mass as a band once a month. We attended the 5:30 mass at St. Francis this past Sunday, and it was a good opportunity to hang out with each other and God for a little bit.

         I am so excited for the rest of this week! All we have left is a few marching elements, and we will be able to begin with drill! The music is sounding pretty good for early season, and if i don't mess up too badly the band will line up very well haha.

         Well i guess that is all for now, and hopefully we will have more great news to talk about next time a blog will be written! Guess it's time to go memorize music! Bye!

Everyone come check us out at camp! ---Patrick

Hey everyone! Everything is still going great .. we had practice this week on Tuesday and Thursday. We have many new members so it was great to meet a few of them .. It was also the first time the band got to meet Ms. Timmer, our new assistant band director. We are so excited for her to be here with us and we already love her. Practices this week were really fun! We focused on pulse and learning to find the beat in music. Mr. Adams has us mark time to some random music from his iPod .. Thursday we had some Justin Bieber .. I'm pretty sure everyone loves this exercise. This coming week is percussion camp, and more preparation for band camp will be happening. Friday, the leaders will be going to a leadership convention with Dr. Tim Lautzenheiser ... he is the same person that held a conference when we were in Disney World a few months ago .. we loved him then so this should a be fun day. 

I hope everyone is having a great summer! See you all soon   - Anna

Thank you to all who gave up their time and talents to teach and work with the kids at Elementary Band Camp. Your help is greatly appreciated, and we want to also thank Mrs. Julie Bilello for making the snowballs. The kids have been having so much fun learning about music. Mrs. Sarah Todd, our choir teacher, has been teaching a theory class. She has helped the beginning band kids learn how to read music very quickly. They also do many hands-on activities in her class. Today they played musical chairs, and I could tell they really had fun.

throughout the season, we will have posts from anna (our band captain), patrick (center podium drum major, and myself (director) keeping family and alums current with what's going on with the regiment....

currently, we are on the thursday morning of elementary band clinic - we have 60 students studying with us this week - in both the beginning and advanced band.....alums ben frederick and megan luke (thren) are teaching the ensembles........over 20 of our high school students have volunteered to assist this week with ensemble, theory, and sectionals.......an endeavor like this couldn't be accomplished without the support of our current members.........

we also have steven wilson, sarah todd, and jessica timmer (our new assistant director) working the camp - everything is running smoothly, and this is - by far - the furthest our students have been along during this camp......this afternoon, we have to select our students for camp honors - in anticipation of our concert tomorrow morning at 11.....the kids are doing great - it will be a great concert.....

one of the big projects from last year - resurfacing our practice field, installing a sprinkler system, and planting bermuda is complete.....the grass is looking beautiful - we still have a few weeds, we can't hit the grass with weed killer this season - something about the grass isn't old enough yet or something like that......we also have some ants - a problem we have to get solved before july 18h - regardless, it's a good looking field, crowned in the center - and should give us a great surface to rehearse on this fall.......

plans for the show are coming along - we have all of our copyrights secured except for one - it has to come from italy - so once we attain that, we are good to go......the wind and guard students start rehearsals next tuesday evening at 6 pm - we are very anxious to get going......

the dancers just returned from UDA camp - where both teams (yes both - we have begun a jv dance team this year) earned blue ribbons (the highest level of achievement)......the drum line and front ensemble has been coming in for sectionals - we are ready to go......the staff comes in daily - get a few things done in anticipation of the new season.......we are ready to roll......

check back here often - anna and patrick will be posting soon........they, along with the captains of the regiment, have been very busy planning for the upcoming season.......they have some innovative things to implement this season - i am very pleased with their leadership........

the band has a facebook page now - vc regiment - and don't forget the alumni association on facebook........through these resources, we can get all of our information out to our former members........looking forward to a great season........stop by and see us anytime.......ba