A letter from the President
of the SCBDA, Tom Finigan.

Other Letters

"Winter 2004"

The other day someone said to me, “it must be great for you to have some time off now that football season is over.”  “You know, now that THE BAND doesn’t have anything really to do?”  Little do they know what we as band directors do year round.  These people need to realize that we are just getting started with the “real teaching” that goes on in our classrooms across the state.  Many of you are finishing up your last holiday performance and delivering your last box of fruit.  Please make sure that our communities know that “THE BAND” is a year round class and that our spring semester will be just as busy as this past fall. 

SCBDA State Marching Band Championships participation numbers are increasing.  We have more bands that are participating in regional and national marching events.  South Carolina marching bands are well recognized as leaders in this activity.  Our Marching Chairman, Joe Gulledge, did a great job this past fall.  His hard work and dedication to SCBDA is really appreciated. 

A big thank you goes to Connie Grantham for compiling our directory.  We have had some technical issues in formatting our CD-ROM’s and you should be getting them soon!  In the meantime, we know all of you depend on our address directory and we will get this out to our membership before the holidays! 

In January, SCBDA will hold region and all-state band auditions at six sites. As usual, Region Band and All-State Band lists will be posted on the SC Bandlink.  Many of our region bands have added a second honor band or alternate bands, so that more students can have a clinic experience. Our Region Bands will hold clinics in February at five sites. All-State Band will be hosted at Furman University, March 18-20.  This may conflict with All-State Chorus, but for SCBDA to keep our clinicians this year we had to move our date.  I apologize for any scheduling problems this may have caused, but it was the best solution for SCBDA.  Our Clinicians for All-State Band this year are Ray Cramer, Rick Clary and Linda Gammon.  I think you will agree that this is one of the strongest group of conductors that SCBDA has ever had.   Special thanks to our All-State Chairman, Joe Meshach.  Joe is a tireless worker and is always trying to improve his committee.  

I want to encourage all of our directors to plan to attend the 2005 SCMEA In-Service Conference on Feb. 10-13 in Charleston at the North Charleston Convention Center.  Michael Foxworth has done a great job planning and setting up this year’s convention.  We have a number of fine bands performing this year and some innovative clinics to give you some new ideas!  I want to remind our membership that this is an election year and we will have our business meeting this weekend.  We also have a by-laws change dealing with the creation of a Winter Ensemble Committee.  If you have proposals or changes for SCBDA, this is the time to submit them.  Please remember to meet all deadlines.  We are all very busy but we must do things on time!  Remember that our business meeting is Saturday, February 12 from 3-5 PM.  All SCBDA business is to be conducted at this important meeting. 

I hope you enjoy the holiday season with friends and family.  Get some rest and come back in January ready to go for 2005!  Don’t ever forget that you as a band director make a HUGE difference in the lives of your students.

Tom Finigan, President
South Carolina Band Directors Association