BPO Committees

You have to be on several BPO Committees. What is the point otherwise? Select those committees that fit your skills, your personality and your bank account.

Chaperone Committee
Riding for hours in a crowded un-air-conditioned, bumping, jerking school bus with 40 band members after an exhausting 18 hour day defies description. You must experience it for yourself.

Chaperoning is one of the most important band parent skills. A large marching band is a community. Chaperones are its constables and social workers. You will learn much that you can use later as a military drill instructor, maximum security prison guard or wild animal trainer.

Before becoming a chaperone you must be investigated and approved by your local police department. Band parents with the foresight to have felony convictions involving crimes of moral turpitude can not be chaperones. If you are an unlucky law-abiding band parent who isn't sure just what the heck "turpitude" means then resign yourself to an intimate familiarity with school buses.

The power and authority of band chaperones is an extension of the power and authority of the band directors. Chaperones enforce the band directors' will when the directors are not personally present. Most school districts require a minimum ratio of chaperones to band members of about 1:20. Well-run band chaperone committees strive for a ratio closer to 1:1. It is common practice to put the band members on the buses and then fill up all empty seats with chaperones. Extra chaperones follow in a caravan of cars, SUV's and minivans.

The chaperone's duties are many. You will take the roll as the buses board, insure that band members have all their uniform and equipment, attempt to maintain quiet proper behavior on the bus (heaven help you on the return trip if they win), see that the bus is clean after the trip (i.e. you will clean the bus), get water to thirsty band members after they perform, escort them to and from the toilets, provide first aid to the ill or injured, seek medical care for the seriously ill or injured, get clean loaner socks to and dirty loaner socks back from the sockless (and launder dirty loaner socks) and clean the band's seating area after the event. Additionally on overnight trips you will patrol hotel hallways at night, try to stop those band members who usually make complete fools of themselves from making complete fools of themselves, wake up band members in the morning and escort band members to restaurants in which innocent members of the general public are also trying to eat.

You need to know about band buses. Band buses are just ordinary school buses used to transport the band. To make school buses inexpensive for school districts to buy the Federal Government has exempted them from the safety and anti-pollution rules that apply to cars. They have no seat belts, no catalytic converters, no head rests, flimsy side walls and only two narrow doors. Forget air bags or crash padding. The non-pollution-controlled exhaust from a bus smells terrible and you don't want to think about what it is doing to your lungs.

School buses were designed to take small children on short trips. Comfort was ignored (small children don't vote in school board elections). There is no air conditioning or sound proofing. The non-contoured seats are rock hard and sized for 7 year olds. The windows are hard to open when its hot and hard to close when it rains. The suspension and shock absorbing systems are rudimentary. The brakes squeal loudly. Apparently no one is in a hurry to get to school because these buses have a top speed of 45 mph (downgrade with a stiff wind behind). Consequently it takes a very long time to take the band anywhere. Bands with sufficient funds charter comfortable coach buses for long trips. This is a powerful incentive for chaperone band parents to help in fund raising.

Poem Link- "Band Buses"

The novice chaperone must carefully review all the rules for chaperones and band members. If rigorously enforced these will keep band member behavior from becoming more than mildly intolerable at least some of the time. Some band rules are so weird that the incidents that inspired them must have been incredible. Enforce these rules very strictly so that whatever it was doesn't happen to you.

Especially enforce the rule against singing on the band bus. The importance of this rule may not immediately be apparent. Group singing of such adolescent classics as "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" was once widely accepted on band buses. Diversity of vocal culture prevents this today. Everyone wants to sing different songs. Think of the nightmare of a bus in which some are singing "Rap" while others sing "Country" and others "Heavy Metal" while one budding baritone in the back belts out the "Kindertotenlieder". If that baritone has a loud voice with plenty of projection the whole bus will soon be so depressed that they won't be able to perform. Instead of singing have the students review the multiplication tables instead. If they know the multiplication tables cold then have them work out the cube roots of the first 50 prime numbers to 5 places. No fair using calculators!

Chaperones must occasionally deal with band members who violate the rules set down by the band directors. This will happen about 27 times an hour. It is important to distinguish between minor offenses such as talking too loudly on a band bus and major offenses such as throwing a soda bottle out of a band bus window.

Deal with minor offenses by a cautionary glance or word. For major offenses impose the ultimate sanction. Bring the miscreant to the attention of the band director.

By a little known exemption in the Constitution band directors are not bound by Due Process or the Bill of Rights when dealing with errant band members. Protections against double jeopardy and self- incrimination do not apply. Consequently offending band members usually confess their misdeeds and accept whatever punishment (de-littering the practice field, polishing the tympani) the director imposes. Repeat offenders may face the most dreaded band punishment: tidying the band hall after every football game for the rest of their high school careers. (In 1967 a Federal Appeals court ruled that this constituted "cruel and unusual punishment" and should not be allowed. The Supreme Court overturned this in a 9-0 ruling. The Justices stated that while they were all for human rights, they were not about to extend them to trombone players.)

Poem Link- "Band Parent Chaperones"

Pit Crew and Loading Crew Committee
The duties of the Pit Crew and Loading Crew are similar. The Loading Crew handles pit equipment and the band truck at the school. The Pit Crew handles them at the stadium. Both work closely with the student loading crew and the pit band members. Membership usually overlaps to a considerable extent since some people just can't get enough of manhandling marimbas.

Every band trip you will lug everything the band needs out of the band hall, put all of it on the truck, take it all off the truck at the performance site, put part of it (empty cases, etc.) back on the truck, move the rest of it into place for performance, make emergency repairs to much of it, take it back to the truck after the performance, take what you left on the truck off the truck, then put all of it back on the truck, back at the band hall take it all off the truck and lug it back inside. (If it threatens to rain you will take it on and off the truck several more times.)

Several Pit Crew members will enjoy additional involvement driving the truck, navigating the truck, cleaning the truck and, if unlucky, repairing the truck.

"Move the rest of it into place for performance" means lugging it onto an outdoor marching field at a contest or, more frequently, a football game. You'll carry, roll or drag the equipment several hundred yards over uneven, often soggy, ground.

Band equipment, especially the large percussion instruments, were designed to move over smooth indoor floors. Field lugging can challenge the most determined of band parents. At football games you must move it past, around or through football players, coaches, mascots, cheerleaders, officials, the other side's band and all of their equipment. But numbers are on your side. Few obstacles on earth can resist the onslaught of fifty determined band parents resplendent in T-shirts and photo pins.

Recording Committee
Remember those nerds in your high school's Audio-Visual Club? They grew up and did what nerds do. They went to fancy colleges, earned fancy degrees, got fancy jobs paying fancy salaries and bought thousands of dollars worth of fancy video equipment. Now they or others like them form your band's Recording Committee.

It is often a sub-committee of the Chaperone or Loading Crew Committee. They record band performances and rehearsals for the band directors. If you are very nice to them they may let you make copies for yourself.

Fund Rai$ing Committee
Money. Band programs need it. They need a whole huge quantity of it! The Fund Raising Committee must see that they get it.

Band parents use almost every legal method of obtaining money from selling bric-a-brac door to door to sponsoring entertainment extravaganzas like a 20 elephant five-ring circus.

Poem Link- "Fund Rai$ing"

Begging- It's simple, cheap to set up and works to a surprising extent. Ask all the band parents for an annual band fee. If they have given themselves they will be all the more ready to ask others to do the same. Try local businesses, fraternal and sororal organizations and local government. At worst they will say no. Every now and again they will give something. You can't lose.

Selling- A tried and true technique pioneered by Girl Scouts with cookies. Success depends on entrepreneurial flair. It helps to sell something people want. This is not always possible. A legion of groups from little league soccer teams to the Sons of Saint Antrobus are trying to raise money. Good items are hard to find. Even public spirited band lovers will buy only so many Columbus Day toast holders. (The author himself only has twelve.) Selling has a dangerous side effect. Sell too much or too often and your friends and co-workers will shun you and you will be a pariah.

Car Washes- Cars continuously get dirty. This is a good funding source used by just about every organization at some time. Select band members car washers carefully. As mentioned they are teenagers.

A certain natural destructiveness seems to be genetically programmed into teenagers. An examination of the low brass instruments in any band hall will make this apparent. Its original purpose was probably to make parents happy when their children finally moved out on their own. You don't want damage done to people's cars. People are very protective of their cars. Screen band member car washers to find those few with a light touch and tendency toward neatness. Stand the rest of them near the street with signs to attract customers. Make sure they understand that blocking traffic is an offense.

Sponsoring Events- A big bang approach to make a lot of money all at once from a spectacular event. You need entertainers who will give you a cut of the box office in exchange for your sponsorship. Try medium name (i.e., somewhat famous) entertainers, circuses, carnivals, etc. Its amazing what people will pay to see. Study the life of P.T. Barnum for inspiration.

Sponsor Band Contests- Why just be in them? Sponsor your own! Money is to be had. Participating bands pay participant fees. The audience pays admission fees. Everyone buys food and drink. The trick is to get judges, proctors, parking attendants and so on to donate their time. But what else are band parents for?

Judges are hardest. It is nifty to have judges with a bit of reputation for something to do with bands. Don't use the fellows who judged livestock at last year's county fair. The band directors probably know someone who owes them a favor.

Hold Dinners- People eat regularly and frequently. Use this to the band's advantage. Sell food, indeed complete dinners. Be sure to sell the dinners for more than the cost to prepare and package them. This is very important. Miscalculate and the band could lose money. It is likewise important to offer food that people want to eat. Chopped kale quiche with fresh tripe dinners are usually not successful even though they are very inexpensive on a per plate basis.

Telephone Committee
A miracle of modern telecommunications, the Telephone Committee is the vital electronic link among band parents. It works on a system that expands like a tree (called a telephone tree). The Committee chair receives urgent information from the BPO board and then calls a number of committee members, say seven, each of whom then calls seven more band parents each of whom calls seven more until every band parent is contacted.

This is how it works:

1. The BPO President calls an urgent emergency meeting to deal with an harmonium crisis.

2. The president calls the Telephone Committee chair. She is not home but her teenaged son takes the message. He fails to write it down and forgets to tell his mother.

3. The next morning the BPO President learns from some band parents that they did not get the message.

4. The BPO President calls the Telephone Committee chair again this time reaches her answering machine which is more reliable than her son and records the message.

5. Eight hours later the Telephone Committee chair comes home from work, listens to the message and calls the next seven committee members only four of whom are home.

6. The Telephone Committee chair spends the next three hours calling the twenty-one band parents on the call lists of the three committee members she could not reach but succeeds in reaching only twelve.

7. Then she again calls the three committee members she could not reach reaching two of them. They then call their seven band parents who get the message for a second time.

8. And so forth and so on........................

9. After everyone has hung up 63% of band parents eventually got the message, 22% got it two or more times, 18% got it after the meeting was over and 37% never received it at all.

This is just an example. In real life is this level of success is never achieved.

Poem Link- "Band Telephones"

Community Relations Committee
Your band is part of your community. It is important to have good relations and friendly feeling between the two. The band and BPO should seek out avenues of community involvement. This can be done in a casual way. A formal exchange of ambassadors is usually not required.

Newsletter Committee
Knowledge is power. You want every band parent to be knowledgeable about the band program. This will empower them to come help or at least send money. There will always be some band parents who can not attend BPO meetings. Someone has to work on Tuesday nights. This is the why and wherefore of the Newsletter Committee. It distills the important information about band activities (and as much unimportant information as will fit) onto a few closely typed pages and sends it via post to every band member's parents.

Simple.

Yet there are difficulties. First Class mail is expensive. Often bands send newsletters at the cheaper presorted bulk mail rate. The commitment of the Postal Service to the speedy delivery of such mail could be questioned by reasonable people acting reasonably.

The alternatives are not good. Carrier pigeons have limited weight capacity. Direct delivery by band parent volunteers is cumbersome. Most band parents do not have FAX machines. Air drops deliver many copies to non-band parents and litter the landscape. So stick with the mails. Just be sure to mail very early. Newsletters for December meetings should be posted no later than August 31st.

Once the newsletter is delivered will band parents read it? It might be mistaken for junk mail. Easily. This is where the Telephone Committee is invaluable. After the newsletter mailing have them call each band parent to remind them to read the newsletter.

Publicity Committee
If you have a double-plus-good band program you want people to know about it. They might give you some money. They might not, but it is certain that they won't if they don't know about it.

In most schools the band is the single largest organization on campus. It should receive the lion's share of school related publicity. The sad truth is that a championship high school band involving 300 students gets less newspaper coverage than a 20 man junior varsity lacrosse team with a losing record. This can lead to unwarranted levels of support for sports programs by the school board and the public.

Excessive support for sports means less support for the band. So large is the imbalance between sports coverage and band coverage that one could conclude that newspapers recruit their staffs solely from ex-high school jocks. This is probably not the case. Still it would not hurt to encourage some band members toward careers in journalism.

The BPO Publicity Committee's job is to get your band the recognition it deserves. Just telling the press about the wonderful band things going on will not work. No newspaper wants to print good news. Newspapers are only happy when they can report that everybody else is miserable. You must present the band program to the press in ways the press will find interesting.

Dare to be Different. The usual round of band fund raising and performance may be important but it just isn't news. Try something really new and different. For example the band could march a full-size (down to the 32 foot stop) bellows-blown pipe organ.

Dare to be Devious. Send a letter to the newspaper decrying the lack of band coverage. Include a full summary of band activities which the newspaper has overlooked. Have other band parents spontaneously write similar letters. Now comes the devious part. Write a letter over an assumed (but plausible) name taking issue with your own letters. This creates controversy. Newspapers love controversy. Keep writing increasingly strident letters on both sides of the issue. Continue to include as much real information about the band as possible. Soon the paper will send a reporter to investigate this growing controversy. Hire actors to represent the anti-band side. This can go on for years. Even if the newspaper discovers how you have tricked them it just means one more article about how you did it. Remember, 'There is no bad publicity.'

Dare to be Daring. Concerns for legal liability prevent specific recommendations. Note that the author is not pointing out that headlines like the following would be irresistible to any newspaper-

"High School Band Goes Over Niagara Falls in a Barrel"

"Local Band Performs at Summit of Mt. Everest"

"Marching Band Marches to the South Pole"

"Magician Makes High School Band Disappear"

"Wing-walking Band Marches on Airborne Boeing 767"

Trip Committee
At least once a year bands pay homage to their nomadic marching origins by taking a trip. You may have read of the great journeys of Marco Polo to China, Christopher Columbus to America, Lewis and Clark to the Louisiana Territory and Roald Amundsen to the South Pole. None of those remotely compares for daring or adventure with taking a high school band halfway across the state to a contest.

The Trip Committee is responsible for planning the trip, making arrangements, collecting money and being the target of complaints when things go wrong. That last bit is the easy part.

A trip involving several hundred band members and auxiliaries presents challenges which even the most seasoned of travelers among band parents might not suspect. Finding an hotel with 200 vacancies on the night you need them can be difficult. Finding an hotel with 200 vacancies on the night you need them who will take several hundred band members and auxiliaries will be even harder. Once you do find such an hotel you will have to try to negotiate a price within your budget. If you can't you must start the search all over again.

Restaurants pose similar problems. The number of restaurants that can seat 400 people is surprisingly small. The number of restaurants that can seat 400 people and serve them in a reasonably short period of time is even smaller. The number of these that can feed 400 people for a price within your budget is much smaller still. The number of those within walking distance of a place that 10 band buses can park is pretty darn close to zero. A trip involving just one night out of town will require at least three such restaurants located close to your route of travel.

Travel will usually be by bus. Chartering 10 buses is actually rather easy. You must be sure the bus company clearly understands your intended use for the buses. They should select their drivers carefully. Driving a bus is one thing. Driving a bus full of band members is something else.

Poem Link-"BAND BUS DRIVERS"

Sometimes bands travel so far that travel must be by air.

There are two options. You can charter aircraft for the trip or you can book the band on scheduled commercial flights. Chartering is more complicated but you have more control. There are no non-band passengers to inconvenience. You can set your own schedule. You can make special arrangements for outsize baggage more easily. Commercial flights are simpler. Just buy the needed number of tickets.

In either case a fall back plan in case of canceled flights or weather delays is essential. You don't want the directors and chaperones to be stuck with several hundred hungry, bored, tired band members for hours on end at an airport. In that case listening to the complaints would not be the easy part.

Contingency plans are a good idea for all components of the trip. Having a large amount of money along in the form of travelers checks in the possession of the band director or charge cards with very high credit limits in the possession of directors and/or chaperones is the best contingency measure.

Information packets for parents are important. They should include complete information on itinerary and schedule. They should be delivered to parents by a more reliable means than band members.

All sorts of emergencies occur when this many people are involved. One lucky Trip Committee member should be designated the At Home Contact Person. Parents will be able to call the contact for updated information or to alert them to problems ("My chronically ill band member left home without her medicine and will be comatose within the hour!") or sudden changes of plan ("My band member son has a very rare blood type and is urgently needed to save a life.") The band directors or chaperone in chief should check in with the contact at every opportunity but at least hourly.

Once the preparations are in good order you need to collect the money. If the school or band parents are picking up the cost this will be easy. If band members are paying individually this will not be easy. Some  people will pay up in advance. You will come to love those people. Others will pay up after one or two reminders. The rest must be hounded relentlessly and still will not pay up until just before the cancellation date, if then.

The good thing about being on the Trip Committee is that you get to stay home. Its the chaperones who actually have to make the trip with the band.

Uniform Committee
Bands wear uniforms. Sure you know that. But did you ever think about how those uniforms get on those band members? At the beginning of every school year a band has a uniform room full of uniforms unassigned to band members. The band parent uniform committee must fit each and every member with a uniform.

First you sort all the uniform parts (jackets, pants, hats, etc.) by size. Then you sort all the band members by size. You may think that band members returning from last year could just use the same uniform again this year. That overlooks the rapid grow rates experienced by band-aged persons.

Once everyone and every thing is sorted starting with the biggest or smallest have everyone try on uniforms. As soon as a piece fits assign it to the band member. Once that member is completely fitted and go on to the next. If you have a good large committee this process will only take a week.

Periodically band uniforms must be dry cleaned. This period can be made as long as possible by making sure students only wear the uniforms when necessary. Have them put the uniforms on just before a performance. Have them take them off immediately afterward. Have them wear something decent underneath.

Poem Link- "Band Uniforms"

Copyright 1996 by George Yenetchi

Copyright 1994. 1995, 1996 , 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006 by George Yenetchi