First let me introduce myself, I am Carl Cruthis and I will be serving you as our District President until November 2011.  This is my second year at Guilford Middle School in Greensboro teaching band and theatre and I am honored and deeply humbled that you would allow me to serve you in this position. 

To all of the new teachers let me say ‘Welcome!” from all of us, we all know how you feel at this very moment, we all have been there.  Please take advantage of this group of music educators and ask questions, I know we all would be happy to help.  With that said, please direct all questions to me so that I can forward it to the group that it pertains to, that way we don’t flood everyone’s inbox with emails.  We also have a group on facebook.com in which you can post your questions there as well; the link to the group is below.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=254225547916

I know that there may be a group of you that are thinking…

 “What is NCMEA and why are they talking to me?”

That is a great question in which I have an answer for:  NCMEA is an organization for the music educators in the state of North Carolina, who operate under the authority of MENC (Music Educators National Conference).  This organization offers many opportunities for you to grow professionally and connect with other educators with your same passion. 

 “What does NCMEA have to offer?”

Through NCMEA many of our students in District 7 have benefitted through participating and the many state wide events such as:

• All-District Band/Orchestra
• All-State Chorus
• Honors Chorus
• And the many Festivals and MPA’s that you can attend.

You must be a member in order to reap the benefits and honors that come through NCMEA.  NCMEA also prides itself in hosting one of the top In-Service Conferences for music educators in the region.  This year we had the privilege of hosting the King’s Singers at Conference and we hope to host the Boston Brass in 2010!  Please visit MENC.org for more information and to find out how you can join this great organization.

 Lastly, I want to thank you again for this opportunity to serve you as your District President, and please do not hesitate to let me know of any concerns, comments or suggestions you have that you would like presented to the Board.  Have a great second semester!

 Best regards,

 Carl W. Cruthis, Director of Bands
NCMEA District 7 President
Guilford Middle School

 I hope you had a wonderful and restful holiday break. Of course, we hit the ground running now that we’re back. We have several district-wide events coming up very soon. Some are pertinent to all of you and some are pertinent to respective content areas. I wanted to make you aware of a few things that are coming up that need to be on your radars for the next few months.

 1) On Stage: Don’t forget that On Stage applications are due January 12. I have heard from several of you. There are some of you who have said you will be auditioning but I have not received an application. Make sure you get those applications in to me either by courier or fax (370-4207) by January 12. I will then prepare the audition schedule and get that back to you immediately. Remember, you may audition by videotape. On Stage is April 29 with a dress rehearsal on April 28 and a rehearsal on Saturday, April 24. Production meetings will be March 1, 2, and 3. You have your choice as to which production meeting you’d like to attend. Any live auditions will be February 1-2 at Southwest HS.

 2) GCS All-County Musical: Information is below with the exception of the county-wide kickoff date for students, parents, faculty, and staff and the audition dates. Please get this information out to all of your students and it would be beneficial to get the information school-wide. This will be sent to principals and CFs this week but I wanted you to get it first. The kick-off for the event will be at Weaver Academy auditorium on January 21 at 7:00. This is for all who are interested in knowing more, interested in auditioning, interested in holding a volunteer position, and to meet the current staff who are in charge of the production. Audition dates will be at Grimsley HS on March 8 (choral rehearsal room), 9, 16, 22, and 31 (all in auditorium). We have decided that it would be best to separate auditions via age group. Once we have determined what each date will be, I will send that out to you then. Please consider being a part of the staff for this event. Band and orchestra directors, I will inform you of how we will determine auditions for the pit at a later date. The musical will be in July during the second and third weekends. If interested in holding a position, please e-mail Mitchel Sommers at msommers@ctgso.org.

 3) Summer Arts Institute: Paperwork as well as a database of students who were nominated last year will be coming out to you hopefully today. I have been assured that we will absolutely kick-off this program this year. The money has been encumbered and we are set to go. I am oscillating on whether or not to hold the week-long session during the week of July 5 or the week of July 12. I would welcome your suggestions if you see problems with any of those. We will have a limited number of scholarships available for students. We will definitely need some students who are capable of paying the fee. The only changes we have made is that we had to increase the fee to $100 for the week. This was due to the sales tax increase as we will need the extra money for supplies. Still, $100 for the week of instruction is a steal.

 4) Arts Education Summit: This will be June 14 rather than May this year. We are doing this to kill two birds with one stone. GCS designed the professional development days (i.e., the one you attended in August) so that you get 4 hours in August but have to attend another 2 hours in June to get the full credit for professional development for both days. Therefore, we will hold the Arts Education Summit on June 14 so that will satisfy your required last 2 hours get the full credit.

 5) All-Counties: All-County MS Chorus will be at Page HS on February 25 at 7:00 PM, All-County Elementary Chorus will be at Smith HS on March 18 at 7:00 PM, and All-County Band will be at Grimsley HS on April 8 at 7:00 PM. Come out and support these students and your colleagues if you can.

 That’s all for now. I’ll communicate content specific events with each area. Hope you have a great day!

 Nathan Street

 
Kensington March…Edmondson
Woodlake March…O’Reilly
Lexington March…Edmondson
Valley Forge March…Edmondson
Liberty Fleet…KL King
Stony Creek March…McGinty
Forward March…Murtha
Barnstormers March…Orcino
Torch of Liberty…KL King
Courage March…Bennett (arr. Clark)
Southern Heritage March…Williams
March Saranac…O’Reilly
Greenland March…Kopetz
March Ahead…Feldstein & O’Reilly
A March on the King’s Highway…LaPlante
Fallbrook March…O’Reilly
Mahattan Beach…Sousa/Story
Norland March…Edmondson
Grays Harbor March…Hodges
Utah Beech…Edmondson

 We had originally planned to have Fruteland Jackson on October 19 for a teachers workshop. Due to circumstances that has arisen, we will not be hosting Fruteland on October 19. We will be having our regularly scheduled meeting dates and times during the month of October. We will be rescheduling Fruteland and that process is already underway. Once we have a solid date again, I will let you know. Of course, we will use the date as a make-up day for anyone who will be or has missed more than one monthly meeting. If you have not missed any monthly meetings, we will add 0.2 to your overall credits for your monthly meetings.

 In other CEU news, please mark May 17, 2010 (originally scheduled to be the Arts Education Summit) off your calendar. If you’ll remember back to August 21 at your professional development session, you’ll recall that we had to cut the day short and you all spent from 8:00-12:00 in sessions. GCS does not give CEUs for any event less than 6 hours. A credit of 0.6 was assigned to that PD day to cover 6 hours. The intention of GCS is to finish that 0.6 credit on our last PD date which will be June 14, 2010. I have decided to kill two birds with one stone and knock off another day you’d have to be in a meeting/seminar/session. We will have the Arts Education Summit on June 14, 2010.

 In summary, you will be:

 1) Attending all your monthly meetings ( with flexibility of missing one)

2) Attending Fruteland Jackson workshop on date TBA (make-up session for those missing more than one meeting or extra 0.2)

3) Arts Education Summit has been moved to June 14.

 Nathan Street

As you know by now (returning teachers) or if you don’t know (new teachers) the school system will pay for your instruments to be repaired. You must go through the work order selection on the maintenance website to make this work. In addition, we will be utilizing a new system where we review work orders and invoices. To make this effective, I must have an up-to-date inventory from each director. We will be utilizing the inventories in our process. If you wish to utilize the county’s repair services this year, you will have to have an up-to-date inventory on file with me. If we do not have an inventory, your repair request will be denied. I have most of your inventories, so thank you. If you purchase new equipment, please update your inventory and send me a copy. Please do not just send me the updated information. Send me an updated inventory list.

 Thank you and have a wonderful weekend!

 Nathan Street

This is a teacher’s resource guide of programs offered throughout our area. This guide is meant to provide you with options for guests in your classroom, opportunities outside of school for your students, and potential field trips. This resource was put together by GCS, the Arts Councils of GSO and HP, and the Guilford Education Alliance. Please take a moment to peruse through it and hopefully there is something of which you can use or take advantage.

Nathan Street

Teacher Resource Guide

GCS-CUI: Band Director´s Monthly Meetings 2009-10

1) After a very productive meeting held today, instrument repairs and piano tunings are once again operational. You may continue to submit district-owned instruments for repairs. Please only submit instruments that are county-owned.

2) It is critical for all band and orchestra directors to submit your instrument inventory. I know some of you have submitted your inventories already; however, I need you to submit again in Excel with the following information (does not have to be in this order):

Brand, instrument, serial number, condition, estimated time of purchase, estimated remaining life cycle of instrument

If your inventory has more information than this, that will be fine; however, it is important that your inventory contains this information. Right now, I am not concerned with music inventories as the instrument inventory is the most pressing issue at the moment. It is crucial that you present an accurate account of your instruments and their conditions. In regard to conditions, please do not send terms such as “fair, good, etc.” I need your most accurate assessment of the remaining life cycle in terms of years for that particular instrument.

3) HS marching band directors: Please begin submitting your marching band repairs. You will need to have all marching band repairs submitted by June 15 to get them back on time. As of now, we are going to be using Moore Music and Jackson’s Music to handle repairs for the summer. This will be considering that Jackson’s Music holds up the current agreement. If we can seal this deal, I will be forwarding you a procedure guide and what locations’ instruments will be sent to either Jackson’s or Moore.

4) I will be sending an e-mail out regarding piano tuning as well.

Thanks for attention to these items as they are most important right now.

Nathan Street

Here is a rough sketch of the In-Service day’s activities. Big thanks to Jennifer Stewart-Walter and Michael Whalen for their work in helping put this together. I wanted you to see what you will be involved in during the day. We owe much thanks to Brett Nolker, David Teachout, John Locke, Jennifer Stewart-Walter, Connie McKoy, Rebecca MacLeod, Don Hodges, Beverly Alt, Teresa Allred, Raymond Petro, Alan Parker, Susie Hines, and MacMillan/McGraw-Hill for presenting during this event. This is something designed for you and even though it will not be as extensive as NCMEA will be, at least we can bring something that will prove to be beneficial to you before you start the new school year.

GCS Staff Devel 09 Revised

Nathan Street