JET Band Winter Dinner Concert & Silent Auction

The annual Winter Dinner, Concert, and Silent Auction is set for Monday evening, February 9, 2009, with dinner served from 5:45 to 8:00 PM.  The Concert schedule begins at 6 PM and runs as follows:

6:00 Percussion Ensembles
6:30 JV Band
7:00 Cadet Band
7:30 Concert Band
8:00 Symphonic Band
8:30 Wind Ensemble 

Click here for an itinerary showing when the students in each band should eat dinner, report for uniform check-out, and report for warm-up prior to their performance.  This should help you plan your evening if you want to eat dinner with your child, see their band perform, and allow time for shopping at the auction!

Dinner & Bake Sale: 
We need volunteers for the dinner to help with decorations, serving, and bake sale bakers & workers.  Kathy Miesner is leading the Dinner.  Please contact Kathy at 281-578-2880 or e-mail dinner.concert@jetband.org to volunteer. 

Cheryl Hollabaugh is leading the Bake Sale.  We have a good number of bakers who have volunteered, but still need bake sale workers for these shifts:   4:30 - 6 PM, 7 - 8 PM, and 8 - 9 PM plus clean up.  If you are providing baked goods, cookies and brownies can be bagged 2 or 3 to a bag, depending on size. Other items like cupcakes can come individually and will be served on a plate.  Pies and Cakes need to come whole, and they will be sliced and put on plates.  If you want to help, contact Cheryl at 281-398-3308 or e-mail bake.sale@jetband.org.

Click here for an order form for the dinner tickets.  Remember, this is the one concert of the year where a ticket is required for admission.  You also need to purchase a dinner ticket for your student.  Order tickets online by clicking here.  We have extended the deadline for dinner ticket orders to end of school day on Wed., February 4!  But that's the absolute LAST minute you can get tickets.  NO tickets are sold at the door! 

Auction: 
Denise Mazurek is serving as the Auction Chairman.  Click here for more information about the auction and what we need parents to do.  Please start thinking about items you could donate for the auction.  In addition to the theme baskets from each band/group, some of the items that were very popular last year were tickets to the Houston Rodeo, concerts, sports teams like the Rockets or Aeros, and the Shell Open.  When thinking about donations, remember that services & goodies you can provide make great donations, too.  For example, you could donate "Pizza and Brownies for Lunch for 5 Students" and no doubt the kids would love to bid on that!  Or how about "An Italian Dinner Delivered to your Home" or "A pot of Homemade Chili & Fixin's" -- think about what appeals to you and be creative!

The Band Baskets are always very popular.  We have developed a range of basket themes so that we have a good mix of items for auction.  Band Basket Coordinators and basket themes are listed below.  Click on the theme name for more details, including your coordinator's contact information.  Please contact the coordinator for your child's band promptly to work out the details of your contribution to the basket. 

Wind Ensemble:  Shelly Chetty, Theme "Curl Up With a Good Book"
Symphonic Band:  Paula Matthews, Theme "Dorm Essentials - College Bound"
Concert Band:  Jacque Dritsas, Theme "A Night in Italy"
Cadet Band:  Karen Miekle, Theme "A Fun Night Out"
JV Band:  Brenda Gust, Theme "Everything Chocolate & Coffee"
Color Guard:  Michelle Zimmermann, Theme "Gift Card Tree"
Drumline:  Lisa Robert, Theme "Sports Fanatic"

Our band families are always generous, but ideally, we would like to obtain donations from the local business community.  The Auction Chair will contact businesses as is possible, but it is much too big a job to rely on one or two people to solicit business donations in the short timeframe remaining before the auction.  Therefore, we ask all band families to please consider soliciting businesses that you patronize, or with whom you have a personal relationship, to ask for auction donations.  Click here for a letter you can use when soliciting donations from local merchants.  These donations are very important to us having another successful auction. 

Donations can be brought to the Band Booster meeting on Thursday, Feb. 5.  If you cannot bring your donations to the meeting, please call your band's basket coordinator or Denise Mazurek (281-829-9244) or send an e-mail to auction@jetband.org to arrange for donations to be picked up.

Volunteers are needed to help with assembling the baskets and preparing the donations for display.  That work will be done on Friday thru Sunday, Feb. 6, 7, & 8.  Volunteers are also needed to help with the auction set up (beginning at 2:45 PM on Monday, Feb. 9), monitoring the auction, closing the auction and checking out winning bidder's purchases, and cleaning up and clearing out afterward.  Please call Denise at 281-829-9244 or e-mail auction@jetband.org if you would like to volunteer. 

Also, if you have any good-sized baskets or nice containers taking up space in your closets, donate them!  We will need extras in which to package or display some of the donations.  Please bring them to the Band Booster meeting on Thursday, Feb 5, or call or email Denise to pick them up.

Finally, come prepared on February 9 to bid on all the great baskets, items, and services that will be offered at the Silent Auction.  You can even use a credit card via PayPal to pay for all your purchases this year! 

Last year's Dinner and Auction combined earned about $8,000 for JET Band, making it a vital fundraising event! 

Let's make the 2009 JET Band Winter Concert, Dinner, and Silent Auction a fabulous event!