The meeting was held at 9 am at the home of John Prokop

Present: John Prokop, Dave Olson, Elizabeth Anne Rowe, Bryan Pierson, Alli Howard and Mike Coyle

Absent, Lee Oler, Dave Ball, Ward Stevens, Gary Sawyer, Andrew Barcellos, Monica Jasso and Shannon Casey.

The minutes from the last meeting on 9/23 meeting were approved.

Treasurer’s Report: Balance of $456 in Checking and $2,600 in Savings, but money just now beginning to come in for Homecoming, so things look okay.

Homecoming: Room for breakfast and meeting is all set. Dave Olson has arranged for the breakfast menu. We will be in the Pueblo Dining Room. Some of us will be there before 7 am. Dave Olson is arranging for UAAB merchandise door prizes. John will contact some music related businesses to try to get more door prizes. Discussion indicated we should try to find a new location for next year and even consider having a Continental breakfast in lieu of something more formal. This will be easier to deal with and cost less for attendees, perhaps attracting more people. John will invite Gregg Hanson, Jay Rees and Jack Lee to be our guests at breakfast. Jack Lee has responsibilities in connection with the Veteran’s day parade and may not be available.

John talked to Deon Hill about instruments for Homecoming and we will be expected to pick up small instruments at the School of Music on Friday, and only the Sousaphones will be in Room J on Saturday, and we should coordinate with the UA Band personnel to arrange for getting in at 8:30 am.

Rehearsal with the Marching Band will be at 9 am. We discussed the importance of being sure that anyone marching at half-time be at the morning practice. Alli suggested having a clip board to have people sign in at rehearsal so we could check later to be sure things checked out at the Stadium. Another suggestion was to use a rubber hand stamp to check people later. We ended up not agreeing to any check-in system and instead will rely on our instructions at breakfast and at the rehearsal meeting to make it clear who can march, and expect self policing. We agreed that there was room for exception. If there is someone who wishes to march at half-time and has a good excuse, we will excuse them, and should leave a spot for them in our lineup.

John will conduct a meeting on the practice field following rehearsal for alumni to spell out procedures and expectations for the days activities. He will look into getting a megaphone.

There are two Band tents shown on the mall on the AZ Alumni web site, but we think that is in error and there will again only be one tent. The tent locations have not yet been posted on the net. We will look for a volunteer(s) to stay with our tent after rehearsal as we expect to have things there we should protect, like Sousaphones while we go to lunch.

Lunch will be on our own, but we will identify the Big A Restaurant, on Speedway near Campbell, as a luch location for those that want to get together. John Called the Restaurant and talked to the new owner who has done some renovation and will be opening anew for business this next week. He assured us that he will be able to handle our crowd on Homecoming day. He will have a complete menu and beer and wine.

The parade is listed as starting at 3:30 pm. Alli Howard will bring her whistle and lead us if no one else shows up to do so. We have volunteers for the banner. We will be ready at our tent for supper before 5 pm and will start serving people shortly after they return from the parade. We will have two food lines.

The Pep Band at tailgating and at the skybox entrance this year will be just those that have been playing with us before. We will not go up to the Presidents Box. The others of the Alumni Half-time band will march to the stadium together and play near the stadium for the crowds going into the stadium. We will tell everyone they need to have a ticket to enter the stadium and expect to have their ticket checked. John will announce this at breakfast and on the practice field, and possibly at the parade, and letting folks know that if they don’t have a ticket Dave Olson will still be able to sell a few more at our tent.

We do not anticipate a problem this year entering the field. Jay Rees was upset last year and talked to Athletics about the problem. John will talk to Shannon Casey to be certain full attention has been given to this potential problem. All borrowed instruments will be returned to Room J after half-time. We can expect to play a few tunes during the first half of the game.

Pep Band - We haven’t had a good turnout for our football pep band, although it has been satisfactory. We agreed to make an effort to get as many people as we can for the UCLA Game on 10/28. We are getting requests for playing at other gigs, including a new one since our meeting at an event at a UA Residence Life Conference, and John has been approached about the possibility of our playing for the grand opening of a Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital on the Campus in January - date not yet set. So we are getting more attention. We received a very favorable response to our performance at the United Way kickoff.

Bass Drum - Elizabeth Anne has brought our attention to the problem we are experiencing with the new bass drum. She has volunteered to play it for our gigs but has difficulty transporting it and storing it. She needs help. John is willing to store it for our off-season, assuming we have one. We will find someone to take the drum home on 10/28.

Membership Campaign - John presented a paper he wrote on Expanding UAAB Membership. A copy of that paper is made a part of these minutes. The paper sets out a situation statement, objective and presents alternatives for reaching newly graduating band members and those that have been out for a while. Elizabeth Anne suggested adding working with KKPsi and TBS to reach people. She recently wrote an article for the TBS Newsletter. John will contact the editor of the Leaky Bugle and write an article for one of the next issues of that newsletter. (He has subsequently done so) Alli will be handing out our white cards to graduating Band Members, and John and Alli will plan to make presentation of pins and Memberships and info to graduates at the ASU/UA exhibition. Alli will check to see if this will be okay. Other tasks identified in the paper will be handled later. We are still looking for volunteers to take on any of these tasks.

Web Site - Gary Sawyer has moved the site as planned and has our entire Homecoming newsletter on line.

La Placita Fundraiser - All board members present were not able to attend the fundraiser at the end of September because of the conflict with playing for Volleyball. We understand the event was not well attended and probably will switch back to the Plaza Palomino next year.

Nominations for Board Positions - We have one nominee for Secretary, potentially 2 for the Treasurer, and potentially 5 for the 3 at-large positions. Looks like we will have an election. John will prepare the ballots.

Awards - We came up with names for the Bear Down and Fight Wildcats awards, Since both individuals are not expected to be at the breakfast on their own, John will inform them and invite their attendance. We will not be giving out the long distance award this year.

Jim Click Hall of Champions - John visited with Cliff Papin, Curator for the new Jim Click Hall of Champions on campus, being constructed on the North side of McKale Center. They discussed the potential for the UA Band to be well represented in the new museum to help represent the spirit of Athletics over the years. It turns out that they have already planned to include the band as part of one exhibit, also including cheerleaders and other related elements. No contact has been made with the UA Band Program and the Athletic Heritage collection includes some band material that they were planning to use. John suggested that the Alumni Band and the UA Band program participate in the future displays. Mr. Papin indicated he would welcome such help, which would include taking advantage of materials already in the possession of the UA Band and other materials that might be donated or loaned with assistance from the Alumni Band. John also asked about the possibility of a temporary display during our celebration of the 100 years of the UA Band in 2002. He indicated this was possible and again he would welcome a proposal. They plan to have rotating temporary exhibits which will be on display for 6 months. John will discuss this matter with Gregg Hanson.

Our next meeting is tentatively Saturday, December 2, at John Prokop's home.

These notes prepared by John Prokop

Attachment:

Expanding UAAB Membership 10/21/2000

Situation: Currently the membership listing, as held by the UA Alumni Association totals just under 2,900 people, with another 100 to 150 on the "active" list held by the UAAB itself that are not on the Alumni Association list. We have been very unsuccessful recruiting new members from those leaving the UA Bands during the past few years. To get on the UA Alumni Association list, each individual has to personally ask to be included as a Band Alumnus. A secondary problem has been the inaccuracy of the lists. We have a few people who are not qualified to be members, and many that are misidentified, so we are unable to reach them. Only a very small number of total membership are active in the UAAB

Objective: To substantially increase membership in our organization and improve our record keeping.

Reaching out to graduating band members and others that are leaving the band:

1. Provide information about the UA Alumni Band, what we do and how one can get involved.
2. At a Marching Band Practice or other gathering pass out UAAB yellow cards with instructions for filling them out. Collect the cards or otherwise arrange for them to be turned in to the Band Office.
3. Use bulletin boards at the School of Music to provide information about UAAB and how to join.
4. Write article for the "Leaky Bugle"
5. Encourage Jay Rees and Gregg Hanson to tout the importance of becoming a member of the UAAB and active participation.

Reaching older former band members:

1. Appeal to current members through newsletters to contact people they know about joining the UAAB.
2. Write article or press release to send to all UA Alumni Clubs around the country to locate people not on our membership lists. Ask them to put in their newsletters and/or post on their web site.
3. Send same or similar information to be included in the UA Alumni Association magazine, and the publications of the College of Fine Arts, and UA Athletics. Possibly even get a blurb in the programs for UA athletic events.
4. Write article for or advertise in the Daily Wildcat.
5. Work more closely with KKPsi and TBS to find potential members and encourage their participation in the UAAB Record keeping: Assign the maintenance of the UAAB "Active" List to one individual. That person will be expected to add and delete names, and make other changes as we get new information and keep up a relatively accurate list that can be used for our quarterly newsletters and other communication with our active members.

Other Considerations:

1. Locate and invite participation in UAAB by former Band Directors and band staff.
2. Use the promise of a celebration of the centennial of the UA Band and 50 year anniversary of the writing of "Bear Down" to stimulate interest in the UAAB.
3. Board Members do their best to make the UAAB an exemplary organization to encourage interest by potential members.

John Prokop