The Nest

Man, what a WILD night at Pennington! The score was 28-0 when we left for halftime warmup, 41-10 when we got to the field for halftime, and then we gave up a bunch of points to get back within 4 at one point. The team held on and won 51-43. I went back through Timber Creek football history and this is only the fourth time the school's 15 years of life that it has opened up the season 3-0. The other four years had relatively easy opening opponents...this team is definitely shaping up to be one of the best ever for TC!

We had over 500 band nerds in the indoor on Friday to participate in Marching 101! Mr. Duffey posted a video on the parent app...be sure to check it out. Nothing makes my day happier than seeing middle school kids cover their ears and say, "THAT'S SO LOUD!!" We definitely got some kids hooked...and the best is yet to come!

This upcoming Friday's game vs. Central is our annual middle school night. It's going to be JAM PACKED in our area for the first half...we hope you can come out and see the madness! For the parents that come to the game, you will not be able to sit directly behind the Sky Dancers as we will need ALL THAT ROOM to try and fit everyone into the stands.

In other news, the show is coming along nicely! It still needs tons of reps and a LOT of stamina work to get it locked in, but we are well on our way to having a successful BANDTOBER!!!

Speaking of which - ITS BASICALLY HERE! After we get through the next two week outlook, we will discuss contest days at length. SAVE THIS EMAIL and refer back to it often!

This Week

- Monday, Sept. 16th - STADIUM REHEARSAL @ KHS - 6pm-9pm. JV does not need to attend this rehearsal. If your student is participating on the field team (anyone who signed up for it is in!), you may be requested to be at this rehearsal to learn our process for getting on and off the field. It depends on if we get our aesthetic materials in next week or not.

- Tuesday, Sept. 17th - No rehearsal (Clarinet Day with Dr. Mackey from TCU during classes!)

- Wednesday, Sept. 18th - Varsity rehearsal 4:30pm-6:30pm

- Thursday, Sept. 19th - Varsity/JV rehearsal 4:30pm-7:30pm

- Friday, Sept. 20th - Football vs. Central - Middle School Night! (and UIL grade check day...more on this below)

- Saturday, Sept. 14th - Plano Drumline Contest - we still do not have a performance time, but it will likely be late afternoon/early evening. Stay tuned! Also a PROP BUILDING DAY!

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Two Weeks Away

- Monday, September 23rd - JV rehearsal and 2nd Quarter General Parent meeting @ 7pm, location TBD

- Tuesday, September 24th - Varsity rehearsal 4:30pm-7:30pm

- Wednesday, September 25th - Varsity rehearsal 4:30pm-6:30pm

- Thursday, September 26th - Varsity and JV rehearsal 4:30pm-7:30pm - We intend to do a full production "on-and-off" at the end of this rehearsal, meaning that we are going to use all aesthetics including the stages, tarps, and front drops. At contests, we have 4 minutes to get on the field and start the show and 2 minutes to get off the field with everything...and it is something we need to practice. If you are a usual pit crew parent, prop parent, or field team student, you need to be at this rehearsal @ 7pm.

- Friday, September 27th - Football vs. Southlake

- Saturday, September 28th - HEB Marching Contest!

Welcome to the Blurrrrrrrrr of BANDTOBER! For you newbies out there, this is what we lovingly refer to as contest season. It all starts off on September 28th with HEB Marching Contest and ends (if we earn it) on November 12th with a performance at UIL State.

Before we get to the itineraries, here are the main details regarding Saturday contests:

• Students are expected to stay with the band the entire day, from call time in the morning until we get home late. There may be some emergencies where you need to pull your student in the middle of the day. If something like that comes up, definitely message us through the BAND app as we won't be checking email on Saturday.
• Parents - COME TO THE CONTESTS IF YOU CAN!!! Each event has different ways of doing ticketing but we will share that all out through the parent BAND app. We want you LOUD and EXCITED for our team in the stands before the show starts! That kind of energy is what the kids feed off of and gets them amped up for a great performance. It's also one of those subliminal things for the judges...if you go appropriately crazy and the appropriate times, it can definitely help our effect scores.
• ALSO PARENTS - you must remember that every kid that gets on the field is working just as hard as your students. You should NEVER speak negatively about another program at a contest, away at dinner, wherever. You never know who is behind you in the stands or in the next table/booth over from dinner. You should CONGRATULATE everyone on their student's performance, no matter what color they wear. We want the marching band community to say "those Timber Creek parents are so nice".
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Without further ado, here are some of the itineraries:

HEB Marching Contest - September 28th

KISD Expo - October 1st

BOA Bedford - October 5th

UIL Region 30 Marching Contest - October 17th - the schedule is not out for this yet because registration is still open...they wait until it closes before they publish the schedule. We should have the schedule plus itinerary no later than Thursday, September 25th.

BOA Waco - October 19th

BOA St. Louis - October 25th-27th - We are still waiting on our hotel assignment (grumble) for this event. The housing bureau informed me today that they should have a closer answer in the next week. What you all need to know at this point - our preliminary performance is @ 11:30am on Saturday morning with finals taking place between 6pm-10:30pm. If you wanted to fly in, there are some 7am flights that get you there with plenty of time!

UIL Area Contest - November 2nd - We won't know our time for this until we get through UIL Region. What I can share is that we are 7th on from last which means we are performing sometime between 1pm-3pm.

UIL State Contest - November 11th-12th - In order to advance in this contest, we likely have to be in the top 3 or, if we are lucky, top 4 at UIL Area. Depending on the performance draw, we could be performing anywhere from 8am-8pm on that Monday. If we have a later performance time, we would be leaving Monday morning. If we have a morning performance time, we would be leaving on Sunday instead. We will 100% stay overnight into November 12th and come home around 9am if we do not make finals. If we do make finals (a first in TC history), we would be coming home pretty late that evening.

When the other itineraries get locked down, I will send them out immediately through all channels.

Big "Thanks" to everyone who came out to MOOYAH for our first spirit dining night of the season! We had a fantastic night with family, friends, and food! We'll see you all again on October 7th at Black Bear Diner! Details coming soon!

We still have several openings for volunteers to help during this marching season. Please see the Sign Ups below and help out! We have also added a concession stand SUG (Sign-up Genius) for the upcoming EXPO. This is a HUGE extra fundraiser for us since it only comes around every 4 years. Thank you for any time you can give to our amazing TC Band!

We are two weeks away from a make-or-break moment of the marching season. On Friday, September 20th, teachers are expected to have grades finalized for the first 6 weeks. While Keller ISD does 9-week quarters, this is a MANDATORY grade check for UIL eligibility.

When grades are finalized, a student must have a 70 or above in on-level classes to be considered "passing" for UIL eligibility. Classes that are Honors, Pre-AP, or AP are all exempt from this rule which means a student can get literally all zeroes in these classes and still participate (which is absurd, but I digress...). Last year, we lost between 5-7 students to failing classes which required us to make significant personnel changes to the marching show at the absolute worst possible time of the season.

If your student loses eligibility, they are not allowed to travel with the band to games/contests. They would miss football games vs. Southlake, Byron Nelson (homecoming), and Trinity, plus marching contests including HEB, BOA DFW, KISD Expo, and possibly beyond. The way they regain eligibility is by passing ALL classes on the report card posting on or around October 11th.

On Monday, the directors are going to run a grade report and have the uncomfortable conversations with students who are in danger. Once again, this can turn our season upside down if students fail. All of us, from seniors to freshman MUST pass your classes!!

We have had a great launch to our newly revamped Community Partners program! We are working hard to make sure we create and maintain valued partnerships with businesses and individuals in our community. WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Please take a minute to head over to http://www.timbercreekband.org/sponsors and review our brand new PR packet. If you:

- own your own business

- know someone who owns a business

- work at a business (this is most of us!)

Would you please consider partnering with us (or sharing the opportunity with those you know) for the 2024-25 school year? We have a great recognition package for our sponsors, including lots of recognition during our marching season which is just a few weeks away!

We have added 3 new sponsors, but we are still recruiting more. At this time, this program has raised over $16,000 for the Timber Creek Falcon Band!! We need your help in spreading the word about our partnership opportunities. You can share the sponsorship link above, or feel free to send us a referral & we’d be happy to get in touch on your behalf. Please email Eric Lorenz and Kristen Margason at pr@timbercreekband.org. Thanks in advance for your help!

From Kristen Margason -

A HUGE THANK YOU goes out to our awesome Uniform Team - both students and parents - who helped make our first game in full uniform a success!

Thank you, parents, for your patience while your students got their uniforms checked and hung back at TC. They will get quicker each week the more they practice the art of uniform hanging.🙌

Thanks to the directors for teaching uniform care in class. And finally, thanks to the chaperones for dealing with more than their share of uniform pieces tonight!

Uniforms are definitely a group effort, and I’m so grateful for this team!

We have so many awesome things in store for y’all this Fall! Your uniform team is hard at work on:

- Blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr store - NOW LIVE!!

We have tees, LS Tees, sweatshirts, and letter jacket patches. You will see an option to purchase a “Student” version and a “Fan” version.

Both versions feature our awesome Blurrr graphic on the front! Our students have a tradition of wearing varsity show merch that features a list of their contest dates on the back, and this year they have a looong list!!

The “Fan” version is for everyone else to show their support for Blurrr and for the Falcon Band! Fan versions feature a simple TC Band logo on the back. We have sizes from Youth to 4 XL, for younger siblings, grandparents, aunties, uncles, and more!

Grab this merch NO LATER THAN FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6th, so that orders can be processed and distributed in time for our first contest on September 28th!

- Section Shirt store - COMING SOON!!

Every section will have a fun tee to commemorate the year

You can find all of these stores on our TC Band Linktree https://linktr.ee/timbercreekband.

Any questions can be directed to our Uniform Team at tcbanduniforms@gmail.com.

The time slots have been updated to only 2 shifts. Please consider working one to help us earn money for our band program. We have several opportunities to make the most of our time selling food and drinks to our spectators. Come have some fun and make some extra funds for our band!!

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/9040949AAAD2C7-50809168-concessionsvarsit

We are so fortunate to have the opportunity of working the concession stands at this year's Marching EXPO!!! In order to make the most of this unique fundraising event and raise some big bucks for our band program, we are looking for some incredible volunteers to help us in our efforts.

If you would like to help volunteer, we would LOVE to have you. Don't worry, we have the BEST band video and photography crew that will be posting in the band app so that nothing is missed!

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/9040949AAAD2C7-51390809-kisd

Do you want to be part of the action in capturing those fun and important shots of our band students? The media team needs some extra parents to take some action pics during the marching season. If this sounds like something you might be interested in, check the sign up and come join in on the fun.

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/9040949AAAD2C7-50570060-media

We have the BPF (Band Parking Flow) set up, so that YOU know where to go, the kids stay safely in the sidewalk, and then you have a straight shot to get out and home. The BPF is set up to minimize chaos.

You never need to park, you never need to reverse. Trust the flow.

We share the desire to keep our kids safe. Please use the BPF.