In the face of impending weather situations, we are charged with making decisions that are both difficult and often far-reaching. Though our desire is to be able to affect as little change as possible in our lives, schedules, and routines with these decisions, sometimes that is just not possible.
Ultimately, we have one concern that rises above the others, and that is the safety of our students, directors, and parents. While some districts have already canceled activities for the weekend, we have been closely monitoring the weather predictions in other areas as well to try to ascertain the possibility of risk on the roads, especially given that many of our students will be driving themselves to auditions.
The truth remains that every one of our six regions has areas that have the potential to be impacted early Saturday morning by wet surfaces and frozen or freezing temperatures. Given that we just don’t know what will actually happen, this is a risk we are not willing to take. We are moving ALL REGIONS to the inclement weather audition date of January 18.
All deadlines for submissions and/or nominations on bandlink for this week will be extended one week to Friday, Jan 17, 2025. Please make note of these changes.
Yes, this will cause disruptions. Yes, this will cause more work for the Region Chairs, hosts, parents and students and directors in the rearrangement of our lives, but aside from residual and inevitable rear-view mirror input from any of our beloved arm-chair meteorologists, our jobs become clear here: Move forward and make this work for the students.
Remember that we are still expected to fulfill our obligations in participating in the audition process per our assignments as made clear by our Region Chairs. Without this professional expectation, the auditions cannot happen. Region Chairs will now begin communicating with all of you regarding schedules and the reworking necessitated by this change.
I would like to thank Paul Guzewicz, Chuck Deen, Chaz Paxton, Adam Scheuch, and my own Region Chair, Dr. Gretchen Bowles for being trusted sounding boards and partners in the process of figuring out what was best for our students and our association.
Please stay safe, and I thank you for your trust and understanding.
Leslie Gilreath
SCBDA President