CN Band Newsletter 09.30.2025

Clovis North Band
Sep 30, 2025
6 min read

From The Director's Desk

The six-week grading period has just concluded. We are two weeks away from our stadium rehearsal and three weeks away from our first competition.

Grade clarification: 6th period is the official “band” class and assignments are strictly about music making and concert band performances. 7th period is the official “PE class” and will have assignments about marching band rehearsals and performances. There are quite a few students with low grades in period 6. This is mainly due to the few number of assignments in the first six weeks as well as students not completing their music pass-offs. They can make one attempt every day, before school, beginning of lunch, end of lunch, end of school to pass off these excerpts. The cutoff for ALL pass-off music tests will be the end of the next 6 week grading period.

By now, with how much we have played these music selections in class and in performances, we should begin to see more people passing. Please help us get 100% of students passed off on these as quickly as possible. Ask your student to perform them for you at home to see where they are in their progress if they have yet to pass. Help set attainable goals to get these completed.

With all that being said, we are going to push hard this week to learn as much of the show as we can. Then we should all look forward to this full weekend off. Students and staff have been working hard since the start of the school year. Make sure to have some quality family time this weekend!

STANDARD OF THE WEEK

The Relentless Pursuit of Excellence!

Entering week 7, we are nearing the completion of the learning drill phase of the field show. Normally, around this time of year, we see the ability gap begin to widen.

A larger group of students start to “get it”, and some students stick out as more and more students have “aha!” moments. To achieve our highest level, we need EVERY student to have the relentless pursuit of excellence in everything they do, every day in and out of band class.

One of the things I am most happy about at the start of the school year is the makeup and personality of our students. We have GREAT kids in the CN Band and Color Guard right now. Individually, many of them need to work on ingesting information given and applying it as quickly as possible. Developing a CAN DO vs. a CAN’T attitude is paramount. The Relentless Pursuit of Excellence trickles into all the standards and values we have.

The hope is for the newer students to latch onto this idea quickly and not wait to be great at something. This could be something as simple as demanding to control the movement of the props, to something more challenging, like memorizing and being able to recite each page of the drill, the number of counts, and the exact placement of your dot on the field. Both are required to be highly skilled performers. One takes some physical strength; however, both take a large amount of mental strength and perseverance.

Tuesday Rehearsals

Please note that this week and next week, Tuesday rehearsals will take place from 1:20 - 5:30 pm due to field reseeding.

BRONZO BLITZ

Is this Thursday. We will be visiting all of our area elementary schools, spreading some Bronco Band Cheer to all our future Broncos. Please check CutTime for the schedule. Students are excused from their zero-4th period classes.

Thursday Football

This week we have a football game on Thursday, and kickoff is 30 minutes earlier. Please plan ahead. Thank you.

All State Auditions and Recordings

We have created profiles for every student who has voiced interest in auditioning for the All-State Band and Orchestra. Now every student must upload their audition and pay the registration fee by 10/10, so I can go through and certify each audition. We have over 20 students planning to audition for the All-State Band. That is awesome!!! This means I will need to listen to all 20 auditions to make sure things are submitted correctly. If anything is incorrect, we need a few days to make the corrections. To do that, PLEASE make sure all audition materials are submitted by October 10. Good luck and thank you!

Senior Night

Friday, October 31, at our football game against Clovis East High School, we will be honoring our senior band and color guard members and their families. Seniors, be on the lookout for a blue one-page form to turn in to Mr. Rogers!

GSTOB

Golden State Tournament of Bands is one of the longest-running high school marching band competitions in California. We have the privilege of being one of the hosts of this event along with Clovis HS, Clovis West HS, and Clovis East HS. We have some responsibilities and volunteer slots that will need to be filled to help run this event. It is also a fundraiser for our program. We average about $3000.00 earned for helping to host this event. You can sign up for volunteer slots on CutTime now 🙂

Pledge form & Signed Documents

Part of the grade is the signed documents on CutTime and the fall pledge form. Only about 60% of our students have completed the fall pledge with their families. This must be completed and submitted so we are able to formulate our financial plan for the school year. Please complete this as soon as possible.

Here is the link: https://www.clovisnorthband.org/fall-2025-pledge

Pictures

Here are links to purchase band photos from Kenny Gillman Photography.

Important dates and information can be found in the gallery. If you have questions or concerns, please ask. kgphotos@pacbell.net

https://kgphotos.zenfolio.com/cnmb2025

Clovis North Marching Band 2025-2026

Concert Attire

Our fall concert is scheduled for Wednesday. Oct. 15. We hope to see all of our families in attendance. Stay tuned for more info about the fall concert.

Students will need the proper attire for this concert.

It is the following:

Boys: Black suit or tuxedo, white long-sleeve dress shirt, black bow tie, black dress socks, black dress shoes (marching band shoes are acceptable for this).
Girls: Black dress pants or slacks, black blouse or sweater, black stockings/socks, black dress shoes (flats)

We will have food trucks available beginning at 4:30pm instead of the all-you-can-eat tacos. Please join us outside the concert hall to raise some funds for the band and enjoy a great evening of music.

HOLIDAY CATALOG

Only two more fundraisers in the fall semester. This is the first. Our holiday catalog fundraiser. We have two weeks to make this a success. We want the goal to be $10,000 in profit. That means if ALL students participate A LITTLE, we should be able to make this a success.

FundPrizes.com / Fundraiser Code = AEPEU

The Pie Company Fundraiser

Message from Robin Wilson, CN Band Booster President

Hello Band Family,

We are looking for volunteers to join our pit crew and prop crew this marching band season.

Pit Crew is an essential team for our band. We need a consistent group of volunteers for the season to help push the front ensemble instruments from the truck to the field and place them on the track within a time limit. It’s a simple but crucial job — and we’ll make sure you’re trained on everything you need to know. Please contact Mr. Gabrielson to sign up.

Prop Crew is also very important. Band members can’t assist since they’re in uniform, so we rely on parent volunteers to unload and set up the props, then disassemble and load them for football games and competitions.

Looking ahead, we especially need volunteers for the Golden State Tournament of Bands on 10/25. Our band receives a portion of the proceeds from this event, but only if we fill all our assigned volunteer slots. Please consider signing up — every role truly makes a difference.

You can find all current volunteer needs on the CutTime calendar (look for the green icons).

Thank you in advance for stepping up to support our students and program. Many hands make light work — and your help keeps the band moving forward.

As always, please reach out to me with any questions you have.

Have a great week!

Robin Wilson

CN Band Booster President