An Article from our Vice President of Service
“Serving Bands Delta Delta Style”
Service is the most important activity we engage in as sisters. It is inherent in our mission statement and purposes that our organization’s existence is closely tied with our ability to serve college bands. This is why I was both honored and terrified to be elected to be the Vice President of Service for the Fall 2009 semester. Taking on this responsibility has been quite an adventure already and I am still learning on the fly, but the ladies of Delta Delta have been supportive and helpful.
Our chapter has already taken on some great service projects early on in the year and I look forward to seeing what else we can accomplish. The sisters make a point of coming early and staying after band practice every day to make sure the field is both set up properly and that everything is put away correctly which is a great help to the field staff and the drum majors.
Aside from everyday service the sisters have been helpful in assisting with two major overnight trips with the UMMB this semester, which occurred back to back, our trip to the Allentown Collegiate Marching Band Festival and our trip to play at the UMass/Delaware game in Delaware. I was extremely impressed with how the chapter handled the stress of those two weekends. Helping with everything from cleaning the muddy gym floor to assisting with meal times. Along with the brothers of EN KKPsi, we hosted an Allentown Prep Night where the joint chapter provided instrument cleaning and repair supplies at no cost to band members who wanted to make sure their instruments were in top shape for this important performance. Delta Delta also made signs for all of our eight buses and prepared bus kits for the trips. These kits included emergency supplies like Band-Aids, Advil, tampons and extra black socks. The tampons came in very handy when the saxophone bus had some severe window leakage problems on the Allentown trip!
With the joint chapter, we have an ongoing service project called Donut Table where the joint chapter provides donuts and coffee to music majors in the Fine Arts Center who may not have time to eat breakfast in the morning otherwise. The joint chapter also came together to feed the band breakfast at our morning rehearsal before homecoming.
Some other projects that we have going on and coming up in the future include knitting scarves and hats for the Amherst Survival Center. Caroling for children in Northampton, cleaning and organizing the new storage sheds on the practice field, inventorying the color guard equipment and other miscellaneous projects. The only thing standing in our way is the lack of time to accomplish all of these worthwhile projects by the end of the semester. Once the semester ends, so will my tenure as VPS, but until that happens I will do my best to see this chapter accomplish as many projects as possible and remember that it is an honor to be selected to serve.
Respectfully submitted,
Sally Clouse
ΔΔ - ΤΒΣ - ΓΒ
Vice President of Service 2009
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