Blast from the President

Thank you to everyone who attended this year for the 55th Alumni Band Day and the historic 500th game at DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium as our Texas Football Longhorns decidedly BTHOOIS.   It was a great ending to the 2018 home football season on the Forty Acres!  Let’s cheer on our Horns as they play in the BIG12 Championship game on December 1 against O-Who – #BTHOOOU

On behalf of LHAB, I want to say thank you to Dr Scott Hanna, Professor Jerry Junkin, and the entire Longhorn Band faculty and staff, as they are huge supporters and advocates of LHAB.  They provide immense support in manpower, supplies and financial support when needed and they are committed to our success and growth.  We are one large family and we’re very grateful for everyone connected with LHB.

As your LHAB President for 2018-19, I am honored and excited to serve in this position.  I follow a long line of past presidents who paved the way for LHAB.  I am especially proud to follow in the footsteps of Sara Beth Purdy who has become a great friend and did a super job this year with kicking off several initiatives for LHAB:  display case restoration, Normandy planning, and the charter membership with the National Association of Alumni Bands (NA0AB), and creating the LHAB/LHB Meet & Greet event.  We can’t thank Sara enough for all the many volunteer hours and dedication she put forth in her work for LHAB.  THANK YOU and we appreciate you!

Thank you to all of our LHAB Officers, field operations, section leaders, volunteers and KKY/TBS students who worked extremely hard on this year’s Alumni Band Day and helped make the event an incredible success.  Without their dedication and commitment, we couldn’t pull off the weekend’s events and create an enjoyable and memorable experience for our members.

This year is going to be an exciting year for LHAB.  We’ll be working with the National Association of Alumni Bands (NAoAB) as a charter member to help form its mission and how we can help other alumni band across the country.  We’ll expand our involvement with LHB and continue the new activities from the past year or two to continue with LHAB gift tokens to LHB; Meet & Greet Night; Orange & White game participation; #40for40 and the scholarship presentation event.

With our recent Band Day behind us, we now focus on operations for the Normandy trip.  I am extremely pleased to have Bill Phillips and the entire Normandy Steering Committee serving and working diligently on the hundreds of details needed to execute the plan.  With our once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to perform in France at the 75th D-Day Anniversary, we’ll be on the world stage representing the United States, allied nations, Texas and UT-Austin, and we’re all anxiously looking forward to honoring our veterans.  IF you have any poignant story that you think would be important for us to know, please email me directly any bio, pictures or any story that links you, LHAB/LHB, WWII and your family to this historic timeframe.

I am reminded that LHAB was started in 1964 by young passionate and energetic alumni who had a love for the Longhorn Band and wanted to have annual band reunions with purposeful intentions in sustaining the Longhorn Band through scholarship campaigns.  H.B. Dunagan started passing his hat around the room and the first LHAB scholarship was $50.  In 2018, LHAB distributed over $80,000 and we’re just on the heels of breaking the $100,000 benchmark in the very near future with your continued important donations.  Each dollar counts!!!!!

I will be proposing some new initiatives this year to help us with the strategic planning and growth of our organization.  One that is a 3-pronged approach to help us recruit and sustain future LHAB leaders, while also consulting with past leadership for institutional knowledge ensuring we maintain the honored traditions of this organization as we move to the next 5-10-15 years with agility and flexibility to meet the needs of all decades of members.

Additionally, we hope to create a program with the LHAB Charitable Fund Board of Trustees by creating a recurring donation program via automatic credit card donations, as well as an annual giving plan.  If you are interested in creating a special named scholarship, please contact us and we’ll put you in touch with the right people to help you navigate that process properly and efficiently.

Attended 713 Total Band Day Scholarship donations $14,697

Marched 690 Total who marched Bevo Blvd/Stampede        230

Guests 577

Here is an InfoGraphic of our membership breakdown:

This is just a representation of our membership by instrumentation currently in our LHAB database.  We have an additional 200+ members that we will make contact with to update our records.

As with any large volunteer organization, we are only as successful as our committed members who are engaged and actively volunteer their time and particular expertise.  There are many things members can do to help us take care of the general operations of the organization and skills people bring to us to give of their time, instead of money.  Members are strongly encouraged to participate in local playing events in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin.

We are increasingly receiving more and more playing event requests from UT donors willing to make sizable donations to our LHAB Charitable Scholarship Fund.  Too often we have to turn down these requests due to insufficient player participation and we leave money on the table from willing and active donors.  You’ll hear more about these events as the year goes on.

As we announce LHAB playing events in your city,  I have one request from you – ask your fellow bandmates to participate at these playing events and follow the mantra of “Tell a friend, Bring a friend” and come play – a little peer pressure won’t hurt!  All these events are fun and it’s always for a good cause and you’ll have a chance to meet and visit more alumni.  We are working on adding additional music to the website download tab to help update and improve our repertoire of music we play at these events.  Maybe by you playing a few of these events during the year it’ll be a great way to keep up your playing chops for next Band Day, LOL:)

We’ll be sending out the 2018 Band Day Survey in the next week and we would appreciate it if you would complete the survey and provide us with important feedback.  We want to hear from you!!!  This organization is made up of all of YOU and each person has a part in LHAB.  Bring your ideas to us if you think we need to make some adjustments and I might just ask you to own that idea and bring it to fruition for the betterment of the organization. Feel free to email me directly and I’ll reply to you as soon as I’m able to.

Thank you and Hook ‘em Horns!

Geof

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Geof Sloan   |  512.689.6396

LHAB President

geofsloan@gmail.com