As the semester concludes, we want to take a moment and reflect on all that has happened this spring!

First and foremost, we are so excited to celebrate 8 new sisters joining our chapter. We welcome them and look forward to seeing where their time in Epsilon Theta will take them.

We are also incredibly proud of our 3 graduating sisters. They have given so much to both our organization and the band, and we are sad to see them go, but happy to see them grow. We wish you the best wherever your path may lead you!

This semester has been busy, here at Epsilon Theta as we introduce our newest little sister chapter: Kappa Gamma, at the University of Georgia. We are so delighted with them for completing the process of chartering a new chapter and are excited to see what they do in the future.

There was some serious spring cleaning happening here in Couch as we prepared for some renovations this summer. The building is getting an overhaul, but not before we, and our brothers in Kappa Kappa Psi, help to get it ready. We were busy cleaning up and clearing out different areas of the building to make it easier for the work to take place. We reorganized the marching band uniforms and moved them to storage, and gave our drum room a makeover with cleaning and some new shelves.

As the weather turned warmer, we were able to help around 50 Girl Scouts in the local Atlanta area earn their music badge. This year, we got to host Girl Scout Day in person. We are so thankful we could meet in person this year, as it means we could play for the girls live. In addition, we helped them learn about the rich history of music around the world. Then, we moved on to live demonstrations by sisters on their instruments. After seeing those instruments in action, the Girl Scouts could go around and hold the instruments to get a feel for them. Then, the players gave a brief performance of some fight songs, Thriller, Budweiser, and the Horse.

One of the exciting events from this semester was when we hosted Dr. Sara Womack as a part of our Women in Music Speaker Series. Dr. Womack is the current Fine and Performing Arts Coordinator for the Atlanta Public Schools. She received her Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Music Education from the University of Alabama, and her Doctorate of Music Education from the University of Georgia. She has taught at various elementary schools throughout Georgia and was an Adjunct Faculty Member for the University of Alabama. It was incredible to meet her and listen to her journey with music – thank you so much Dr. Womack!

For our last act, we hosted Georgia Day! This is an event where we invite our sisters around Georgia to come and enjoy the weather, each other’s company, and some games. Aside from Epsilon Theta, we also had sisters from UGA’s Kappa Gamma Chapter, Kennesaw’s Iota Psi Chapter. We also hosted brothers from Tech’s own Iota chapter, Kappa Mu at UGA, and Nu Mu at Kennesaw.

During this semester, we are proud to have earned both the Blue and Green Stripes! The Blue Stripe came from our Women in Music Speaker series when Dr. Sara Womack came and spoke with us. The Green Stripe came from our Crescendo Project, in hosting Girl Scout Day.

As the semester comes to a close, we wanted to take a moment to recap all of the happenings of the semester here in Epsilon Theta! 

First and foremost, we are so excited to welcome three new sisters into our chapter! This is also bittersweet as four of our sisters are also graduating this semester.

We kicked off the semester early in August when we helped with band camp lunch. Keeping our marching band happy and well fed during camp is important as they work to bring school spirit to life during the football games. Plus, staying hydrated is key, especially under the hot Georgia sun!

Speaking of the marching band, we are lucky to have some sisters who march, and where there is football, there is also a band. During the football season, our sisters were able to meet up with other chapters during the away games. We enjoyed getting the chance to meet and catch up with our fellow sisters at places like UCF, VT, and UNC. Even if we cheer for opposite teams, we will always be sisters in the bond.

We were also fortunate enough to meet up with some sisters of the Iota Psi Chapter at Kennesaw State University, when we carved pumpkins together to get into the Halloween spirit. We loved being able to see our sisters and have the chance to reconnect!

One of our favorite events of the semester has to be our annual trip to Our Lady of Perpetual Hope, or OLPH. This event is where we go and play at OLPH, which is a nursing home, so that we can bring some music and a bit of fun to the resident’s day!

Throughout the semester, we also joined forces with the brothers of Kappa Kappa Psi Iota to help host some events. In exciting news, the joint efforts of our organizations have brought back concert receptions! These have not been able to happen since before COVID times, and we are happy to be able to support all of our concert ensembles. 

We also worked with the brothers to help out around Couch and build some shelves to go in the new trucks that carry our equipment wherever it may need to go. Additionally, we also helped clean up and clean out inner props to continue to keep them nice and tidy. 

An event of note was the Halloween Haunt, in which we played some spooky music in the park. See if you can spot some sisters under the costumes!

We are also proud to say that we have earned 2 stripes from the Focus on Five program- the red and white stripes. The Red represents our commitment to keeping our chapter up to date with national policies while the White is indicative of our Coda project, which was our event at OLPH. We have also earned the centerpiece of the lyre, which is representative of our time spent with our sisters at KSU.

This article was submitted to the Eighth Note by our 2015 Treasurer Charlie Sanders!

Your chapter probably has a lot of passionate people, with a lot of big goals. Maybe you want to repair some worn-out uniforms that your band has had to retire. Maybe you want to have a guest speaker come and talk to your band about some important topic. Or maybe you just want to buy a whole bunch of cookies and baked goods for your next concert reception. Whatever the case, it’s generally the case that, in order to provide the level of service that your chapter is striving for, you’re going to need money to pay for it. And in all likelihood, that money is going to come from your chapter’s fundraising efforts.

Now, not every service project needs to break the bank. There’s a huge number of ways that you can help your band purely through the time and energy of you and your fellow sisters. Some things, however, have costs that you simply can’t get around. These are often the big projects, the kinds of things that make people remember your chapter and the kinds of things that can have a tremendous impact.

There’s a huge number of ways to fundraise, and every chapter is in a different situation. No one fundraising event is going to be the right thing to do for every chapter. At Epsilon Theta, we work the concessions stands at various sporting events in the fall and spring. This isn’t going to work as well at a smaller school, like one that doesn’t have a basketball team or lacks a home arena. But no matter what your situation, there’s always ways for a chapter to fundraise, as long as there are creative and passionate sisters at that chapter.

Almost more important than simply having a fundraiser is being persistent in continuing them. One-off ideas for fundraising can be useful, but a recurring source of income for your chapter will allow your finances to constantly get better as time goes on, and allow you to provide more and more service to your band. When you’re considering what fundraising projects to focus on, take into account whether an idea has the possibility of working again and again.

Some fundraising projects might cost a bit to get started. Basic supplies might be needed, or the project itself might have some inherent costs. It’s important to analyze how much was spent on a project and compare it to how much the project ended up making, to ensure that the time and energy being spent is worthwhile. But even if the numbers aren’t as great as you might hope, don’t immediately toss out the idea. Once you’ve done a fundraising project once, your chapter will have the experience to go and do it better the next time, often for cheaper, and with better results. Persistence is key.

One of the Eight Essential Factors calls for us to have the fortitude and courage to see an idea, to seize upon it, and follow it wherever it may lead us in Tau Beta Sigma. Take this message, and tenaciously pursue your chapter’s next fundraising opportunity. With persistence, you will enable your chapter to become better and achieve even loftier goals.

We’re very excited to be mentoring the TBS colony at Kennesaw State University this semester and helping them prepare to become a full-fledged chapter!

We believed that the best way to kick off their TBS experience was to give them big sisters from our chapter!  Sisterhood is of course a key component of our chapter and the organization as a whole, and we certainly would like to see that manifest itself right away among the colonists.

Check out the gallery below for some snapshots of the colonists’ first TBS experience!

This Spring’s Interest Week events had the greatest turnout we’ve had in recent memory!  It’s been fantastic to see so many outstanding band members show interest in both KKPsi and TBS!

We kicked off interest week with our usual receptions that take place after the initial Pep Band and Concert/Symphonic band rehearsals of the semester.  Later in the week we held a board game night in our chapter room where anyone interested in TBS could hang out with sisters, play games, and simply have fun!  As you can see in the gallery below, attendance was phenomenal, the room was absolutely packed!

We then got together with our Iota brothers and had an extremely productive day of service with both our chapters and all those interested in learning more about us!  We took inventory of the entire percussion room in our music building and checked a massive number of items off of the music libraries to-do list.  There was plenty for everyone to do and ample opportunity for those interested to get to know us.

More amazingly successful events followed after we delivered bids!  Nearly all our bids came to our usual ice cream social, and our bid service event involved continuing the build of a ramp to be used for moving instruments between the music building and our trucks.  We made a ton of progress while still having some fun, despite the chilly temperatures.

We’re so fortunate to have so many awesome students so eager to serve the band.  Check out the gallery below for some snapshots of our interest and bid events!