Winter Programs Are Underway!

So, all those hard-working band kids are taking it easy in the off-season, right? And enjoying their evenings and weekends since marching band ended in November? Well, not exactly! They are just enjoying their evenings and weekends in a back-to-practice-I-go kind of way! You know how these band kids are and how much they love all things band… so more than half of the marching band students jumped right back into rehearsals for Woodlan’s winter programs.

This year brought about some changes for the winter programs. Winter Guard is back and will be competing in the Indiana High School Color Guard Association’s events rather than combined with Winter Percussion like last year. Winter Percussion will be competing in Indiana Percussion Association’s Winter Winds division for the first time this year. Rather than focusing solely on percussion instruments, Winter Winds includes wind instruments too, much like indoor marching band.

Winter Winds began practicing on December 1, 2022 and has been meeting in the evenings on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. They have already had a few Drill Camp Saturdays as well. There are 25 students participating in Winter Winds this season, including a handful from other East Allen County Schools! This season’s program was opened up to students at all EACS high schools, and we are excited to have students from New Haven High School and Heritage High School join us this year. This year’s theme for the show is “Rise Up!”. The show references the 1899 New York City Newsboys’ Strike and hints at the bigger theme of uniting together for good. The musical selections are based on the songs “The World Will Know” and “Seize the Day” from Disney’s musical “Newsies.” The students are having a great time with the show and are enjoying this music. Their “uniforms” for this year have been thrifted from thrift stores and pieced together. The schedule of performances for Winter Winds will be:

February 11: Norwell

February 18: Plainfield

March 4: Greenfield Central WGI Regionals

March 11: Prelims at Westfield

March 17: March for Mental Health and Community Night at Woodlan (more info to come!)

March 18: Indiana Percussion Association State Finals (Indianapolis)

The 2023 Winter Winds logo

Winter Winds first practice!

Ready to begin some basic drills

Charades during practice to get to know one another

A brave group of 10 kids and 4 adults ventured to Indianapolis to visit the 3 Goodwill Outlets before Christmas to look for Newsies-type uniforms. It's an interesting way to thrift! Very large bins filled with a myriad of items are brought out each hour to sort through. At the end of the hour, everyone stands along the wall and the bins are taken away, and fresh bins are brought out. At checkout, the shopping cart is weighed and items are purchased by the pound. We got some great deals and saved so much money! Some items were heavily soiled and we all saw some questionable things in the bins, so we all wished we had brought gloves! We made some great finds though!

Outlet #1 done!

We were all ready to wash our hands after some of the things we found!

Outlet #2 done!

We were all exhausted by the end of Outlet #3! It was a long day!

A quick sneak peak of some of the uniforms for this year's show. More thrifting was done in Fort Wayne to collect some missing items to complete everyone's look.

Winter Guard also began practicing in December 2022. They will have 8 students competing in Guard this year. They practice on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and some Saturdays as well. This year’s show is titled, “We are Warriors” and features the song by the same name by Avril Lavigne. The show is about nurses being warriors in our society and highlights their role in the world. The “uniforms” for their show will be nursing scrubs, which were graciously donated to the program. The schedule of performances for Winter Guard will be:

January 28: Snider

February 4: Anderson

February 25: Carroll

March 11: Indiana High School Color Guard Association Finals in Indianapolis

The 2023 Winter Guard show logo

Winter Guard practicing in December

The first competition of the season for Winter Guard will be next Saturday, January 28 at Snider High School in Fort Wayne. Woodlan will be competing in the Festival Class, which begins at 12:21 pm with New Haven High School and ends at 1:38pm with Concord High School. Woodlan will be performing at 12:42pm. Awards will begin at 2:48pm. The cost of admission is $7 per person, children 5 and under $3, infant in lap is free. We hope you can come out and support the Guard at Snider!