Scout House Supporters in the Drivers Seat

Members of the community will be in the driver’s seat during a major fund raising and publicity event for Scout House Band and Scout House Cadets, of Cambridge. Ridgehill Ford Sales, 217 Hespeler Road, will contribute $20 per driver for up to 300, providing a maximum contribution of $6,000 for families and individuals test driving of a new Ford during the day. One member of each family will be eligible to drive.

The event will be based at the Cambridge Hotel and Conference Centre, a reliable business partner for many Scout House Band activities. The fund raiser will run from 9 am to 4 pm, including a barbecue, video displays, performances by the Cadets, recruiting activities for the whole Scout House Band organization and promotion of the 2014 Scout House Band Invitational Tattoo to be held in Waterloo August 9.

The hotel will be the event command centre for test drives on a designated route that includes city and highway driving.

Ridgehill Ford will have about 10 vehicles in the front parking lot of the hotel. Each driver will register to verify qualifications, receive a route map and proceed with the test drive through a section of the Preston neighbourhood of Cambridge then east on Highway 401 to Hespeler Road South and back into the hotel command centre. The route maps will include recruiting information and 2014 Tattoo details. The test drive route will take from 10 to 15 minutes.

Ridgehill Ford has served Cambridge and Waterloo Region for more than 32 years through a 25,000 square foot facility with more than three acres of new and certified vehicles, a full service and parts department and an all-make and model collision centre. Ridgehill’s recently enhanced customer lounge features a laptop bar with free WiFi, flat-screen television monitors streaming custom content and complementary beverages.

While test drives are in progress families not riding in the test vehicles will be entertained at the hotel by the Cadets who will be performing, doing demonstrations and practicing. Members of the Scout House organization will be available to greet and network with the guests to answer questions, promote Scout House Band activities and sell advance discount tickets for the 2014 Invitational Band Tattoo.

Scout House Band will supply hot dogs, buns and condiments along with bottled water, soft drinks and coolers. Hotel staff will barbecue the hot dogs. Hot dogs will sell for $2 and drinks for $1. Barbecue proceeds will be shared equally with the hotel.

The two mobile signs owned by the band will be parked on the front boulevard to promote the Ford event and the Tattoo. The Cambridge Hotel electronic message board and the adjacent Cambridge Chamber Of Commerce electronic message board will also promote the event and help draw in the general drive-by public. Other promotion techniques include five radio spots on 98.5 The Beat on July 25 and early July 26, publicizing the event on social media sites, the Scout House web site and local community event calendars.

The Drive A Ford campaign follows a busy spring and early summer schedule for the Cadets, now a full drum and bugle corps after operating in 2013 as a drum line. The Cadets drummers won their first Drumline Ontario competition in early May, then jumped 10 points on the score sheets a week later to win the provincial title in their category at a season-ending indoor contest at Sir Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo. The drumline performed in early June at a major Tim Hortons golf tournament and dinner, a fund raiser for Hortons summer camps for kids.

The June schedule includes the Ancaster Heritage Days parade, Cambridge Mayor’s Celebrations of the Arts and Cambridge Arts Festival followed by the Preston Canada Day Parade and performance in Riverside Park on July 1. The parade begins next to the Scout House building that was home to the original Scout House Band and is the current rehearsal base for Scout House Cadets and ends a mile away across town in Riverside Park, where the first Scout House Band performance took place in June, 1939.

Since Scout House Band’s first appearance at the Great Alliance of Seniors (GAS) reunion weekend in Mississauga in 1999, Scout House has performed more than 425 concerts, street parades and field shows in Ontario, Quebec and 10 American states: Michigan, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland and Florida.

Scout House Band now includes marching members from more than 20 communities across southern Ontario who had previously been associated with more than 75 marching music organizations. Scout House Cadets drum and bugle corps for boys and girls from age 12 to 18, was established to help mark the group’s 75th anniversary since starting as a Boy Scout bugle band in 1938.

The Cadets, named for the Band’s original feeder group, began as a drum line in September 2012, adding a brass section in September 2013 to become a full drum and bugle corps. No prior music experience is required to join the Cadets. Scout House Band also welcomes new marching members and volunteers to help with various support activities at any time of year.

For more information about Scout House Band, contact Activities Director Nancy Weiler at telephone (519) 653-3376, email prestonscouthouseband [dot] adm [at] sympatico [dot] ca or visit the Web site at http://www.scouthouseband.com/

Information about Scout House Cadets is available from email pshcadets [at] outlook [dot] com by telephone at (519) 886-7468 and on the Band’s Web site.