Cambridge Donation To Scout House To Help Celebrate 75th Year

The city of Cambridge is helping Preston Scout House Alumni Band celebrate the group’s 75th anniversary this year with a one-time grant of $7,500. The city has provided strong financial support for Scout House over the years with an annual grant, including $5,000 in 2013.

Cambridge mayor Doug Craig, who will travel with the Band to a performance in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania in July, is also helping the Band explore ways to increase community awareness. The Band’s city hall liaison committee met recently with the mayor and city commissioner of community services Kent McVittie to discuss a number of proposals, including listing the Band and Preston Scout House Cadets in the city’s activities guide as a way of attracting new members, erecting Band signs at highway entrances to the city, providing exhibit space for the Band’s trophies, awards and memorabilia and providing contact information to business and community leaders.

The Band provides a wide range of services to the community, including annual donations to area music organizations, a free Spring Opening arena concert to recognize community interest and support, various free performances in support of Royal Canadian Legion branches and other community groups, recognition of the city through news releases, program/announcer notes and recruiting information.

As a non-profit incorporated organization, Scout House has donated more than $30,000 to school and community music groups over the past 15 years.

Scout House is receiving significant support from other community organizations. Toyota Canada recently donated $1,000 to the Band in response to an ongoing corporate fundraising campaign. The Cambridge Chamber of Commerce is helping increase the Band’s exposure in the business community. The Chamber will list the Band’s performances in its 2013 calendar of events, a popular feature in the city’s business community. The Chamber will also be running a feature story about Scout House in Spectrum Magazine, distributed to Chamber member firms and all other businesses in the city.

The Cambridge Kiwanis Club has also been very receptive to a Scout House appeal for support in recruiting boys and girls from 12 to 18 to Scout House Cadets, established last September to help attract young people to drum and bugle corps activity. Following a recent luncheon presentation, club members provided a number of contacts to help with recruiting efforts in the local school system. The Cadets program began as a drum line, but will expand to a full drum and bugle corps including colour guard in the near future.

Scout House originated in the town of Preston, now a neighbourhood of Cambridge, in October 1938 as an innovative new activity for members of the 1st Preston Boy Scout troop. Scout House Band, named after the building that was home to the community-based troop, became independent of Scouts Canada in 1954. During thirty years of activity up to 1967, Scout House won more than 80 regional, national and international awards.

The debut performance of the Scout House anniversary year field show music took place at the Ventures Winter Guards Show in Waterloo on March 9, kicking off a schedule of more than 25 performances through spring, summer and late fall that will take Scout House Alumni Band to communities across Ontario, Pennsylvania, New York and Maryland, where the summer season winds up with the Drum Corps Associates (DCA) Alumni Spectacular field show concert in Navy Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis.

The fall schedule already includes a tattoo organized by Royal Canadian Legion Preston Branch 126, a concert to salute the 60th anniversary of St. John’s drum and bugle corps of Brantford, Kitchener/Waterloo’s annual Oktoberfest parade and local Christmas parades in November.

The Spring Opening arena show on Sunday, April 28 will be Preston Scout House Alumni Band’s 400th performance since first appearing on stage at the Great Alliance of Seniors (GAS) reunion in Mississauga in the spring of 1999. The Spring Opening will feature the full marching band, colour guard, drill team, Silver Leaves brass ensemble and Cadets drum line.

Since that first stage show in 1999, Scout House Alumni Band has performed in 398 parades, field shows and concerts in communities across Ontario and Quebec, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Florida, West Virginia and Maryland.

For more information about Preston Scout House Alumni 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/