Preston Scout House Band Inc. ‘Summer Social’ on June 22
Members of the community are welcome to attend the Preston Scout House Band Inc. Summer Social afternoon on June 22, featuring an emphasis on photos, videos, news clippings, scrapbooks and other memorabilia emphasizing the social side of the group.
The Summer Social, offering free admission, will run from 1 to 6 pm on Saturday June 22 at Royal Canadian Legion Branch 126, 334 Westminster Drive North, in the Preston neighbourhood of Cambridge. There will be a cash bar, outdoor barbecue and a table offering Scout House and other drum and bugle corps memorabilia for visitors to take home a souvenir.
The event marks the 86th year of community service since local pharmacist and Boy Scout leader Wilf Blum founded the Band in 1938 as a new activity for members of the 1st Preston Boy Scout Troop. Over more than eight decades, the organization has included five member groups. The current active group is award winning Silver Leaves Brass ensemble, including some members who marched in the original band in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
The Summer Social will feature displays showing the social side of Scout House activities away from performance routines, including bus trips, patio and pool parties, awards banquets, costume and dress-up rehearsals. Band performances will again be featured on a giant video screen, with still photos shown on a smaller screen, as during the group’s 85th year reunion in June 2023.
During the afternoon, some members of the organization will receive long service pins, awarded for each five years of membership since the Scout House Band alumni era began in 1993. At times during the past 30 years, the organization has included Scout House Alumni Band, Heritage Drill Team, Silver Leaves Brass, Cadets drum and bugle corps and Magic of Scout competitive winter guard.
Scout House is continuing its support of youth music activities in Waterloo Region in 2024, by offering prizes totalling $900 to participants in the Kitchener/Waterloo Kiwanis Music Festival. The awards will be presented at the Festival’s grand finale concert at Knox Presbyterian Church in Waterloo on May 10.
In the past 10 years, Scout House has awarded more than $10,000 to winners of Wilf Blum youth music scholarships offered in memory of the Band’s founder.
Preston Scout House Band, Inc. is a non-profit corporation with registered charity status able to issue tax receipts to donors, incorporated under the Corporations Act of the Province of Ontario on November 29, 1956.
For more information about Preston Scout House Band Inc. activities, contact telephone (519) 653-3376, email PSHBAND [dot] INC [at] outlook [dot] com
