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| Excel Project: recruiting, retention, advocacy Marshall Music’s comprehensive time efficient plan May, 2002 Understanding the importance of a concerted recruiting campaign and the demands on music educators’ time, Marshall Music has developed the Excel Project, a comprehensive recruiting, retention, and advocacy project that can be easily implemented by the music director and his or her Marshall representative. This 200 plus page project includes customized newsletter articles, posters and parent letters, as well as an implementation recruiting timeline for the director and Marshall representative designed to enhance the effectiveness of the instrumental feeder program. Music educators’ days are consumed with perfecting the skills of their students to perform well in the concert and solo and ensemble festivals. In addition, they are overwhelmed with the mundane everyday tasks of fundraising, progress reports, meetings, scheduling, planning trips, managing instrument inventory, maintaining the library, filling out request forms, grading, printing programs, auditioning, parent meetings…. And, they never have the opportunity to complete the “to do” list for the day. There is always some fire to be put out. Another pad falls off the bass clarinet, or a string on a cello needs replacing. With the demands on the music educator’s time, it becomes difficult to devote adequate time to properly recruit beginning musicians. To maximize recruiting effectiveness one needs to be involved throughout the entire year. The director needs to think of recruiting similar to those long Wagnerian crescendos, Elsa’s Procession to the Cathedral, for instance. To insure directors are realizing their full potential while recruiting, the lines of communication need to open long before the rental night. Articles in the elementary school parent newsletter, information and video presentations at open houses, parent teacher conferences and elementary music concerts; all raise awareness about the band and orchestra program. A series of personal communications sent to the parents and students who, potentially, will be signing up for instrumental music this year is essential to success. Just like the Wagnerian crescendo, these have to be timed to climax in coordination with the rental period to gain the most benefit. Unfortunately, due to the daily tasks associated with the job, directors often are unable to devote themselves fully to the recruiting task. Writing articles, keeping track of what to send and when, researching appropriate materials, are great ideas but they get put aside in order to deal with the task at hand. The result is adequate or less than adequate results when students enroll. Extolling the benefits of music participation needs to be ongoing. Getting the message across in one recruiting letter is not going to be successful. There needs to be a coordinated, ongoing, awareness enhancement throughout the year to have any real effect. The Excel Project is a three-phase program covering the areas of recruiting, retention and advocacy contained on floppy disk. The information can be loaded on to the director’s computer for easy access. Throughout the year the Marshall representative is able to assist the music director with the recruiting process. Through a combined effort, music educators and their Marshall Music representative will be able to maximize the recruiting potential for the district. The first section is an all-inclusive recruiting process. Newsletters, videos, parent information letters, posters and suggestions for effective implementation are just a mouse click away. Finally, directors will be able to implement an intense recruitment campaign with a minimum of time commitment. The Excel Project’s unit on retention addresses research on strategies to keep students involved in the music program. It addresses the concerns of parents, students, music educators and the music industry pertaining to the reasons students quit. There is a special “Ten Commandments of Retention” that focuses on the reasons most often sighted in research for dropouts with suggested strategies to overcome them. Research has shown one of the greatest contributors to successful retention is scheduling a performance as soon as possible. The Excel Project contains materials and information on presentation of a first demonstration concert as soon as six weeks after students begin study on their instruments. A third section is devoted to advocacy articles in three areas: General Advocacy, Parent Advocacy and Pullout Advocacy. These articles are designed for concert handouts, music and school newsletters and newspaper articles. These articles can be reproduced to continually tell the story of the advantages of music participation to parents contemplating enrolling their children, as well as encouraging parents to support their children staying in the orchestra or band. In addition to the information included on the director’s disks, the Marshall representative has information included in the Excel Project on music industry materials to assist with advocacy, recruiting and maintaining the music program. The Excel Project is a solution to effectively address the challenges of recruiting, retention and advocacy in a time efficient manner. The Marshall Music representative can now become an even more effective and integral partner in music education. Educational Articles ● School Service Articles ● Product Articles ● Here's an Idea |
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Copyright © 2007 [Marshall Music]. |
