Frequently Asked Questions explaining what to expect from a

Staffordshire Knights Youth Band School Presentation

Why do you do offer this service? – The Staffordshire Knights are a marching band fairly local to your school. As a youth organisation, our search for new members never ends, and we need to continually make ourselves known in the local community. Our school presentations firstly serve to offer children the chance to be part of our fun, rewarding activity, but secondly aim to entertain and educate.

How many Staffordshire Knights representatives should we expect? - Depending on how many of our staff and instructors can get the time off work, we aim to supply between 5 and 10 adult individuals to present at your school.

Most of these adults are CRB checked.

Do you bring any vehicles with you? – We do have a 7.5 ton equipment truck, this being the only way to transport some of our bulky equipment, so a reasonably close parking area for it would be much appreciated. We generally try to fit all of our people into 2 or 3 cars, so again, space for their cars would be beneficial though not essential.

How much preparation time do you need? – 45 minutes is preferred, this represents the time from entering your school, to being ready to present. If this is a problem, then - provided we can unload our equipment in an area close to the presentation hall - we can probably be ready in approximately 30 minutes. Also, to maintain the element of surprise, we prefer to set-up in an environment without pupils.

What sort of space do you require? – We would prefer a conventional school hall or dining hall which generally gives both space for all of our equipment and the pupil audience alike. The following image might give you a feel for the kind of equipment we use and its' size...

How long is the presentation likely to last, and what format does it take? – This is customisable to some degree. All of our presentations comprise a 15 minute period where we introduce the various sections and maybe offer one or two children the chance to have a quick go on an instrument in front of their friends. Next, we show a 5 minute DVD or video which is a great way to demonstrate to your pupils that our band members are of a similar age to themselves. Afterwards – time permitting - we also offer a hands-on service where we try to let all of the children have a go in each of our 4 sections (Brass, Percussion, Pit Percussion and Colour Guard) in rotation. Mainly, because of the combined noise, if there are available classrooms, it is best – though not essential – to split the sections into different rooms for the hands-on period.

Can we help with any additional equipment? – Yes please. As well as demonstrating all of the sections within our band, we like to show a DVD or a video tape demonstrating what we do, this requires a TV with either a DVD player or VCR attached (our first choice if possible would be a DVD player). A PC/Laptop hooked up to a projector screen (like the above image) would also be acceptable. Also, as we allow pupils the chance to have a go on trumpets and the like, we are well aware of transmitting germs through shared mouthpieces. To try to counteract this, we like to sterilize mouthpieces between users, so ideally we would need a large bowl full of clean water to rinse our sterilising fluid off with.

What sort of equipment do you use? – We are first and foremost a marching band, so everything (except the static pit percussion) needs to be portable. We use trumpets, mellophones, forward-facing baritones and tubas in the brass section, snare drums, tenor and bass drums in the percussion, and marimbas, vibraphones, xylophones, glockenspiels etc in the pit section. We also have a Colour Guard section who concentrate on dance and movement, this section uses coloured flags, artificial sabres and other visual equipment.

Would you be able to do a longer presentation, say a workshop? - We are sometimes able to provide a more substantial presentation, which could span say 3 or 4 hours to suit your needs. Please take a look at our Workshops page to give a better idea of what we can offer.

Do you leave any literature with us? – We like to leave each of the members a leaflet which contains details of how to get to our practise sites, contact numbers, rehearsal times and website address. Also, we can give you an A4 poster which we would appreciate you hanging in a prominent position. Of course there is also an abundance of information to be found on our website...

www.staffordshire-knights.org.uk

Page last updated on Thursday October 25, 2007