What an effort to pull together concert featuring New Horizons Bands from Lakes Region & Portsmouth

To The Daily Sun,

A huge thank you goes to the Meredith Parks and Recreation Department as they came through again to offer a welcoming atmosphere for the combined concert with the New Horizons Band Of the Lakes Region and Portsmouth.

The weather held and the day began around noon as the band trailer came into town and was unloaded by a few awesome volunteers who thought they were there to play basketball in the gym! The young adults were respectful and kind as they saw that the band's medium age was well over 60, so were happy to help with the heavy lifting! The Portsmouth Band showed up shortly thereafter and rehearsals began.

The facilities were fantastic with amazingly good acoustics in the gym. When the stand-up mike hadn't made it on the trailer, Parks and Rec employee Dan Curnyn found one for us to use. When the donation sign was forgotten, again Dan came through to solve the problem. Ladders were found for our band photographer and the day just ran seamlessly.

My biggest worry in helping to organize this event, was how to feed the 80 musicians who were coming from many communities for the whole day, but Parks and Rec Program Director Sarah Perkins agreed to do a dinner for us as a fund-raiser for the kids' programs. She offered five different meals and the band council chose a pasta bar-complete with several pasta offerings, three sauces, meatballs, chicken, salad, drinks, bread, and desserts, all at a very affordable price.

What she and Sara Dubois created could rival any restaurant I've ever eaten in! The freshest food available, complete with homemade alfredo, pesto, and red Sauces, meat that melted in your mouth, salad from garden vegetables, and even home churned butter for the bread, brought raves by everyone eating! The desserts were home made as well, and delicious. The dining room was colorful and inviting and everyone was so happy and felt very much at home.

In order to complete the evening, we needed an audience for our concert, but to get an audience, the word had to go out. Again, the Meredith Parks and Rec came through with Terri Thompson printing up our flyer for distribution. The Weirs Times, Laconia Daily Sun, and Salmon Press published the news of our event for all to see, and the Inter-Lakes School District told the students about the upcoming concert. The Meredith Public Works Dept. also displayed the concert on the Hesky Park sign for us and, the people came! It was such a wonderful audience that 10 band cars had to be moved to Prescott Park so that more parking was available at the Community Center.

The town of Meredith can be very proud of Parks and Recreation Director Vint Choiniere and his employees at the Community Center. His partnership with the New Horizons band has been, and continues to be a blessing to bring music into the area. Look next for the New Horizons Band of the Lakes Region to perform the July 4 concert at Hesky Park, and also to appear in the August parade to celebrate Meredith's 250th! Thanks again to everyone-it was a very fun day.

 Karen Sticht & the

New Horizons Band of the Lakes Region