NY Trip Refunds and Vouchers

Refunds and Vouchers are in progress – you may have received your student’s already.

Here’s some information you may need to know:

  • If you canceled your 2020 NYC trip and didn’t roll over to the 2021 NYC trip, you received a $400 voucher to be used on future trips, and the balance of funds was returned to the participant.
  • If you were on the 2021 NYC trip, since it was cancelled, you will receive a $200 voucher to be used on future trips, and the balance of funds was returned to the participant. These refunds should have begun already and should be complete by the end of the week.
  • The vouchers are in the name of each participant on either of the trips. They can be used on future trips with Encore. Encores only stipulation is that only one voucher can be used for each participant.
  • Our thought when the vouchers came about last year, was to work out deals between those that have vouchers and are not going on the trip and those that are going on the trip and don’t have a voucher (For example, Student A has graduated and Student B is a new Freshmen. Student B purchases Student A’s voucher at face value). Hopefully we can get all the vouchers taken care off in this manner. I did have a family that offered their voucher to aid a future traveler, and that works out as well. As long as I have the name of the voucher holder and the name of the new traveler, the transfer is an easy move for Encore.
  • The voucher exchange, once complete, would then see that everyone would get a full refund. Please be patient with the process as our hope is to get everyone a complete refund through the exchange of vouchers.

In response to the the cancellation of the 2020 NYC trip, had the District cancelled the trip prior to the shut down, Encore would not have needed to give back as much as they did and each participant would’ve lost a large portion of the cost of the trip, rather than getting it all back. It was more advantageous to our position to let the shut down cancel the trip.

NY Trip Refunds

Refunds from the New York trip should be coming within the next two weeks. Refunds will come back to the credit card used to pay for the trip. If you used another method, then that will be mailed to you. The $200 voucher will also be mailed to each participant to be able to be used on a future Encore trip (Ireland 2022 is in the works).

NY Trip Cancelled

Carnegie Hall has announced that they will be closed through April. With that news and the still present uncertainty with the COVID pandemic, we are cancelling the NY Trip for this year.

Anyone on the trip list at this time, will receive a $200 voucher for a future trip (transferable if needed) and then the remaining balance will come back as a refund. For example, if you have $2000 paid towards the trip, you would receive a $200 voucher and then get back $1800. We are already planning our 2022 trip to Ireland, so you can use those vouchers for that trip.

Thank you all for your patience in this matter.

NY Trip Update

Dear New York Trip Families:

Hi All!

Thank you again for your patience in trying to settle out the final details of the postponement of our Instrumental Trip to New York City. I know in these times that the uncertainty of the trip has been difficult at times, so I hope this statement of the final details of the trip help alleviate some of the stress.

The trip has been postponed to March 4-8, 2021. We will be traveling to New York City to perform in Carnegie Hall. It will be an exciting trip and an amazing experience for all involved. For those of you who did not request a refund, your trip is all ready rolled into the next trip with no further payments needed. The only concession is that there is a $400 non-refundable portion of the trip if you needed to pull out of the trip for any reason.

For those of you who requested a refund, the refund process has begun and is slated to take 45 days. Usually, Encore would take 30 days to refund, but due to there social distancing protocols, processing all of this is taking a little bit longer. For those that made payments from their bank accounts using the Automatic Payments, they will be refunded back to your accounts and for all others, they will receive back a check in the mail. Everyone who asked for a refund will receive a $400 voucher from Encore and the rest of the cost will be refunded back as stated. If you used MPA Student account money, those funds will be returned back to the MPA Student Accounts for future use. Since the money in the student accounts comes from fundraising under the name of the MPA, legally the funds must come back to the MPA Student Accounts. MPA Student accounts are set up to help cover costs and donations made to and through the MPA.

For those with the $400 voucher, MPA is willing to help broker deals with future travelers, but MPA is not in a position to take on the financial burden of the vouchers. Since this is not a MPA sponsored trip, we need to make sure that MPA is financially sound. I have the upmost faith that we will be able to broker the deals in the future, most likely in the fall, but we will work with the current Senior class first, and then work our way down through the classes. Realize only one voucher can be used per person in future travels.

For those of you who ask for a refund now, and want to come back on to the trip next year, we welcome you back on the trip and you can use your voucher then. We will be advertising this trip soon, with a new sign up page and information. I highly recommend you all come along. Seniors, I even open it up to you as well. Feel free to come back and join us on this trip. I feel like you got a little shortchanged on this, so I am hoping we can make it work.

Thank you all again for your patience! Please feel free to email me about any questions.

Thanks,
Jason

MPA Business and More

  1. As with all non-profits and families alike, this time has become somewhat financially stressful. Thank you all for your donations throughout this year, but we still have some obligations to cover moving forward. If you have outstanding donations due for Band, Orchestra, 7/8, Drumline, and/or Color Guard, please consider still contributing. We know that the seasons for some was cut short, but expenses still remain. Thank you.
  2. We would encourage each of you, the next time you shop online from Amazon – which is pretty often these days – to use AmazonSmile. Amazon will donate a small percentage of each purchase to our Music Parents Association. (Look for La Canada High School Music Parents in the list.)
  3. Also, gift cards are another way to raise funds. All the information is below for purchasing them. Contact Ceci Nava if you have any questions.
  4. Booster Raffle Tickets are still available and can still be sold. Boosters are willing to still contribute the funds to our program for all tickets sold. Please contact Elizabeth Bohannon if you would like additional tickets.
  5. The New York trip has been rescheduled for March 5-9, 2021, provided we’re back to “normal” by then. Today is the deadline to fill out the google form. See this post for full information.

New York Trip Information

Dear New York Trip Students & Families,

I hope everyone is safe in these crazy times. I know in my house we are all good, and completely crazy as our house gets smaller and smaller, but we are good and happy to see more of each other than we normally get to at this time of year.

Thank you all for your patience in trying to resolve the financial aspect of the New York trip. As I said earlier, it’s been a work in progress as Encore worked on our behalf with the airlines, who were not being flexible at first, and with all other aspects of the tour. The reason we continue to travel with Encore on our long trips is due to their professionalism and longevity in the travel game. I’m happy we are working with them as I know there are going to be some travel companies that won’t survive this unexpected situation.

Here are the two options that I need you to now choose from:

Option 1: Roll over to the same New York trip on March 5-9, 2021, $400 which will show as a non-refundable credit. Students will miss Friday, Monday, and Tuesday of school, but will be able to make up any missed work and such by Monday, March 15th (as per the State Education Code which will be backed from Mr. Cartnal).

Option 2: Refund the money for the trip. Refunds will be in cash, less a $400 travel voucher with Encore/ACIS, which is transferable to new participants. We will try to broker deals for vouchers to incoming Freshmen who will have the opportunity to join the trip in August. We will work through Seniors first, and then work down through Juniors, Sophomores, and Freshmen to cover vouchers either on the 2021 New York Trip or the 2022 Ireland Trip. Payments to Encore that were paid from the MPA student accounts will be returned directly to the student’s account as these funds were all from fundraisers and can not go back to an individual.

Please fill out the same form as before, but I need everyone to redo the form under these new conditions. Please have this filled out by Monday, April 13th. I will then send out a list to confirm that you are placed in the correct Option, prior to sending the lists on to Encore.

Thank you all again for your patience! I can’t tell you how much that has helped with this process.

If you have any questions, please email me and I will try to clarify any questions you have.

Thanks and Be Safe!
Jason Stone

A Note from Mr. Stone Re New York

Dear New York Trip Students & Families :

I hope everyone is in good health and good spirits during this crazy time. I would have much preferred to be writing you a final checklist like email rather than this email of “What’s next? What’s happening with the New York trip?”.

So here is the line from Encore as it sits today.

“As it currently stands, $1500 is non-refundable however we continue to work with Carnegie Hall to lower that for any participants that need to cancel. Those that cancel will receive all funds back in cash less $1500 which will be sent as a travel voucher that can be transferred to a new participant entering the ensembles in the Fall.

For those that can roll to 2021, we will transfer all of the monies in their account of which $1500 will show as a non-refundable credit.”

We are planning on rolling the trip to next year, with the most likely date, at this time, being February 12-16, 2021. Our spring break 2021 begins with Easter Sunday, so that and the trip planned by the Choral Department, makes the February date the best time to go with the least amount of missed school. I am checking on all the needs to clear everything with the district, but I am optimistic that it will eventually go smoothly.

Seniors (and senior parent Chaperones), we are still working out the details for your use of the $1500 voucher at this time. Please be patient. The initial idea is to try and transfer that to new participants entering in the fall who wish to go on the trip. By what mechanism, that is yet to be determined.

In order to help Encore, please fill out this form letting me know what your desired intentions are for the trip.

Thank you all for your patience in this matter. It will all get resolved soon, hopefully like all the other insanity going on around us.

Take care,

Mr. Stone

A Note from Mr. Stone

Thank you all who were at our festival concerts last night. It was a great night of music and I am so happy that we got to share what we’ve been working on for the last 3 months.

In light of recent events, I have to be the bearer of bad news. In accordance with public health recommendations about the coronavirus, La Canada Unified School District has requested that we look into the upcoming events for the next month. On top of that, the organizations that sponsor our outside events have also taken these same recommendations and have made some announcements as well. SCSBOA (our festival sponsor), WGI (Guard and Drum Line), SCPA (Drum Line) and WGASC (Color Guard) have all cancelled any remaining events for the rest of this season. This means that all drum line and color guard shows, as well as our festival next Friday, have been cancelled.

This is a sad and surreal situation which saddens me by the loss of such great events we had planned for our students. However I know that all of these organizations and our district treat our student safety as priority number one and that is where all these decisions are rooted. While we all are grieving the loss of the events, which is completely normal, we also have to act for the greater good in this moment.

What does that mean for the rest of our year? As this is a dynamic situation, I can’t predict the future beyond Spring Break at this time, but I do know we will continue to teach, learn, grow and challenge each other to be better musicians, performers and friends.

We will try to keep you up to date on all instrumental rehearsals and events as we find out new information. Please be patient with us and the speed in which we send out our statements and information since we are trying to make sure we are separating the truths from the rumors.

Thank you all for your support in this wild and uncertain time.

Jason Stone
Director of Instrumental Music

Winter Drumline/Dayton Fees

Dear Winter Drumline Families:

So sad to see the Winter Drumline season end so suddenly, especially after our students have been working so hard in anticipation of competing at Dayton, Ohio. Additionally, we spent many hours planning all the logistics for this trip and are now spending many hours undoing all that hard work and we are working on getting refunds from WGI and Southwest Airlines as the MPA has already paid for the flights and the event registration and tickets for our students.

Regarding Dayton Trip refunds to parents, we have families that have paid in full or partially for the Dayton, Trip. We would like to offer the following options in terms of reimbursement.

  • The amount you paid will be moved to your student’s account for future contributions and trips for the program.
  • We can reimburse you directly with a check for amount you paid to date for Dayton, Ohio trip.
  • Apply part of the reimbursement to cover your student’s contributions of $500 for the Winter Drumline program and reimburse to you the remainder.

We have many students who have not paid the $500 contribution for this season. We can apply part of your reimbursement to offset those dues. Please keep in mind that although our season is ending early, we have incurred most of the costs of the program. This includes the instructor costs, new uniforms, registration fees, new stage floor, new props, transportation, and equipment. While we are asking each family to pay $500 per student for the season, this does not cover the full cost of the Winter DL program to the MPA. Therefore, we appreciate your support and contributions to support not just Winter Drumline but the Instrumental Music Program overall.

Additionally, for those families who have not paid for Dayton and have not paid for the Winter Drumline program, we ask that you please send in a check for $500 made out to “LCHS MPA.” The checks can be dropped off in the black lockbox in the band room or mailed to:
LCHS MPA
P.O. Box 1307
La Cañada, CA 91012

If you cannot remember what you have paid with regard to the Dayton Trip and Winter DL contribution please reach out to the MPA Treasurer, Marshall Bohannon and he can email you your student balance to date. Please put “Winter Drumline Contributions” in the subject line.

Thank you for your continued support of the LCHS Instrumental Music Program.

Sincerely,
Elizabeth Bohannon
LCHS MPA Board President
Mobile: 818-257-1210

New York and Dayton Trips Cancelled

As many of you already know, both the NYC trip and the Dayton trip were cancelled today. We are very sorry as our students have worked very, very hard for both of these trips and were really looking forward to performing and competing.

We know you have many questions regarding the trip payments and we are working on solutions for both trips. We will provide an update in a few days once we have more information.

Thank you for your patience and continued support of the LCHS Instrumental Music Program.

Elizabeth Bohannon
MPA President
Mobile: 818-257-1210