Hey everybody, it’s Larry Bigel from Tampa Fine Arts Academy. I want to wish all of you well and give you an update on our school. Here’s what’s going on for 2021.

First of all, thank you for helping us win Hulafrog’s Most Loved Music School for the 2nd year in a row. And thank you, thank you for helping us grow over the last few months. We are so close to reaching our milestone of 600 students. We’d love for you to help us reach this goal!  Remember, if you refer a friend and they enroll with us, each of you will receive a $25 Target or Amazon gift card.  We are so thankful for all the referrals we’ve received so far, and would love to give out more gift cards to you!  So feel free to let you friends know about us and we’ll take care of both you and your friend!

GIVING BACK TO YOU
We know a lot of people are struggling during this time. So, we decided to do a Give Back campaign and here’s what we’ve come up with. We talked to our friends that run independent local restaurants and the thing they said they needed help with the most is they said they needed people to buy gift certificates. So, as a token of our appreciation for you, the people of our community, we’re gonna buy 1,000 dollars of gift certificates to various local restaurants. If you have any particular restaurants in mind that you like, feel free to let us know and we’ll see about including them in our give back campaign.

Later this month, we will have a prize wheel. And you can stop by, spin the prize wheel. And You can win gift certificates to each of those restaurants as well as hats, koozies, frisbees, all kinds of fun stuff. But we’re giving back to the independent restaurants with the 1,000 dollars we’ve invested back in them and ultimately, you, our clients, are going to get it by coming by, spinning the wheel and you get a prize. So, thank you again for helping us grow during this trying time.

FUTURE STUDENT PERFORMANCES/EVENTS
We are so excited about our live music performances in 2021. But to provide an opportunity to our students who may not quite feel comfortable with in person recitals yet, we will hold a virtual recital in April. 

If you haven't already done so, please email your submissions by the end of this month.  If file is too big to email, you can goto wetransfer.com and send it that way.

On Saturday, May 16th, we’re going to hold a 15th anniversary celebration outdoors at the Land O Lakes Hertiage Park. This is going to be really cool; I’m so excited. On the outdoor lawn of the park; there’s plenty of space to spread out; we’ll have blankets and people can bring their stuff. We’re going to have food trucks and fun games. 

There will be a fun surprise that I'm not going to reveal just yet! We’ll have the stage outside where a couple of student bands will perform. Also have an open jam session. It’s going to be a blast! And we can’t wait. I mean last September is when we technically have been in business for 15 years. So this celebration is long overdue!

COVID UPDATE

Here's a brief update on our COVID protocol. We are glad to see vaccines have started to be distributed and we are optimistic in seeing promising signs of the pandemic settling down in the future. We do foresee being able to resume our group makeup classes in person sometime this year. But for the time being, we still want to keep our safety measures in place - staying socially distant, limiting traffic in our school, sanitizing, using PPE, etc. GMUs will still be on Zoom as this situation remains fluid. We will be providing another update within a couple of months or if there happens to be a significant change in the situation.  

We are planning to stay flexible by providing virtual and in person options, and will continue to do so even after this pandemic is over. You are always welcome to switch between in person and online lessons at any time. If you are doing a virtual lesson, all we ask is to please make sure you are in an area where you can have a stable connection while you are logged into Zoom.  

ADDED BENEFIT FOR YOU
Now I’m really excited to share this free addition to our lesson program that I think is going to be a game changer for all of you! One of the common things we’ve heard over the years is the challenge of getting students to practice.  Well we’re really excited to announce our first practice challenge!

Busy parents, we know how it is. Sometimes, you’re just trying to get dinner made or you’ve got stuff that needs to be done and you want your child to practice. So, we’ve set up (free for our clients) practice Zoom rooms. It’s very easy. Look out for an email as we will be starting this Practice Challenge after Spring Break. When you get the email, there will be instructions on how to get the login information and the schedule. 

The way it works is when your child logs in, we’ll set each of them up in their own breakout room. And there will be a proctor who will help motivate your child, guide them and they’ll practice! That’s a free service for you, our clients, to make it easier on everybody and we’re really excited about that new thing and everyone who participates will have a chance to win prizes such as $100 cash, gift cards, and special wristbands and stickers. So, be watching your email box. Be watching our Facebook page for all the information on the practice rooms, free for our clients with a live proctor and the Practice Champ Challenge.

Thank you to all of our students. You are the heroes of 2020 for standing by us and a huge shout out to my Assistant Manager Jenny, and all of our teachers. We greatly appreciate you for all you do. So, again, Be on the lookout for more details on our Give Back Campaign, and ohhh……One more thing I forgot to mention as a lot of you have been asking about this…..

SUMMER CAMP INFO
We have a bunch of really cool summer camps. A couple of new things that we never really did before. Kids are going to be beaming with joy. And we have some cool stuff for the older kids as well.  We also are going to be hosting a couple of weeks in the summer at a really large facility where we can allow more student participation in these camps.  Be on the lookout for an email sometime next week as we will have a special VIP discount registration for current students.

Allright, so thank you gain for your support in us, be on the lookout for our Give Back Campain, our Summer Camps, and our Practice Challenge. Be watching your email box. Be watching your Facebook page. Enjoy the April virtual recital. Come by for our 15th anniversary celebration in May, and let’s put 2020 behind us by making music. Props to all of you for being a part of our TFAAfam!