On Saturday 10th November the Marching & Performing Arts UK Annual General Meeting took place in Walsall and this was followed by an open meeting for Drum Corps which included elections to the DCUK Board for 2008.

Representatives from ten Corps were in attendance, as well as judging personnel, and discussions took place regarding the past season and also ideas and suggestions for the coming 12 months.

The newly elected management team consists of Rob Swindells, Jason Oates, Chris Jones and Joe Fitzpatrick and the team will be managed by Alan Thompson, the MPA:UK Chairman.

Though the weather was threatening the day with rain, the 2007 Drum Corps Japan (DCJ) All-Japan Championships marched on without delay. Japan's finest came together in Tokyo this past Sunday to compete for the national title. 2007 marks DCJ's 15th anniversary as Japan's premier marching experience. To celebrate, championships were held outside for the first time at Ajinomoto Stadium in Tokyo. This year also marks the introduction of a new competitive division.

The DCE Power Regional to take place on Saturday 21st June 2008 will be held in the prestigious Crystal Palace Athletics Stadium in London. This has been announced by Drum Corps Europe.

The Crystal Palace Athletics Stadium is the most important stadium in the United Kingdom for (international) athletic events. The stadium is located in Crystal Palace Park, which offers participating corps plenty of space for warm ups and rehearsals.

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As part of the Federation’s MARCHON development strategy it is supporting the Senators ‘Raw Rhythm’ stage tour. The Federation hopes that in the future other bands and corps will adopt this theatre concept as a winter activity to create both new performance opportunities and attract new audiences to our unique activity.

The Federation’s Hon. Director Jim Vaughan explains “ All member organisations signed up to the ‘MarchOn’ strategy in 2006, an important part of which was to address the issue of different show ideas that will get new people to watch. I believe that as we do this, we must make sure that our USP of ‘live music integrated with music’ is preserved - and Raw Rhythm certainly does this”