DCPI rules conference report

[Galen]

The off-season rules congress has concluded. Here is my report of the proposals voting.

Rules Congress report:

Season 23 finals venue: Season 23’s championships will be held at The University of Kentucky’s Commonwealth Stadium in Lexington KY. While this venue is currently undergoing renovations, that is not expected to cause any complications for the championship events. Open Class and Class A Prelims will be held at Roy Kidd Stadium at Eastern Kentucky University in nearby Richmond KY.

Hall of Fame: I am thrilled to welcome Keith Grush and Jeff Howard into the DCPI Hall of Fame! Keith has been a long-time director of the Knights Of org (Knights of Power, Knights of Sound, Knights of Note), has captured two DCPI championships and is a perennial contender. Jeff is the director of the Buckeye Brass group of corps. While only being an active director for a few seasons, Jeff has already made his mark on the league by capturing a DCPI championship and several finalist positions.

Rule change proposals:

Proposal #1 passed by a vote of 6-1. Starting in season 23, class A corps will not be able to select corps for GE captions valued over 20 points. However, they may still select from any corps for the remaining captions. Class A directors will be on their honor to keep their GE captions under the limit, and will be assessed a 0.5 point penalty for each point in excess of the limit they use (ie 0.5 point penalty for a 21 point corps, 1.0 penalty for a 22 point corps, etc.). The executive director will monitor Class A caption selections and, to the best of his ability, will notify directors via PM or email whose corps are above the limit prior to their next show so that they have a chance to adjust their captions to avoid a penalty.

The purpose of this proposal would shift the focus for Class A corps from design to performance.

Proposal #2 passed by a unanimous 7-0 vote. CLASS and Fanfare will be scheduled on separate weekends.

The purpose of this proposal is to allow both organizations to increase the number of corps that can attend their championship events, rather than having to compete for participants. The two events will be held during week 6 of the season. By a coin flip, the Fanfare championships will be held on the Sunday of week 6 and the CLASS championship will be held on the Saturday of week 6; this will alternate from live season to off-season. The CLASS and Fanfare directors shall notify the executive director prior to October 31^st of where their events will be staged so that the schedule can be finalized as soon as possible, and should be considerate of the location of the Masters of DCPI event (taking place in Columbus, OH) when planning their events.

Proposal #3 passed by a 5-2 vote. The “Masters of DCPI” event, which has been staged on an on-again, off-again basis throughout the years, will be re-established as an invite-only event open to all previous world champion corps in all divisions. This event will be held during the middle of week 6 at Columbus Crew Stadium.

Proposal #4 passed by a 5-0 vote. Last season’s point values will be in effect for this season going forward.

Proposal #5 passed by a 4-1 vote. In the event that there are 50 or fewer corps registered for the season, Open Class and Class A corps will be eligible to participate in World Class prelims and would be able to advance if they finish in the top 30.