Leaderboard

Gotta be honest... that would be pretty wild, in a good way. Virtually endless possibilities, I would think!!!

The prestigious Berklee School of Music in Boston is apparently not immune to a " petition " plea demanding that changes take place along these similar lines too. The President of the school said they have fired nearly a dozen faculty members in recent years alone over sexual misconduct. It seems the Berklee School President and School board there have a very low tolerance level for sexual misconduct by staffers with its college aged students. But it appears that many students there are demanding even more be done by their school. https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2017/11/13/silent-protest-planned-at-berklee-after-globe-report-on-sexual-harassment-investigation

Interesting. I come to DCP hoping to find drum corps news. When I see the opening page with all the threads and it's the same people commenting over and over, I figure it's a family feud and if you're not in the family, you may as well keep your mouth shut and head over to Redditt.

I've long supported an "Anything Goes" division where corps could compete with any instrumentation and any number of members. No idea if any corps are interested in such an experiment, but I like the idea.

For historical perspective, this Nation initially began with " a petition ".. to King George of England. That incidentally, if Gallup was around and did a " poll " may not have had majority of support among the citizenry at the time of " the petition " to King George. There are no doubt good and bad " petitions ". Only time itself will tell us if this Petition was needed and/ or worthy. I'm always a little leary however when people work overtime to end " petition ' drives... sometimes even before the ink is dry on the petition itself... which, if we read the 1st page of this thread here, all manner of attacks ( seemingly now unfounded ) were made on the petition organizers, their petition, and their motives for it. I think everybody should just calm down now a bit more, let the petition go forward, and see what comes of it. I'm hoping some ultimate good comes out of it. But... we'll see.

This is not about " DCP".... nor about " Facebook ".... nor about " Reddit ... nor about what is posted on any other social media. All manner of good, bad, and indifferent postings can be found on anonymous social media outlets. But that is not what is most important here, imo. This petition drive is essentially between the thousands of people who ( or will ) sign their real names to the petition and the real names and faces of the current office holders in DCI who will ultimately receive the petition when the originators believe its completed and ready to be delivered. All manner of discussion on social media between anonymous posters on this petition and DCI itself seems ancillary and almost irrelevent as simply background " noise " on the petition to DCI, imo

I think his/her point was perhaps to separate the logic of this particular petition approach from the emotion of the particular issue to which it was directed. Inability or unwillingness to separate those things has all but prevented rational discussion that might lead to finding the most effective solutions to our concerns about the best interests of the marchers.

Whats the WORST that could occur with this petition to DCI ? That DCI discards the petition after conferring with their legal counsel.. that informs DCI they have sufficient policies and procedures on this issue already in place ? Well then, so what ?.. no real harm was done with this petition, now was there ? But what if it triggers a belief within DCI/ Corps that they can actually do better ? Is that so BAD ? . So whats the real downside here on this petition ? Compared with the potential upside with it, it seems a worthy effort... unless I'm missing something here.

Even the much maligned Catholic Church now requires background checks as standard operating procedure for all volunteers. At least in the diocese in which I live. So why wouldn't you check out the bus drivers. And cooks. And all other volunteers.

Corps already have plenty of options for which shows/how many shows to do, where to tour, WC/OC/SoundSport - the full variety of competitive, financial and time-commitment levels are served. And what does raising the 150-member limit have to do with that, anyway? Not sure we were seeing the same webcast. I tuned in for most of the Grand National semifinals. Generally speaking, designs were constrained by the same prop excesses that characterize the current DCI top-16, then further constrained by slower movement and (for the bigger bands) more people crowded into the remaining space. If you find BOA more impressive than DCI simply because they are bigger ensembles, good for you. BOA could use the fan support. The rest of this post looks like a recycled G7 presentation. That debate has already been had. I am of the opinion that less corps, even if they are bigger, will lead to less people marching overall. And taken too far, less corps creates an untenable business model - then you have no corps.

Well. I’m not reflecting this upon EVERYONE.

Oh, no doubt you are right that there is no driving desire within DCI for such a thing. Doesn't change my personal opinion. Why should it?

Females are definitely NOT in the family, girl. It’s a sausage party.

If it is a family, it is in bad need of family counseling.

Anyone care to set the "over/under" on when he comes back, this time? Last time I think it was less than a month.

It could be worse. You could have spent 8 years building it up to be ruined by 2 snarky old farts.

24 or 25 tryouts for the tuba line spots - that's the online specific line I heard a count from as you already posted - most vets returning from 2017

except DCI policy says you cant use it on natural turf

again i said the petition is a good thing. However i dont think the policies need to be published for all to see. There's quite possibly stuff in there that truly isn't for public consumption, and i've yet to find a law that requires it for an issue like this. But that the petition has heightened awareness within the organization is a good thing. I would imagine it spells how they police it as well.

In my case he is a HS student, actually only a 10th grader. No idea how many in attendance were HS level. I know they provided a bunch of information for kids performing at USBands Nats about the auditions. The camp was also for C2, which has a lot of HS kids as members, so my guess is they wanted both HS and college-aged potential members to try out. The next NJ camp showing on the YEA website, on 11/25-26 at Delran HS, says HS students only, fyi....

Brasso: I have said this before, and will repeat it here, folks used to congragate at the barbershop and cuss/discuss the state of affairs from high school football to debating the US Constitution; it is an American tradition; it is healthy for the open freedoms we have in this great nation. Now, in the age of technology, instead of just local barbershops we have blogs and chat rooms open to those beyond the local. The same freedom of openess in discussion is here, but just a different venue. So this type of banter certainly is beneficial to us exercising our open discussions on various matters.

if a rumor...well....don't cry when you get blowback

thats why I said i dont think the policy manual has been around for a long time, or this stuff included in it til recently. if nothing else, better late than never

Its unlikely Corps " look for them ", but they definately " show up " to these Corps on occasion, ..we do know that anyway. From reading this, it appears that you believe that DCI Corps do not hire high risk, unsafe drivers with bad driving records, DUI, etc and additionally does not hire high risk sex offenders who have had records of previous crimes of a sexual nature against children. if that is your mistaken belief, then it probably explains why you apparently believe that DCI/ Corps don't need to do much of anything else at the moment... and probably explains also why you have a visceral , negative reaction to this petition and with the thousands of people( including it should be pointed out more than a few current 2017-2018 marchers in DCI) that have signed this petition in their belief that DCI/ Corps needs to do more. Are you implying that you know more about this important issue than some of the marchers that are day to day surrounded by this issue ? Well, reading your comments here, one would assume you believe so anyway. I think marchers who are surrounded all off season and all summer long with this, would tend to know more about this issue than some of us adults on here. But, thats just my outside the loop DCI/ Corps assessment on this as well.

ok I'll ask you...why SHOULD DCI have to make every little thing you want public? Many 501c's, and even the government do not make every little thing available. I looked at 4 different government sites this morning, and couldn't find hiring guidelines or policies or procedures, and after scanning several band circuits sites this weekend, the same was there. Not everything needs to be public info. In todays world, better to have a policy in place, and better to enforce, which i think they are trying to do. The legal system doesnt help as we have discussed. Should DCI have had something like this years ago? yes. But as we've seen in the news, many schools quietly fired people to make them go away as well...and they are publicly funded. I'd rather they have the policy in place and do their best to enforce it, than actually see it and parse every participle.

Word is strong that hornline vet count is not a worry.

Great idea! You finally have a point! The Cadets have dropped from 1st to 7th; they are part of the rest now competing for 7th to 8th place just like you said. The USA can only support the 6 top tier organizations, again just like you stated, above the Cadets. So let's take the current top 6, put them in the top class which the USA can support, and put the Cadets in the lower tier. Is that acceptable to you?

listening to this group of band kids watch BA during prelims is priceless - got to admire their unvarnished sense of excitement and the are pretty darn observant when it comes down to it

How about limiting staff sizes. Top 12 staffs out-number the size of corps in the 60's and 70's. Ratio of staff to members is getting insane. Staff transport, food, logistics, etc. is crazy and all those salaries increase costs also!

I’d sign it. Jim paid for his background checks twice, once each year with the Cadets, so he could drive for them. One world class corps had a driver with multiple drug convictions driving a vehicle for them. Obviously, they weren’t running background checks,

oh that was cold.

So lets start a new petition for DCI to legislate that corps hire safe bus drivers and van drivers. I am sure that if we don't do this corps will go out and look for unsafe drivers with DUI and bad driving records. And DCI needs more pages in its rule book, I am sure corps do not have their own policies in place and Dan Acheson needs a petition to bring more restrictions on the corps. Parents who were ready to pay money for their kids to have a good summer learning experience will have second thoughts, they thought DCI was safe, but now after seeing this petition they may feel that their kids are unsafe on Corps busses. This may make it easier for some kids to join corps if those parents have second thoughts. Of course anyone who is opposed to signing this petition obviously doesn't care about safety and we can accuse them of wanting accidents to happen and of being against bus safety. Obviously anyone who would not sign this would be anti- safety and pro drunk driving while transporting kids so everyone should sign this.

My CONGRATULATIONS to Dr. T. Andre Feagin, formally with THE ACADEMY, my beloved Corps that I have had the absolute Honor and Pleasure of serving as a volunteering, since it's inception as a competitive Division II Corps with their "Debut" in 2004. Incidentally, I marched with a BAC (Boston Area Corps), The defunct, Simplex Minutemen Drum & Bugle Corps of Gardner, Mass. from 1965-1972! All the Best to Dr. Feagin, and the Mighty Boston Crusaders in 2018 and Beyond. Cheers, and ENJOY!

Happy to report that no mms died of frostbite in the making of this drum corps.

New promo video out from Boston titled... " 2017 was just the beginning ".

thought i was on ignore again. oops

after watching most of BOA finals tonight, with the amount of bodies and the props craziness, 150 is more than enough

It's unfortunate that Claudia Taylor Johnson never went to finals. I'm sure they would be close to the top.

this proposal was made prior to "G7" it will happen - just a matter of time the dinos will hate it - and then it will grow the activity once again that the dinos nearly killed off

BA has moments this year which rival top 12 DCI - they have a music hit about 3 minutes in that is fricking amazing Here it is in standstill Avon is amazing this year - the last two minutes "this is our testament" The fantastic message of Jay Webb is brilliantly woven into their 2017 program

the fields are so not crowded at 150 many TOP corps barely explore outside the 30s or the back half watch Crown 2016 as an example - you could fit that program on a tennis court lol

1972-1978 are now done. Enjoy!

Let's do the Crown Warp again.

Snoring was always a problem with the Couchmen. I think that's why so many members migrated over to Sofa Clara and Pacific Rest.

I wore my Blue Knights shirt to the doctors office today for my checkup, and as I sit down in the little room with the scales and stuff, the doctor was like "Blue Knights? You're into DCI?" And we had like a 15 minute conversation drum corps and percussion stuff and it quite made my day.