Jump to content

Brief DCA impressions


Recommended Posts

And do Govies still have that green school bus? My dad is a retired auto mechanic who fixed larger vehicles for the Gov't. Everytime I'd see that bus I could just picture him (well the bottom half) hanging over the grill or front fender.

The corps currently uses a couple of green busses (converted school busses with more open and comfortable seating). We only brought one of them -- just acquired this year, nicknamed "G-8" -- out to Rochester.

Edited by Big Govie-ment
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Govies left Rochester about 1+ hour after retreat, returning to St. Peter at around 10 p.m. CST.

Had a brief stop in Milwaukee to return one of Pioneer's busses. A huge "thank you" to Roman Blenski and the Pioneer organization for helping us on this journey.

:ninja:

Nice run - my gang of Green!! With the detour to Pioneerland, that's pretty good time, although I can't believe #8 can stay extended times at 70 or more on the road w/o a number of stops to rest the kidneys. And I can imagine if you ACTUALLY took #6 to Milwaukee, what was louder, the bus or the airplanes leaving Billy Mitchell next door. :tounge2: ( just kidding - after the issue with the judges last year at the MN weekend - you might see my scepticism about bus #6)

MBI got in last night about dinnertime - trucks earlier. Gwynne and I met the busses, gabbed with the staff and members who "manned up" and took the long ride back, and still got home from the new Vikings facility in Eagan about 7:30 with KFC.

Once again, the road warriors - (CV, MBI, Alliance, Govies and Chops & Kilties) show the NorEasters that we can play Drum Corps pretty well!!

Congrats to all of my road weary (or Plane weary) brothers and sisters on a safe return.. Let's hope our friends from across the pond enjoy the same safe travels!!! :worthy::worthy:

Pat

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The key to grow DCA is to grow the regions. If the regions have strong competition with themselves then the mix as we come to DCA Championships will take care of itself. Non of our corps SHOULD be geared to travel long distances more than once or twice a year. Seed DCA corps in your area and provide performance opportunities for each other. C2 exists because they do not have to travel to attend championships. Performance opportunities are close at hand. We each need to do that in our own regions.

I'm excited to see what Allen can do to springboard off the amazing work the DCA Board has completed in the last 10 years under Gill. The judging and transparent movements of the association has been good.

MBI has had scheduling conflicts that prevents shows on the weekend before DCA, but we are looking at eliminating those. Our biggest challenge and preference would be to move DCA Championships off Labor Day to better accomodate the schedule of our members and families.

One long term concern is Championships Attendance. It would be interesting to see the online subscriptions. Looked like about 2500-3000 paid attendance at prelims and finals.

Seems about right.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Moving Championships off of Labor Day weekend would cause a major problem with southern corps in that all the schools have been in session down here for a month already by Labor Day and not having it on the holiday weekend would make it very difficult for high school age students (or teachers) to participate. Just a thought.

Dan

I agree.

That extra day... the Monday holiday.... makes a big difference, in terms of travel, for a lot of people involved with the weekend.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yea, it really crippled them something fierce this weekend, that's for sure. The simple fact is that each non-NE region had at least two *full DCA panel* shows. They got accurate reads by the same judges that they'd see over two nights in Rochester.

Facts are hard, yo.

with people that saw them finals weekend.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Let me try and bring a little first hand perspective that might help clear things up. First, coming to the northeast more than once just isn't a financial option. It takes 20K to move CV out of the parking lot. That's a fact, and it just isn't something we can do more than once a year, besides Championships. Sooooo....the more travel argument is really a moot point. Secondly, this year was a strange year for us. This show was very late to bloom. It really didn't start coming together until the last month or so. The early reads we got at Gold's and Alliance's shows were pivotal to helping us bring the product to it's ultimate conclusion. Yes, there is no doubt that not having a show the weekend before Championships cost us a few seeding spots for prelims but it also allowed us a full rehearsal weekend to finish up the design and performance issues that were needed.

As Chris Romanowski, our percussion caption head, told us, seedings don't matter. Just go out and make them give you a number. That's what we tried to focus on.

Atlanta CV isn't going to complain about disadvantages we may or may not have. We're just going to try to get better...day after day, year after year. We figure that's all we can control. Had a blast with my CV family this summer.

seeing a video of your last shows before finals to this weekend was night and day. hopefully the panel you saw there gave you great feedback, and you applied it,and your last rehearsals went fantastic.

I've been a CV fan from the first time I saw the corps however many years ago, and the shift the corps has made in programming the last 4 years has really taken hold and the performers are really latching on. Kudos to y'all.

As the bar keeps getting raised in DCA, it's only going to get crazier. Cabs were hanging close to Bucs all year, but the C2 train kept chugging...can't say they waited til after DCI to fill 10+ holes this year! MBI continues for several years to be in the hunt, Kidsgrove gets better every time they come over, and my god. look all the way down to 13th place Sky....5 years ago that's a corps that is in finals! heck, I've been pretty hard on the Kilties the last several years, and they made a nice jump forward!

and with the ability for judges to adjust numbers if need be, seeding only counts for so much.

even if I was watching online, this was a great year for DCA, one of the best ever.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Had a brief stop in Milwaukee to return one of Pioneer's buses.

Ah, I saw that Pioneer bus parked in Rochester and wondered whose it was!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Got home at around 1:30 Tuesday morning. Good thing I slept on the bus!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Got home at around 1:30 Tuesday morning. Good thing I slept on the bus!

LMAO... after I left corps my wife and I went on a group bus trip to VT (about 10 hour drive). Bus left at 6:30am and by 6:32am I was OUT.......

Later people around me asked how I could go to sleep that quick on a moving bus. Answer of course was corps training as bunch of trips we caught the bus around 1AM and for two nights the only place to sleep was your bus seat.

Brother-in-law and his family live in Wake Forest, wish I could sleep thru THAT trip.... *ugh*.. but I have to drive the car....

Edited by JimF-LowBari
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pepe had a theory about sleeping and driving at the same time ... he'd recline in the driver's seat with his head back to the point where his eyes were open only a sliver ... he'd say: "Dat way it's just like yer sleepin'" ... one day we noticed that his front end was damaged and asked what happened ... he said "I tink I musta blinked" ...

:-)

Brother-in-law and his family live in Wake Forest, wish I could sleep thru THAT trip.... *ugh*.. but I have to drive the car....

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...