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Recruitment Problems, Financial Stress, and Poor Leadership, Oh My!


How will you support drum corps?  

67 members have voted

  1. 1. How will you support drum corps?

    • Do Volunteer Work for Corps
      18
    • Make a Financial Donation
      41
    • Recommend a Friend to a Drum Corps
      8


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8 hours ago, cybersnyder said:

 we had a high school drop its football program last year due to lack of interest. If you were an awesome football athlete, your opportunity to do something with it completely dried up. They did not allow players to go to adjacent high schools to play and by adjacent, I'm talking only 2-3 miles away. Anyways, their marching band is one of the better ones in the area. Will be interesting (from an academic viewpoint) to see what happens to a marching band that no longer has a football team. In this particular case, I suspect they will survive as they have a pretty strong music program in general.

We have two HS in our district here in NJ, and one of them dropped varsity football last year due to lack of interest. The JV still existed, and the MB (small) performed at their games. The poor students at that school who were seniors on the varsity team were left out of playing their senior year, since the state of NJ Athletic Board did not permit the combining of HS at that time.

This year, they changed the rule so that the two HS varsity teams are now one, but there are caveats about post-season games. The original rationale for not permitting the combining was so that two HS in a district could not combine to form one unbeatable powerhouse. Our kids just want to play....we are in no danger of creating a powerhouse. I think the HS with the varsity team won one game last year, and maybe 4 over the past three years total.

We are maintaining two MB this year, both small as always, in the 40-45'ish range, but I think they will combine at some point, as I have thought they should since we opened two HS in town.

 

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Still waiting on an answer about Teal Sound! I live here in Jacksonville, teach High School music and I haven't heard a word about this!

 

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2 hours ago, KeithHall said:

Still waiting on an answer about Teal Sound! I live here in Jacksonville, teach High School music and I haven't heard a word about this!

 

  Maybe " they're waiting for the right time " to spill the beans.

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3 hours ago, KeithHall said:

Still waiting on an answer about Teal Sound! I live here in Jacksonville, teach High School music and I haven't heard a word about this!

 

Disclaimer: I do not know any of the former staff members or directors of Teal Sound personally, so I do not have any first hand knowledge but I have heard rumors of Teal Sound regrouping which have been refuted by others saying those who could make it happen have moved on to other corps. I think these rumors have been around since mid-July of 2012 when the corps stopped competing. Teal Sound faced a number of issues at the end, not all financial, so it makes sense that some would want to rebuild the corps that like to be innovative and seemed at least from the outside to be a corps that wanted to give all kids a chance to march. This can be done, but I would wonder if using the name Teal Sound is necessary. It was not an older corps with an established history. It did leave a mark, no question, and it’s departure left a hole, but are folks looking for a return of Teal Sound or a corps that can show Florida can establish a corps that will stand the test of time?

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7 minutes ago, Tim K said:

. It did leave a mark, no question, and it’s departure left a hole, but are folks looking for a return of Teal Sound or a corps that can show Florida can establish a corps that will stand the test of time?

With lots of talent in FL, this seems like a good option.

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Ghost is right about there being tons of talent in Florida, so I wonder about the lack of success (longevity) of drum corps from there.  Thinking Teal, Magic, Suncoast, Florida Wave....what gives?   Organizational issues?  Or lack of business/corporate outreach?  BAC continues to have a large membership slice from Florida.  Perhaps it is the best of both worlds....Florida talent with a massive organization back in the City of Boston...

 

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21 minutes ago, craiga said:

Ghost is right about there being tons of talent in Florida, so I wonder about the lack of success (longevity) of drum corps from there.  Thinking Teal, Magic, Suncoast, Florida Wave....what gives?   Organizational issues?  Or lack of business/corporate outreach?  BAC continues to have a large membership slice from Florida.  Perhaps it is the best of both worlds....Florida talent with a massive organization back in the City of Boston...

 

A few years back, there was a post that listed total members by state, and I believe Florida was either 2nd or 3rd and people wondered why Florida had challenges keeping a corps on the field where do many kids march drum corps. If I remember correctly, the two biggest reasons given were corps recruiting in Florida and the second being kids from Florida attending out of state colleges near where winter camps were held.

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1 hour ago, craiga said:

Ghost is right about there being tons of talent in Florida, so I wonder about the lack of success (longevity) of drum corps from there.  Thinking Teal, Magic, Suncoast, Florida Wave....what gives?   Organizational issues

1 hour ago, Tim K said:

A few years back, there was a post that listed total members by state, and I believe Florida was either 2nd or 3rd and people wondered why Florida had challenges keeping a corps on the field where do many kids march drum corps. If I remember correctly, the two biggest reasons given were corps recruiting in Florida and the second being kids from Florida attending out of state colleges near where winter camps were held.

BAC continues to have a large membership slice from Florida.  Perhaps it is the best of both worlds....Florida talent with a massive organization back in the City of Boston...

 

1

YEs and Yes. There is plenty of talent in Florida. MOST issues were due to good people with a heart for the activity with bad decisions and financial issues. Too many promises made to staff, bus companies, members, etc etc, without coming through with what was said or promised. Not to leave some members off the hook either. I have found ( and I, of course, do not mean ALL ) there is an unbelievable amount of members who came out of Florida who also didn't follow through with financial obligations, Actually, I can safely say maybe some of the worst I have found in the country. I know that also comes down to bad management and letting this happen BUT to spread the wealth around there are and were many corps who also accepted members notorious for doing this yet accepted them into their corps which didn't help the activity or the corps stiffed.

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So there is no doubt that Florida has a ton of talent for drum corps BUT not for a corps in Florida! In the past 15 to 20 years the state wouldn't support 2 DCA corps and they already have an Open Class DCI corps. The past saw Suncoast Sound, Magic, Teal Sound, Florida Waves/Vanguards, Floridians, Devil Dogs but that was so long ago.

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Drum corps, especially those who are unlikely to draw large numbers nationally, including DCA corps and non-finalist DCI corps, probably should work harder to establish relationships with as many local high school and college band directors as possible. When I was in high school, in 1987 or 1988, our director invited Bluecoats in to do a recruiting pitch. When I was in college, we had band members who were in Bluecoats and Star of Indiana. At that time, DCI finals were in late August, so drum corps participation definitely would have forced members to miss about a week of my college band's rehearsals and two or three weeks of my high school band's rehearsals--which in terms of lost time, doesn't sound very different from the concerns we're hearing now. The band directors at both schools saw having students with drum corps experience as a net positive. It boggles my mind to hear of band directors who don't see it that way today. (Dear Eden Prairie or Rosemount or whoever: your band will be even better if you have students who have played in Minnesota Brass!) The way to overcome such misconceptions is through persistent outreach.

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