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Instructional staff had been extremely vocal to the administration about making sure the members were safe and well taken care of. The one dragging their feet were closer to VMAPA than SCVC corps proper. I hope you're catching what I'm implying without going into too much detail. Frankly, the organization does not deserve what the members or the instructional staff bring to the table.

Color is a finite resource in DCI world class uniforming. Bluecoats took so much there wasn't enough for the rest of the corps.

Life circle here..... I have lived in Denton 2 blocks from UNT. I have been on the management team of a former top open class corps... I currently live in Savannah. And yes, there is a ton of apprehension in the community about the Bananas leaving the Coastal Plains League. But, as an aside.... I know of another top echelon open class corps that spent roughly $1.2 million this past season. While I feel for the members and staff of SCVC, and feel very strongly that Gale must be rolling over in his grave about his beloved organization, I have to ask..... Is this activity even obtainable for the average individual/organization? Think about it. $1.2 million for a zero percent slice of the revenue pie from DCI. It all goes to the World Class corps unless you appear in their shows. Sponsorships/endorsements don't happen for the Open Class corps unless you have a top name staff that has relationships with the companies already. Let's face it. The activity isn't dieing for the open class corps. It's been dead for years since the demise of the regional circuits. DCE, DCW, DCS (short lived), DCM, Garden State Circuit, Eastern Mass Circuit, ODCA. They are what kept the activity alive and enabled the smaller corps to have an avenue to enable them to exist. You could compete locally and not have to have all of the out of state members to remain viable. Yes, as you became more successful, you would add out of state members as you climb the ranks, but you didn't have to just to exist. Over the past few years, we've seen multiple corps put out the call for help while within the season and the criticism always follows. How many people have an idea about the costs these days? Or how if one fundraiser goes wrong, it can jeapordize the future of the organization? Personally, I would love to see SCVC go back to their roots. Open it up to local membership and become a local instructional corps again. Unfortunately, it looks like VMPA is not interested in that.....

Perhaps their Board recognized that they were missing enough competent adults willing to do the work necessary to run the program according to their standards. Hiring everywhere is tough right now, especially in fields having to do with social service and education (and drum corps management encompasses both). If the reports from members are true, and they had substandard conditions, and the BOD is being truthful that the expense the syear was more than what they felt comfortable committing to for 2023, then wouldn't the prudent course of action be to (checks notes.....) put the program on hiatus until they have adults ready to run it and the funds to do it well? In other words, the thing they actually did?

I can 100% assure you that the division you saw was from the larger organization pulling away from the cadet corps, and its roots, than the cadet corps pulling away from the larger organization. Like I said, when the Rennicks came in they made it clear that they had no interest in grooming the cadets corps members for the A-Corps. We as staff had to encourage incredibly talented members to find a new home in another world class corps because they were dead set on having UNT be the new feeder organization. That mindset trickled through the organization, and the corps grew further apart due to their disinterest in the cadet corps. Barnhill worked to maintain the SCV mission of providing quality marching experiences for the bay area youth, and had to fight against the larger organization to do it at every turn. Someone above said, and I agree, that they should just change their name and officially move to Texas. With the loss of SCVC they are losing the majority of their connections with the local community.

I saw this and need to reemphasize this is NOT how SCVC was run in the past (up until 2019). I marched the Barnhill years and we had 4 warm meals, excellent housing, SO much floor time, the best volunteer and instructional staff. I'm sure the 2019 director was the same way. So tell me, how is the stark contrast in amenities not a result of VMAPA decision making? Their world class counterpart is able to haul around multiple equipment and prop trucks, have world class facilities, literally a phonebook's worth of staff, and a chef. They aren't even the corps made up of Santa Clara / west coast kids.

My son was in Cap Sound from 1999 to 2003 and I don’t believe was ever made to feel small or unworthy by either the Scouts or Southwind. When they were in shows together, all three corps would have a meal and camaraderie. Many kids moved from there to Scouts or SW. He was one of them, marching in both corps from 2004 to 2007.

It's not the individual out of state member. Every high level organization has people wanting to travel from out of state to join them (we sent many SCVC percussionists to Blue Knights for example), that's not the issue. It's when the organization intentionally moves their recruiting focus and audition camps to an out of state location, and recruit specifically from that out of state location because the caption heads have roots there. It becomes more about those caption heads than the students and the organization as a whole. It's about the systemic shift in organizational recruiting strategy, not any individual member who happens to be out of state.

I have got to print this bad boy out and take pen to paper to digest it so I'll be a while. Thanks for the resource all, I'm fascinated. In the meantime, I'd like to re-advise OP to send all survivors to https://www.rainn.org/ first before anywhere else. Note that RAINN focuses specifically on sexual violence, and I'm still hunting for the first line of defense in non-sexual violations. RAINN has a 24/7 active hotline and online chat with trained professionals. They do not provide legal advice but can help survivors ground themselves for any potential next steps.

and Crossmen, Magic, Boston and Sun during the YEA years. Southwind too

I like him. He’s direct. You know where you stand with him.

Expenses going up. Staff and admin numbers are multiplying. Corps admin and staff hire their friends with no open application process. (Ever seen a job vacancy posting for a caption head position?) Certain egos act like they run the world and can do whatever they want. Housing options going down. Numbers of corps are shrinking. The activity has limited time left. Vanguard is making a decision to extend the life of their A corps to the maximum extent. How many more years will that get them? idk

But, were they ever feasible? How many of these organizations have ever truly been able to pivot? Bingo dies. What happens to the corps? The member who's parents are the "dependable volunteers" ages out. What happens? Not many alumni are willing to step up and give back, or they are not in a position in their lives to. I've put out the call to parents and alumni in the past to hear crickets chirping. It is all too common. Unless the activity can build the leaders for the next generation (ala Boston Crusaders), there will not be qualified people to pick up the reigns. I was lucky. After I marched I was able to spend 2 years on a volunteer basis giving back after being successful with my first company. How many are willing to sacrifice personally to give back and enable the future generation?

I go to GREAT pains to talk about actions and behaviors, and to NEVER talk about people, because I actually care about people, even if I don't know them. So, I apologise if I offended you, but I can't handle that kind of reaction when I consciously go overboard to be a fair, caring, and friendly poster.

Worked well for Walter White too

That's a different tactic to bring out whatever the instructor wanted to bring out that I hope isn't still around.

Egotists and control freaks really took over IMO. I still remember being told by the drill instructor “judge doesn’t give a #### how old you are, and neither do I. If you screw up at practice you all get treated the same”. One year he yelled at me for a screw up then turned an older corps board member “and ###### Bill you did it too!!”.

I wish I had that kind of money. Also I feel like brand product might be a bit of a stretch here. Obviously bias, but SCVC has done most of the actual winning in the decade, has done most of the performance in and around the Bay Area for VMAPA, has clearly attracted the talent to be a destination corps for a lot of people who are not able to do WC (I personally know people who marched top 12 and WENT BACK to SCVC to age out). SCV being the main vehicle of exposure competitively during the summer season, sure. The rest of the year and around the rest of the community, not so sure.

Take a look at the SCV admin staff page. The list never really stops. They have a meteorologist and enough health and wellness members to staff an SNF. Is it that the board recognized they couldn't uphold those standards or that they were less willing to allocate more resources from their A corps to the Cadet corps?

My experience with the Cavaliers back in the day was that the Cadet corps members were celebrated and moved up from the Cadet corps to the "A" corps. That was another way that they built up to championship level.

The housing and food side of things at SCVC before this season had been local family housing. That wasn't part of tour fees or anything but I liked that format. It took the issue of finding housing and food for the entire corps off the shoulders of logistics and admin and volunteers. It also meant that members had a nice cozy bed, whatever food they wanted to get, and was a great bonding experience for the housing "families". In total, I can't say this was more than an additional $500 on top of my tour fees, which were like $2000 at the time. We always ran below the budget (at least that's what we were told). This allowed admin to focus their energy on the actual time we were traveling as a corps. And usually, expectations were far beyond met, both from a budget and experience point of view. I'm not part of the current generation of marching members, but I can see this format working for them.

Although I've been involved with this activity over 40 years, that involvement has been limited to the Boston Crusaders organization. As such, I am completely clueless to this "patch out culture" to which people are referencing, and I am shocked to learn about food being an issue. I remember one of the PBS telecasts from the 80s (it might have been my favorite...1987) when one of the announcers referred to SCV as "The Rolls Royce of drum corps". Clearly, that was long ago. Between this and the Cadets thread, I am concerned for this activity as a whole.

According to reports, DCA has reached an agreement with the Social Security Administration to begin pension distributions to everyone who marched more than 40 shows. In addition, refunds will be mailed to all audience members who have attended Finals over the past 3 years. The hope is that these gestures will incentivize corps member loyalty and offset audience dissatisfaction with the recent rapid deterioration of the quality of the DCA experience. The Caballeros and Buccaneers will be providing the bulk of the necessary seed capital, as soon as the sale of that famous bridge is finalized. The entire operation will be overseen by the DCA's newly named "Welfare Czar", the Easter Bunny.

Aw, no, I'd be sharing info from folks that haven't granted me consent to do so. I hate dangling and wish I could share more, but mean to express the complexity of this situation. And to reinforce that jumping to conclusions is not helpful (not accusing anyone here yet, just saying so preemptively.) Note: I'm not directly connected to the org and haven't been since April. Even that connection was superficial at best so I shouldn't be interpreted as an insider. My opinions are my own.

MikeD has bad taste in football teams. i know, i share that bad taste

Sad but necessary…they were a great training ground for other WC corps; it isn’t the natural progression feeder it used to be where kids were promoted into SCV-A. My kid spent three years at SCVC, did the Rose Parade, won OC twice but got tired of the “you are less valued” atmosphere and went to Blue Stars in 2019. He had a blast.

Before you go-go.

It's actually wake me up when September ends

Want to know what's boring? I'll tell you what's boring: the constant, predictable "snarking" at each other that characterizes so many postings. Wake me when it's over, please. ZZZzzzzzzz

and worse...OC voted for a lot of this themselves

Oh, there's no bad to break here. I'm processing fast, but I also heartily welcome complex dialogue with contrasting perspectives as long as it respects survivors and witnesses first.

Perhaps our senses of how long this turmoil (globally and organizationally) has been occurring differs. The turmoil was very tangible to me two decades ago. I tried to return and help, but was swallowed alive by yet more harmful admin decisions. Alum want to help but are often turned away. There are more elegant solutions than "this or that." We've been saying this whole time that there are plenty of VC members who are worthy of marching SCV. It's not so cut and dry. Some of my favorite and most respected alum that I marched with were first VC. Respectfully, why should we? VMAPA and alum have done so little to reconcile the many harms against us, despite plenty of chances. We didn't burn this bridge. Many of us have tried to repair it multiple times with no assistance from the other side. My own processing of this news publicly right now is a sign that I'm still friggin' trying to. But it's rarely taken that way.

“Not Vanguard enough..” my first thought was “my ### #### check was Vanguard enough for you”. More and more glad I marched in a Senior/All Age corps when I was 16-22. Anyone played mind games got called out real quick

SCVC has already been like 85% Bay Area / So Cal and 15% elsewhere. An interesting thing to note is that, at least I've been told, BDPA treats every patch the same: BDC, BDB, BDA. If current SCV staff and members flat out refuses to acknowledge SCVC years of experience, we aren't ever going to get any kind of unity or cohesion across the organization.

I agree to an extent. He taught at SCV A for a good amount of years, and he was one of the people who kept Clowns alive within the organization. I don't know what exactly the motive is behind trying to divide us, but you can only take so much shortchanging of the corps you built. At least from what I remember, he called us "Santa Clara" because we were... mostly from Santa Clara. He called A corps "Vanguard". Everything else surrounding whatever being more Vanguard means, I have no clue. At least to me, SCVC and SCV were two very separate entities before he even said anything about that. Very few SCVC kids moved up to SCV, previously not by their choice, but now they've chosen to take their talents elsewhere. There is no animosity specifically towards out-of-state members. But if you need locals volunteering and helping out and running bingo and doing things like the Parade of Champions, you'd hope that VMAPA would want to shift recruiting a little closer to home. It costs less, it sustains the future of the organization, it allows it to grow. There is a HUGE void in the current class and incoming classes of alumni who are involved with the corps due to this phenomenon.

I’m of the opinion that VMAPA has consistently made a string of terrible decisions. I feel immensely for the void that this creates within The activity and community. I would like to point out, as someone who only had the opportunity to march the A corps, Barnhill seemed to continue the division between the A corps, admin, and Cadet Corps. Not saying that he started it, but in my years the attitude of “we’re more ‘Vanguard’ than the Vanguard A Corps is” only made him look antagonistic and self destructive for both corps within organization. The macho concept of being “Vanguard” or being “more Vanguard than (insert anything here)” was some of most negative experience I have being around either part of the organization. I admired his ability to run the corps properly, and advocate for his members, but in his efforts and the apathy of the organization, the divide continued between them. To some degree why would A corps be willing to work with such an antagonistic attitude (which, again, I acknowledge was probably initially started by the A corps side)? Similarly the mindset of anti-Texas and out of state membership is destructive to the Cadet Corp’s cause. Drum corps is much long past a regional phase (though I agree there should be increased outreach within the Bay community). Please don’t rope the out-of-state alumni with the administration, we want the Vanguard Cadets to field a healthy summer tour if possible too.

My high school drill writer for four years! He definitely can write complex drill, hope he does well !

This is 100% what happened. He was run out because he didn't like the direction the board wanted to take the corps.

This is a pathetic move from Santa Clara, but is unfortunately not a huge shock considering how the current management views the cadets corps role in the organization. When the Rennicks came in, they made it clear they didn't give a crap about the cadets corps, and the organization as a whole has been closing that gap in the last few years. Luckily when Steve Barnhill was director he made sure the corps was well taken care of, always fed, always rested, and given a great experience. It seems like that mentality has gone by the wayside. The corps ceased being a feeder corps to SCV a long time ago, with more members moving on to other world class organizations than the A-Corps, and it's been eating the organization alive. I'm sure their thought process is that the organization would be better served by putting that money into A-Corps (despite the fact that SCVC has been winning championships regularly while the A-Corps floundered about trying to be relevant for most of the last 20 years). Really disappointed here, and definitely will not be supporting the broader organization in any way from this point forward.

Edit to add: this meme isn't directed anyone in this thread. 🙂

My belief is that if they already don't show you the time of day (and based on your post history across multiple platforms, they don't), why do you care about their consent? Especially if it isn't bound to anything legal. What are they gonna do to those of us who speak out, ruin our marching experience that already happened years ago? No pressure to share more, just how I'm going about sharing experiences about the organization now

Totally understand the reasoning and it does not bode well for the entire activity. Maybe I'm overreacting, but I don't think so.

What the Dickens is a "patch out culture "?

If this was going to happen for SCVC (or any other Corps for that matter) I think it is better to decide now rather than when auditions (or spring training) are under way.

Moderator hat here: Please refrain from making personal comments about posters. Discuss the topic, not a person’s personal viewpoint. Thanks

We caught Queensmen/Sunrisers alum and Hall of Famer, Billy Cobham, last night in Oakland. I swear, he was put on this earth so that the people could find 2 and 4. Here are a couple of clips, the first from a few weeks ago in Paris: You'll recognize this one: (His old instructor, Bobby Thompson, would be proud.)

OT: why is this site so slow lately? Is the hamster tired?

Go ahead. I’ll go Logan Roy on you. 😂

SCV or Bluecoats didn't have it as bad as Cavies. I think the count was 35 kids out with covid, 12 kids in concussion protocol at the same time. Not to mention a hand full of kids out with various other things. Cavies also had a music copyright thing at the beginning of the season that prevented them from doing the ending. Who knows what could have been.

There are ‘good’ people in Drum Corps. What we have here is an example or Schopenhauer’s Law of Entropy: If you add a spoonful of wine to a bucket of sewage, you have sewage. And if you add a spoonful of sewage to a bucket of wine, you have sewage.