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Congratulations to the Boston Crusaders and its parent organization Inspire Arts and Music for receiving the Chick-Fil-A True Inspiration Award of $50,000! Perseverance pays off!

The press release just posted says Inspire is going to invest these funds in its Hyde Park Percussion Ensemble (HYPE), both in purchasing equipment and hiring additional staff. This is awesome since those underserved urban kids aren't asked to pay anything to take part. I am so proud of this organization!

I did not intend to offend you. I am wholeheartedly sorry if I did that. What I am trying to convey is that this issue of trying to manage a non-profit drum corps and achieve a balance between maximizing 1) the competitive ability 2) the MM's experience 3) the sustainability of success and 4) the sustainability of the organization has been going on for decades, and there have been close to 100 failures for every success. DCI once had over 200 members competing during a single year. Now they're down to less than 35, and that number seems to gets smaller every year. Blue Devils, Bluecoats, and to some degree Blue Stars have managed to accomplish all 4 fairly well, and now we can add Boston to that list. (Maybe everyone should change their name to start with a B????) DCI is a copycat world, except where it comes to financial management, which is the first place that success should be copied around. We're all just incredibly frustrated that we see what's been coming, have been sounding the alarm on finances and abuse for years and years, and yet the people who can actually DO SOMETHING have their heads stuck in the sand and refuse to change. I applaud you for choosing to get involved and try to help, but I imagine it's only frustrated and traumatized you even more to see how little has changed in 50 years. SCV is kind of like everyone's favorite grandpa, except he's losing his home because he just kept trying to make a fortune selling Amway, even when everyone told him it wouldn't work.

Last name Blenski?

Always good to see corps giving back to the community

I appreciate what you are saying, but this goes back to before you were born. The details specific to Vanguard's failures are varied, I'm sure. But this has been a contention among those of us who have been looking at the financial aspects of DCI since we first got involved, back to DCI's origin in some cases. Ballet companies and orchestras don't have backup dancers and cellists handling the finances, and the prima ballerina or the principle conductor don't get the final say on how money is spent. The CEO and CFO of these NP's should be telling the corps director and design team what they are allowed to spend and then design a show that fits into that profile, not the other way around. The BoD isn't supposed to be a rubber stamp for the artistic director. Too many people have been trying to turn what was once a military veterans backed drum and bugle corps show for their annual conferences into a two-month long off-Broadway musical production lasting only 11 minutes. The entire business model should have changed along with the show designs and judging criteria during the '80s and '90s, but it didn't.

I know at least 4 stories at the intersection of corps and member substance use/misuse. More if I count staff. I marched with 2 of the members involved in those stories and adore them both to this day. 2 of those 4 stories ended in the members' lives forever altered, and not in a good way. I very much wish I could help rewrite policy and procedure to help corps better manage these instances when, not if, they arise. I work in an area of the country devastated by substance misuse for generations with folks trying to turn it around. The hardline, zero tolerance approach doesn't work, and can ruin the lives of young people who sought drum corps for the structure and camaraderie they perhaps couldn't access in other parts of their lives.

Boy, this didn't age well...

Copied this from dci.org corps updates, under Soundsport section. Since they call themselves a corps, hopefully they can develop the right way and become a full-fledged Open Class corps some day. We need all the new corps we can get (as long as responsibly managed). The brand-new Boise, Idaho-based Gems Drum & Bugle Corps hosted its very first rehearsal camp in early January. The team posted a highlights video recapping the historic event.

https://inspirearts.org/2023/01/true-inspiration-award/?utm_content=234537528&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&hss_channel=fbp-747237688627610

I am a lifelong SCV fan and can't wait to see them on the field again. But the above is certainly a quotable quote.

It is actually alternating layers of simple and complicated - similar to a Mandelbrot set. Simple- need to cut costs; Complicated- what do we cut; Simple- we cut this; Complicated- by cutting this we also lose this revenue stream… and so on.

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It is not complicated VAMPA has debt that they need to pay off and they have little revenue coming in to pay off the debt. Cut costs and increase revenue coming in. Solutions that they have proposed will not got get they job done per many that have seen them. Granted we are early in the process and VAMPA has promised transparency. Hopefully we should get at least bimonthly updates. They have only nine months to right the ship. End of September is when corps need to commit for the 2024 tour.

They don't get their 💩 together, there'll be nothing for anyone to design.

If they are willing to risk the viability of the entire operation just to keep their design staff, that tells me they needed to fail. There is a HARD reset needed in the attitude out there.

I don’t support Chic-fil-a or their owner in any way, shape or form but more power to BAC. Take the money and run!

Have a Larry, Daryl and Daryl comment somewhere but keeps coming out too nasty 🤷🏻

We got an email in December.

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I saw that too and had the same thought initially. Then I thought why not cut them a little slack right out of the gate and starting from scratch. It can't be that easy to bring in a whole BOD of corps/business/managerial experts to any new organization. Give them a little time to get off the ground and work themselves into the community network and see what kind of interest they can draw from the types of folks qualified in those areas.

Sure; I'm just pointing out that Star wasn't necessarily run as a "throw money at everything!" drum corps the way some people may have thought. Yes, they had money, and viable investments, but they also spent wisely to minimize costs

Not only that, they were more frugal than I think the average fan knew: used the same 2-valve horns their entire existence, and their "different uniforms every year," with some exceptions, were mostly just adding a bit of fabric here or there, changing gauntlets or shakos, etc. They had resources and also spent wisely

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This. A million percent. Don’t even get me started. I could literally write a dissertation on this.

Bill was a businessman with very deep pockets who understood everything that went in to funding and managing a start up company. Star's transport line was well funded, had a professional team in place to manage the charters, etc, etc, etc. Vanguard, right now, can't seem to manage keeping an operation they already own and have been running for 40 years operating effectively and profitably. The idea that they'd be able to rent the rigs out often enough to make it worth burning thru a huge chunk of cash to acquire them was not a good one. To be clear, I don't assume bad intent on anyone's part. I'm sure their Board and management team thought they had this, but the results indicate they needed other more experienced eyes reviewing the decisions and giving them some advice. I'm hopeful that within the community there are some people who can help them put the train back on the tracks.

Tate. We (Flushing) ended up second.

In '75 there were two field percussion judges. I believe there was a contest where one of the two field percussion judges found zero ticks for the Muchachos.

I’m sure no one has been paid anything for 2023. You don’t get paid in advance. And if someone is expected to be exclusive to and org, then they are kind of living for those paychecks. If it’s their only gig. But, we do not know what their contracts say.

What the 2023 contracted design staff needs to do is donate back to VMAPA all or part of their salary for the year and take a tax deduction. None of this group is living paycheck to paycheck. One year of work and four years of pay is hard for most people to comprehend.

Lots of incorrect info...in fact almost all of it.

This is the best post of the year so far....especially the final sentence.

The forgiveness of the loan was essentially based only on proving the funds were spent for allowable (mostly payroll) expenses. It was very easy to obtain.

College band coming back from Canada trip one snare hid several bottles of whiskey in drum. Customs wondered why one drum weighed so much. He disappeared after that.

I can think of about 6 or 8 or 29 times I should have been kicked out. I had a bit of a potty mouth in my youth. I'm much more eloquent in my swearing now. I be sure to add the *ing to F bombs instead of just *in.

I have to believe that any corps who may be close to following SCV, would be very close to announcing that. Reason being that for the most part, auditions are done, marching member counts are getting locked in, shows are being put to paper and beyond, camps & ST are being scheduled which all means, budgets are established ( or good lord should be) which in turn, upcoming costs should be known and confirmed and projected revenues should be factored in to see if the season is feasible. If a corps doesn’t know their financial status and wherewithal by the end of this month, disaster awaits them. If a corps hits the road and has to bail out during tour, it will prove once again, lessons were not learned.

If it pays better than Stanbury

I have no issue. Yeah the timing of the announcement could have been a little better but hell from what I hear people knew and were quietly reaching out in both directions ( from several corps) hours earlier

The mere mention of ww caused Covid. The fact that it didn’t pass deflected the asteroid. 😎

I don't have any viable answers to how to curb the arms race in DCI. Professional sports has tried with things like salary caps and revenue sharing. Something might be instituted whereby, If you want to spend beyond X then Y% of that amount is put into a fund that is evenly distributed among corps spending below Z. I'm sure such a system could be gamed though. And implementation would be impossible under the current DCI structure as it is a membership org, not an oversight org as previously mentioned. Thus the motivations of corps are entirely self contained. There's lip service concern about "the state of the activity" of course, which impacts all corps in the end. But no mechanism to even motivate them to bolster struggling corps. Nor accountability to make struggling corps attractive to invest in for that matter. It would take a culture shift whereby the Blue Devils, Bluecoats, and BAC's of the activity were actively interested and financially invested in making sure the Troopers, Madison Scouts, and Music City's of the activity had the resources to maintain and grow. The good will between corps is there, but there's no incentive or requirement or reason right now structurally for any such thing to happen. The Blue Devils had an agreement with Pacific Crest for mutual tryouts at one point but I'm not sure it went beyond that. And in the current structures, cadet corps are either seen as feeders (or not) to their A corps. And where seen as separate entities, they've not been treated well (SCVC apparently). And past examples of one org running two corps was not handled in good will either (YEA having Cadets and Crossmen.) So we end up with something more like European Club Soccer whereby the stratification of the rich from the poor squads leaves little opportunity for any sort of parity or equity between clubs. But the sheer number of soccer clubs across all leagues means that soccer as a business activity on the whole is not threatened by such an arms race. Drum Corps has neither those numbers (any longer) or the deep financial pockets and monetization opportunities that pro sports has. So the once large numbers and multiple circuits, for many reasons, devolved. So the arms race mentality has a much more destructive effect. Perhaps one step toward cross corps connection would be shared instructional staff. Whereby say Blue Devils and Pacific Crest do joint auditions, but also tour together for a bulk of the season. Instructional staff are shared between the two corps with the richer corps carrying more of the salary (and probably thus getting a commensurate amount of the hours from them) but raising the quality and experience of instruction for the lower corps making them more attractive to MMs. It'd be a perhaps more affordable way for the 'have nots' to invest and have the sort of access to the instructional staff that the 'haves' do without having to stick their neck out to compete with salaries to draw them in that might overextend their finances? I dunno if that'd work or not. It's an idea to throw on the wall maybe. In the meantime, it. does make me a bit nervous that Phantom (whom I've loved and seen as 'my favorite' since a teen in the 80s') is going with what seems to be a "we've hired the staff, now we'll diversify the financial support" approach as ... what if the diversification of financial support doesn't fly? Do they suddenly devolve as they can't keep the staff? Or do they seek to extend on credit and debt to keep the competitive momentum going? And risk falling off a cliff suddenly as SCV seems to have reached? By all accounts, BAC diversified their finances first, then invested in marcher experience, and then went grabbing the big name staff and designers. That seems a more stable foundation for making the competitive climb than going "hires first" to attract members and hope your board can come through with the promised diversification of financial support. It could work out fine for Phantom (and I hope it does!) but it seems more the kind of risk move the 'arms race' mentality encourages. Which goes back to my counterpoint earlier...how many corps take what risks? How many will lose on their risks trying to keep up and fall off the cliff? How many corps CAN diversify their revenue in a BAC style manner before the 'usual donors and granting bodies' are all tapped? Is there a way to keep corps from taking undue risks in the arms race? Or does the activity simply sit back and say, "Well, that's on them" until we have 5 or 6 corps left giving the same show at select locations for a few months each summer and it becomes more like a 'traveling music festival' than a competitive activity?

I don't know too much about Spirit, but I came to say I really like Bottle Tree.