cixelsyd

Honestly, I was wondering whether anyone would say "no". (And technically, if they do like other 14-OC years and let all 14 into finals, you could question whether the Monday contest is really "prelims", or just the second-to-last show.)

20 world class, 14 open class, 34 total. Is that "enough" to justify the events scheduled?

High school marching bands have been competing since the 1920s (if not earlier....that is just the limit of my knowledge).

Yes, they did.

High school marching band already existed 100 years ago. Can you remind me why we ever had junior drum corps? Because by the logic of your post, it should have never happened.

So the 11-week full-time drum corps model with housing and food included costs more than the locally based, bring-lunch-money corps of yesteryear. If anyone believes that to be an existential problem, the solution is clear. But the reaction that solution gets every time it is proposed suggests that virtually no one considers this to be an existential problem. I would go as far as to say that the DCI community has a consensus commitment to providing that 11-week full-time drum corps "experience".

No. They bumped it up to 55 in October 2019. Changing it from 55 to 50 was done this year, but the page on which it appears still says "Approved October 2019".

That is not what the DCI policy says. It is published on DCI.org. On page 78 of their Policies and Procedures manual, it states that open class corps must have at least 50 members. Next page states that any corps seeking to move up to open class must have 55 or more members.

How is it disingenuous to point out all of the above as contributing factors, as both you and previous posters have done?

The first step toward recovery is admitting there is a problem. Is that "negativity", or just "realism"?

Forget the house. Give me more of the 15% return. Compounding!

... where did THAT come from? You asked what the main challenges might be. I tried to answer your question. I have no magical answer, so I am open to suggestion. Frankly, the best that comes to mind right now is yours: Oh, and by the way... My word choice may not be the best. When I said "publish", I imagined access being restricted to those who make staffing decisions for marching arts programs. Your idea avoids even that level of "publishing", and therefore could be more practical.

Two things: - where to draw the line on who to list - who has the guts to publish the list (and the lawyer$$$ to defend their position)

From 1950 through 1963, the Legion held their junior and senior national contests on different days. 1964 was the only same-day victory for Hawthorne and Garfield.

DCI has a multi-year deal with FloMarching, so that is where the 2022 streaming will take place.

I just did not want to go further into the weeds on the problems inherent with entrusting a central agency (in this case, DCI) with sole responsibility for member safety. For instance, that DCI treats member corps and non-member corps differently. Or that DCI has an enormous conflict of interest that would cause them to grant greater leeway to top corps, while blackballing prospective corps for ever speaking out of turn. Or that DCI has no standing to tell external organizations how to operate (i.e. some "corps" are actually multi-program youth arts orgs where only one of the programs is a DCI corps). Did not want to distract from the main point - every corps needs to handle member safety.

I gave you detail because you asked for a definition. I put the words from the Jeff Ream post in quotes so that you could see where I get that level of detail from. My intent is to be clear, not huffy.

According to the post I was addressing, "centralize" meant "stop leaving it for individual corps to solve", and instead provide both "centralized process and staff". Do I even need to point out the problems with that? Remember, DCI is not alone on tour with your kids day to day... the corps are. That is why every corps must handle member safety. A central authority can set minimum standards as policy, provide oversight, and/or even set up a third-party whistleblower/reporting system. None of that can replace the need for corps people to take responsibility for the safety of their own membership.

No, it is never time to "centralize" member safety. Every corps needs to handle that.

Unless you know of a vaccine to prevent predatory behavior, we will always have to treat it after we find it.

I know the policies are weak sauce, and the enforcement reluctant. But that is not what you asked. The thread question is if we are better off now than prior to 2018, when we had NO sauce and NO enforcement. So yes, I think we are better off now than we were in the Jeff Fiedler era. (The phrase "Jeff Fiedler era" is used only to set a time frame of reference; nothing else implied.)

Same thing. Now there are at least enough policies and consequences to have addressed those situations. It is not perfect, but we are not zeroing out the member safety caption either.

Of course it has gotten better. You want him back?

Me too. For decades, corps began on the left end line and finished on the right end line. While creativity was limited, there was a certain efficiency to having the next corps lined up and ready to go the instant a corps finished. They started doing away with that in the early 1970s, but it took most of the decade before they finally just let a corps start anywhere on the field.

According to Wikipedia, whether "woke" is an insult or high praise depends on who is using the word.