Crassissimo

When the scores were put up last night right after the show it was set as a 68.8. something happened over night for some reason.

I think the OP's main point was the timing behind the situation. This was brought to light in July after the corps had already done necks of an early tour. All spring and all the beginning of summer the kids were in the mindset that they had a goal to reach in Indianapolis. But now, that may not be possible. From the sounds of it Spokane Thunder made the decision at the right time last year to reach into the community to solve their problem, the winter, not July. Management saw the early signs and needed to fix it. Spokane Thunder was once again responsible this year and decided after the first camp (seeing the early signs) that putting out the corps this season could not be an option.

Directors too often now do it for the placement. Who says a successful season has to end in Indianapolis? It would be nice but what really measures success? If making it out there seems like a real chore that could possibly place the corps with financial issues, DON'T PLAN A TOUR THERE!!! Either that or just do the job right and raise the monies needed well in advance. This topic is getting so old. Administrations need to be more responsible! Can you imagine the let down for the kids if on that final night they don't raise the 50K they need? They would have their bags all packed and ready to go for tour and then... they only raised 15K?! Sorry kids... go home. Better luck next year? This is not offering the best experience for any child! It puts the whole organization in an awkward position with their own community.

Agreed. It will be interesting to see those first vis scores.

I would like to first say that I like the design of Music City's uniforms because they were designed to look very traditional, which gives them a unique image in today's day of more modern looking designs (Blue Stars, Glassmen, etc). But... looking at some parade pictures... I have a bad feeling about what is going to come of their Visual scores at their first show in late July if they are not extraordinarily trained in marching. I know this has been mentioned before but they do have that red stripe down their white pants... but that is actually their lesser concern! they are wearing BLACK SHOES against those white pants!? I hope that was just an early season issue that is fixed by now. Black shoes on a uniform that has nothing but white and red will stick out more than anything I could ever imagine. Music City isn't looking at hiding ANYTHING this season, which is a good thing, but at the same time very very risky. Those will be some very honest feet out there this summer and no margin of error will be allowed. I will commend them if they stick to those black shoes and pump out excellent visual performance numbers. Wow, just wow. http://www.musiccitydrumcorps.org/html/photos2.html (Click on the June album and then sift through a few of those photos.)

1,2,3 BD, Crown, SCV 4,5,6 Cavies, HNC, Phantom 7,8,9 Bluecoats, Crusaders, BK 10,11,12 Blue Stars, Glassmen, Colts 13,14,15 Troop, Scouts, Spirit 16, 17 Xmen, Academy 18,19,20 Mandarins, Smurf, Crest 21, 22 Pioneer, Cascades Corps I wish would make top 12 but just won't cut it: Troop, Xmen

I honestly wonder how many fans are going to be there that early in the morning... I'm not saying its a bad idea. I can see the perks in it but it won't be the full experience and that's kind of a bummer.

Wait, this thread isn't about World of Warcraft?

We're going in circles now... This post only inadvertently supports the opposite of your argument. Spartans went inactive because of severe mismanagement of finances. Read all of the Spartan threads from earlier this season. Take a look see at how much they owed the bank 6 months ago. Those newspaper articles don't lie. And you say that if you don't want a corps to go inactive/fold because of financial mismanagement, just send them a check? WHAT!? No matter how much money LaFlamme had coming in, he still couldn't use it wisely, and look at what happened. What would make the situation different to any other corps with financial management problems? Spartans had so much money (or so it seemed) and then POOF they're filing for bankruptcy. Seriously... POOF. I can't describe it better than that. And no matter what the economic situation is in real life, you don't go down hill as fast as they did WITHOUT hidden mismanagement that occurred for years and have it catch up to you all at once.

Now, before you read this post, this isn't meant to be a "Look at the trends! Drum corps is dying!" post, although it may look like it at first. I am not looking at that question at all. Please give it a read and maybe a little thought. Within the past year this is what has been going on with Open Class probably all due in some part with finances, for better or for worse. Negatives: -Targets has gone inactive. Canceled plans during the 2008 season to go on full tour. -Spartans has gone inactive. Financial mismanagement due to ex-director. -Yamato's drum corps program has gone inactive. I don't have many details on this to be honest. -Spokane Thunder has gone inactive. They are "restructuring their Support and Finances" -Impulse have recently (2 months ago) made the decision not to tour to World Championships. Are also trying to sell off their food truck. -Oregon Crusaders have for the 2nd year in a row (!!!!!) hit a financial rut right before tour and need $50K from the public in 11 days to continue. -Revolution is reaching out to the public for an unknown amount of money so they can finish their tour. -Memphis Sound needs a food truck and until they have one are reaching out for many donations for the rest of tour to keep them on the road. Positives: +Blue Saints have returned to the field and are competing in a limited 5 show tour which will bring them to Championships. +Capital Regiment is back on their feet and competing in Open Class with a large tour under their belt. +Jersey Surf has moved to World Class but still operates just as they did last year: Weekend Corps, Same length tour, etc. Like I said... Don't start the whole "drum corps is dying" stuff. That isn't what this thread is about. With the economic situation the country is in, running into mismanagement issues that put corps in a very poor state are more prevalent. Making a financial mistake is not forgiving at all in this economic environment. 15 Years ago a corps could make the same mistake and not feel such strong burdens be put on them. That's not saying mistakes were acceptable to make back then but it did not bog down the education and experience the corps were always giving to kids. It was easier to recover and learn from the mistake (Like Crown did when they started off as a small corps in the early 90s... read their about their corps history) or in some cases, still easy to recover and continue to make the irresponsible mistakes over and over again (that's not to say that is okay). How can this activity still be offered to kids in this economic climate year after year without having to cancel plans late season or go inactive? Perhaps more limited tours planned from the get go. Could that harm recruitment if you don't even go to world Championships? Look as Gold, they have attended one Championship in their existence and have fielded corps practically 3 times larger than some corps that will be attending Championships this year (yeah, they are from a very populated and talented area but the point is still valid). Or perhaps no extensive touring, only stick to local shows, and then fly in for Championships week? Should there be some kind of touring policy put forth by the OC directors for Open Class because clearly some directors cannot make the right decision on their own. But, in all honesty, there shouldn't be policies put in place that babysit Executive Directors' decisions for their own corps. If they are running a corps, they are expected to make intelligent and responsible decisions. This is all out of DCI's hands because its not their job to make touring decisions for corps. But how can Open Class directors collectively make responsible decisions in order to keep the Negatives out of all of our way? Yes, there will always be negatives but over the past single year it has been outrageous. Can anything really be done collectively??? If so, what? If not, why? Perhaps I answered a lot of my own questions already but I would like to hear what others have to say. I already know where I stand.

You would prefer they try to hide mistakes with a vague public statement? Well, to me, that sounds more unprofessional than admitting to the issues at hand. I would prefer the truth, if they wish to reach out to the public for help, which they have seemingly already provided us. Providing a vague and misleading call out for assistance is just dishonest and wrong. I give them credit for at least being honest.

I think they went on tour without a food truck or something along those lines because they couldn't afford to fix it. I'm sure someone can find the time to dig up the thread from last summer on that one. I'm a bit too lazy at the moment to go digging. But I quote this because I stumbled across this recent news on their homepage... http://www.oregoncrusaders.org/ Kind of a lot of money to raise by July 20th... only 12 days away. Perhaps this was just a little off the Revo topic... but it is still related.

I think this point hits the nail on the head. Administration may be guilty of making too many emotional decisions rather than practical ones which in turn sometimes put the corps in a bad place. Yes, drum corps is a very emotional and passionate activity but that should stay ON THE FIELD, not behind the desk. I would not have been able to put this into words myself like Crown1993 has. Thanks for that tidbit. When Richard makes the comment about how not-for-profit organizations have a much less steady income than an individual, he brings up a very good point but with intelligent fund raising (can't say I have run a corps before or have run multiple fundraisers) perhaps that can be kept to a minimum. Yes, it would still be unsteady and a "bi-weekly check" is never guaranteed because fundraisers are reliant on hundreds of other willing givers, but I'm sure planning, timing, and advertising can be everything when predicting the profits you will be making to put towards your organization. Sounds like an intelligent person with a marketing degree would be the only person who would be able to make my argument work out but, in order to maintain a healthy financial organization is that such an outrageous idea? I don't think its that far fetched. As for Richard's other point to start up costs... I agree. I bet those are steep and that is probably where a lot of corps rack up their first debt. But (I always have a But) I am sure there are start up models that have succeeded with minimum costs. Legends, Gold, and Incognito come to mind. I can't say I know those organization's inner workings but I am positive those are DCI corps on the lowest end of start up costs. Granted two are not full touring corps and none of them are Finalists yet, but Legends seems to be steadily growing and may have weaseled their way out of this Start Up Cost/Competitive pattern in a few short years. Their low costs may not have been payable up front but at least they were still low and therefore Low Risk; nothing a few hefty fundraisers within a year couldn't patch up. There are some corps out there getting 6 digits worth of equipment at a time... maybe they have larger income but that doesn't make it less dangerous. Big Numbers still = Big Risk no matter what your "steady" flow of money is. Mistakes made in that scenario take much longer to patch up when you are an organization mostly dependent on fundraisers. I don't really know everything, I'm just bringing up arguments that make sense in my head, I don't know any of this from experience. Bringing up hypothetical points or just any arguments in general on a thread like this is only Beneficial.

You may be looking over the real point of this show... I was under the impression that this show was put on to promote the activity in the area more than anything else. I'm pretty sure the scoring system that is being implemented is just meant to make it a little more engaging for the audience, which have not seen a showing of corps in the area in a looong time. Yeah, I guess its engaging to get your faces ripped off by brass and drums but to your typical non-drum corps enthusiast attendee, that may not be enough to get you full blown interested in the activity or to simply want to make you come back again next year. I've heard of two different projects to get a corps started up in that area over these boards over the past two years and this may be a way to encourage the community to get involved with that. Like I said, this was the impression I received.

With so many corps going in the red over the years I figured it is important that I break the news to everyone: Here, in this video, are the answers to all of our drum corps debt problems... http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/vid...uy-stuff/27169/ Kind of a funny twist on the truth. Funds should always be fully raised before purchasing anything or going on tour. A cushion of funds should also always be raised before going on tour in case of unexpected issues. Its pretty much common sense. If you don't have these funds, don't take out a loan or set up some poor payment plan... you just shouldn't be purchasing what you are purchasing! Once the operation is consistently in the Positives rather than the Negatives it will be on the right path to a healthy long financial life. We can all learn a little from Chris Parnell's infomercial.

Yup, I read everything when it came out. Thanks for asking. So, just like I said, they probably tried and it didn't work. In which case, again, like I already said, trying doesn't count for much when you get the same results of failure as you did before. You seem to agree with me. Taking 2 years off doesn't define trying. In the end, their attempt didn't work anyway. You basically just repeated what I said, which made your vague statement regarding "some kind of DCI policy" clear. I just specified which policy you were talking about. By only saying "3) The corps was fined by DCI for violating some kind of DCI policy suggesting administrative problems" to the uninformed reader, that is misleading. How are they violating DCI policies? Maybe they're starving their children! Which isn't the case. It left the window open to assumptions that's all.

Something in your post which is misleading is the statement above. When corps pull out of shows they are fined for that very reason: They did not perform as the show contract stated they would. Your vague statement makes it sound like they violated human rights or something haha. RevoPR stated they pulled out of shows to save money, probably travel expenses. I can't imagine their travel expenses would have cost much more than these fines but that is a different story. In the end, I doubt they saved much money long term from withdrawing. Your #1 statement sounds accurate to any outside individual. Regarding your #2... they may have chose to restructure their financial policies however those policies, when implemented, must have failed for this to all happen again. They may have at least tried, which I'm sure they did, it just obviously didn't work. But trying doesn't always count for much if it leads to the same problems, now does it. If they make it out of this... back to the drawing board I suppose!

Actually, it says right on the blog that the corps left for a neck of tour before all bills were paid. That right there is the problem, especially if they know that it will affect the corps at some point. It's administration's job to make sure members pay their bills and to offer ways for their members to raise these funds during the WINTER. If members can't pay their bills, and the corps isn't financially stable enough to spot those kids', it is administration's job to tell these students that they cannot participate in the drum corps because it will affect everyone else in the negative manner, as it is about to right now. Administration is spending extra money that they can't afford on students who have not met the contract. The corps is bending the rules to its own contract as much as the students, who have not paid, are breaking it. No one can point fingers in this situation. It's both parties' faults. If the kid can't pay and this is the sole reason the corps has to drop out of its original touring plans, you have to cut the kid 2 months ago. Period. You can't spend extra money on him/her if you can't afford to and still plan on having a long lasting drum corps. If other issues arise like multiple necessary vehicle repairs, a food truck explosion, or something else expensive, it would make sense to mention those things in the blog, but instead they blame it on the fact that students have not paid. They make it clear that this the issue. So, there is no argument here as to what mistakes were made. My opinion is that the administration made a poor choice and now the corps is feeling the results. Responding by giving or not giving a corps money, which made financial administrative mistakes, is an argument that will never be settled on a board like this, similar to how debates over the right to have an Abortion never get settled between friends or strangers having political conversation. Your arguments: Do you really let the kids suffer the consequences? It's about the kids right? Then you should give money so their summer is fulfilled! But couldn't the corps just keep making mistakes and eventually just hinder the kids' experiences in future years? Yes, this could happen, so why fund the corps out of your own pocket when people are making poor business decisions? Then you shouldn't give them money! Both are very fair arguments. I won't say where I stand in this mix, because like I said, its pointless to argue about this. Don't get me wrong, I want as many corps out there competing as possible. I respect a person's choice to help bail out this corps in the name of the current members so they finish their education and experience. However, I also respect a person's choice to not give this corps money because they made an administrative decision that was not well thought out and something like this could just happen again. I think people who planned on giving money will still give it and people who didn't plan on giving money still won't because, after all, we're all stubborn on this board and think that we all know everything and EVERYTHING. Don't get upset about someone's opinion, because no one really listens to anyone else on here when it comes to things like this, we just pointlessly bicker. Yours Truly, Just another person who thinks he knows everything.

My only concern is... cream pants? Really? I guess all corps can't wear black but those Vis judges will be all over them! Teal pants may have been the wiser choice IMO. Oh well, its all said and done! At least it's always nice to have a sharp new look!

From the article with the picture of the new uniforms... "It was important for the new look to build upon the previous one, and yet provide us with an image to build towards our goal of World Class Status." I think having these aspirations are great. I hope they can find the community/alum support they need to be able to support a World Class organization in the next several years. Something as simple as having dedicated volunteers for a full summer tour can be a huge obstacle to overcome. I love the uniform design and I like the grey base quite a bit. Being unique is important in this game IMO. As for the name, it'll probably grow on me. It has a professional ring to it so that's a benefit.

Can't wait to see what the stack-up is over the next three days with these guys! Definitely a runner for a medal but everyone is going to be fighting for one this season, in both World and Open Class. It just seems like 2009 is the year where everybody is going to be all over one another. I hope 7th gives them a fight every single night this week, after seeing that high number they put up Saturday!

It's good map. Nice Job. My only problem is that this reminds me how some corps don't even come from where they say they do anymore. Boston? Blue Stars? Crusaders only offer ONE one-day November audition camp in its own 'home state' and their recruiting attempts for area schools is non-existent. That's just whacked. I wish they would just erase Boston from their name. Yeah, there's History behind it, but no history behind it from the past decade. Anyway, that's just a different can of worms that doesn't need to be opened in this thread. Don't bother sidetracking this thread further by my remarks.