mahler444
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Posts posted by mahler444
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And that question says a lot to me.
What successful organization doesn't do fundraising behind the scenes? Even small non-profits will apply for grants, solicit funds on site, and put even a modicum of effort into gaining residual funds.
If there wasn't anything besides membership soliciting for sponsors to cover their individual dues, then the administration wasn't showing proper foresight into maintaining the organization.
I go back to what I mentioned in the other thread. Why not run a show with the other southern corps? You could have invited the DCA corps, had a local group lay the Banner, etc. Why not solicit the unit out to play at local functions during the summer? Send the hornline out during the winter camps to play. Car washes, service projects, something to keep the name out there showing that it's worth supporting...
See, that all makes perfect sense. Souvenir sales, bingo, and the plethora of other fundraising opportunities that exist out there would be great. If someone starts an organization but wants to have total control over every facet of that organization, what's the best way to do that? It all comes down to financials. If you hold the purse strings, no one can really argue with you, say, if you wanted to micromanage ever part of the process. If you were spending your own money to remain solvent every year, you hold the highest trump card, right?
Sounds like a terrible way to run an organization.....
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DISCLAIMER: I am not affiliated with Music City and have no inside information.
That said, I know one of the cornerstones of the Music City organization has been keeping fees low and affordable. I think it just reached a point where they realized that fundraising by itself was simply not enough to continue fielding a corps, and the directors of the organization refused to push that projected shortfall back on the kids in terms of higher membership fees in future seasons.
What fundraising?
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I wish MC all the best this summer. It takes time and patients to get to the next level. I like your attitude regarding your corps. Remember that Rome wasn't built in a day. It take 5-6 years to develop a program. I would suggest to you the following. Remember that a lot of people read this forum. most, have nothing but the best wishes for all the corps. However, you need to watch the comparisons to other corps and remember that you are being seen in the public eye as a spokes person for your corps. It is good to support your kids, but make sure you seperate public from personal views and desires.
I only say this from experience of regretting getting into it with others in this forum. I try to keep in the back of my mind, what is public and private news and ideas. I hope MC closes the gap, for the kids sake. I do not want a "dissapointing placing" disrupt what is slowly turning into a solid corps in a location that does not have a lot of drum corps. Good luck to music city!
Thanks for your comments. My question to you would be have you seen our show?
I was not really speaking about placement. I was talking more about how the scoring works. We have an incredibly hard book. As we continue to clean it and achieve higher, our score will continue to rise. I think that's just the nature of how the system works, right? And I stand by the difficulty of our music. I'm not saying we are trying to play like this group or look like that group. I was commenting on the level of the music. We are basically asking our kids to play in about 10 different styles of music throughout the show, from swing to funk/disco to Russian. That's hard. I know everyone works hard in this activity. I just know what's hard and what's not as hard. I'm a brass player, and let's just say this is not my first time at the rodeo.
Now, I realize I represent our organization, but for the moment, I would drop that title and speak as myself, an individual educator. Frankly, I care about two things. I want what we do to be entertaining for the crowd. Maybe that's my background of when and where I marched speaking. Without that, what do we have? There are a lot more entertaining shows this year than I have seen in a while, and I believe that's DCI pushing to move back to a more "user-friendly" format. If the kids I teach go out and play a crowd-pleasing show and have a great time every night, then I feel good about what I am doing, regardless of what the scores say. The second thing is that the kids improve. I want them to come and do this activity and learn something. I think we are retaining so many members because the kids that come and march for us really do learn a lot. I'm not making a judgement on any other organization by saying that. I'm merely saying that I'm an educator, that's my job. If the kids are learning to play and perform better, both in this activity and out, I am doing my job.
Thanks again for the comments of support.
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I think we will have a steady climb up in score as we continue to achieve. It's all about the achievement.
The core of the staff has many years of experience teaching the activity. I think that's how the group has gotten where it is in this third year of existence.
Please come see the show somewhere if you can. We continue to improve every day. The videos and stuff from earlier really don't do the group justice as to where it is now.
Thanks for the continued support!
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Music City is improving. They are attempting some difficult things. As they continue to improve I expect that their scores will rise.
Good luck MC,
Mikey
You are quite right sir. In the end it's all about achievement. Having seen just about every world class show at this point, I can honestly say our book is right up there with the top 12 in world. In fact, there are not many musical books that are harder than what we are asking our kids to play. Those world class corps are just achieving at this point and we are not there yet. Not to steal a line from Roman, but we are getting better every day. I am definitely anxious to hit some shows with other open class corps to see how we stack up at that point. I know every corp out there is busting there butts right now, and it seems like it's over 100 a lot more than usual this year. I'm proud of everyone putting in the hard work in this activity. .
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Thanks for the criticism, piper. I take it you don't like fried chicken?
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Great run through tonight. Lots of stuff to work on, but great job in uniforms tonight.
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Music City is having their fan preview tomorrow in Franklin, TN at Freedom Middle School... I believe they leave Friday for the St. Louis area... don't rely on that though go check their site.
Hey guys, we have made huge strides this week. We lost a little time a couple days where we felt it would be better to do some inside regearsal rather than beat them with the 110 plus heat indices. We have a preview show tonight here at Freedom Middle School in Franklin, TN. If you are in the Nashville area, come on out this evening and cath the show. We will start warming up just a few minutes after 6 pm. We have the entire show on the field, with all music. We have been in everydays for less than two weeks now, so we have really worked hard to get where we are. On the brass side, I think we had an epiphany moment today with how to use our air better. Our music is very hard. We play tonal music that everyone knows, and some of the parts are very hard. I'm a trumpet player, and some of these parts would be very hard for me. We demand a lot from our kids visually also, so hopefully everything continues to come together over the next few weeks.
I'll try to keep posting when I can, but forgive me if I can't get to the Internet much. This is all on my iPhone, and I'm pretty busy right now ;).
Come out and see the show!
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I think the viewpoint on staff behavior is going to vary widely based upon which organization a person has experience with - having had siblings in various corps I find that many inappropriate behaviors are ignored in the name of maintaining staff members willing to work for next to nothing or staff members who attain strong competitive results. This is not the place to sight specifics. If it were, this thread would fill up quickly.
An underlying cause for inappropriate staff behaviors is sometimes the lack of ability or action on the part of executive leadership in some corps regarding mentoring instructors to become LEADERS. As I have explained to many young people, it is often the instructor who berates members the soonest who is likely to have the least leadership ability (as opposed to instructional ability). Unfortunately, staff members that are "at a loss" to attain results tend to have the most negative behavior. On the "flip side" there are instructors who get certain results through intimidation, but that is because they are intellectually and artistically at a loss to do so any other way. There are great corps out there who come so close to "medaling" or winning, but the "longest yard" for them is the fact that their instructional staff is misaligned and lacks clear leadership.
Jason
Fair enough. I especially agree with your second paragraph. When I think back to marching, the best staff (at least in my mind) were the ones who got you to do things without degrading you, and the ###### ones were the people who only knew how to be negative. That holds true, now that I think about it, being on the other side of the coin (the teaching side). I just think we need to be careful on here not to paint everyone with the same brush, and maybe I was being too defensive about it earlier, but it just seemed like most people thought these were universal problems. I think the opposite. I think they are isolated issues and should be dealt with as such. Maybe I have been lucky with the people I work with so my perception is different?
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As someone who ACTUALLY marched at Michigan City - the venue was great- and I personally think it's a great performance area for the smaller groups. I much rather perform outside, under the lights with a PACKED house...then in the echo-y sparsely filled stadium of LOS. I had a much better performance at pre-lims...it was much more emotional than any performance at LOS.
I do agree with this sentiment. The last show I marched was a packed house at the orange bowl in Orlando, out in the humidity. I just think the location in Indy is really good for everyone to come to. Ah, echo...
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I think one reason they went with Michigan City was that it is fairly centrally located. I think this is why they have gone with Indy for finals for World Class for ever into the future. Sure, the groups from the coasts have to travel, but it seems to be a reasonable amount of travel. I'm just guessing at this. I just think if you held it on the west coast, you would have lots of groups on the east coast not compete due to the economic realities of a crappy economy and high fuel prices. Likewise, if you held it on the east coast, maybe the same problem occurs for the west coast corps. Plus, if it is going to be this format where they want open class corps to compete in Indy anyway, you almost have to have it somewhere close, and Michigan City is only a few hours away. Now, Maybe the answer would be to try to get a hold of a nice college stadium, and there's plenty that could host a great show in the midwest (Bloomington comes to mind), but I guess that would cost DCI more money, so we make do with what we are going to have. I don't know what the crowds will be like. I know from a playing standpoint we really enjoyed the show there last year. The stadium is definitely loud, I do remember that.
But these are just my opinions.
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Hi TJ,
thanks for the perspective. Mine was as a parent and a fan... But, best of luck either way...
In general, I like open much better than world. Kind of like college sports compared to professional sports. but that is just a personal opinion...
Thanks,
Will you be making the trip out to Michigan City this year?
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And by the way, as a food truck volunteer, I have found staff to be the major negative on tour. Not everyone. Not even most. But a few with crummy attitudes can really make it stink.
Much like the behavior in the stands issue, some fail to recognize that they're not alone in this. Taxed volunteers are feeding 200 people four times a day under conditions far from ideal, and some think they deserve special treatment? One example: "Can you find a place in the fridge for my case of Diet Coke?" Or another: "Isn't there some salad you can get for me instead?"
I've even seen staffers who chose to stop at the bar after the show and missed the late meal go into the fridge and stick their dirty hands into the food because - quoting - "We're hungry." If I we're king, I'd go Saudi on selfish criminals like that and cut off their hands. But that's me - just a volunteer.
Again, most of the staff were wonderful. It's the rotten apples who ruin the recipe.
HH
Every single meal I eat, I thank the people that cook it. Remember, a lot of us on staff are volunteers also, getting paid nothing or next to nothing. And this door swings both ways. I have dealt with some pretty crabby volunteers, whether they be drivers, cooks, or uniform people. Since the topic here is staff, I do see your point and staff members like that should be more respectful of the volunteers, but as with every single facet of life, there are always a few who leave a bad taste in your mouth. Let's just try to remember the good tastes if we can.
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I have not made up my mind yet. I know that part of what makes finals night special is that was your last show you will every march with that group, and having retreat, passing out medals, etc. So are we having that up there in michigan city with the mosquitoes? They were eating us alive last year. Plus, it's not over, because we are trying to get into the semis show in Indy, so we have to keep the kids razor sharp. I'm not really sure that I like it, but I guess we'll see how it goes.
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Why is this WHOLE THREAD about staff's reaction to their shows at performances? I thought this was supposed to be a more broad discussion of "staff behavior". Really? 15 pages of "staff going crazy during performances"? How about some other issues? I'll leave out examples. Let's see if we are smart enough to find something new to add to this discussion.
I tried to make that point a while back. It seems to me the two I have seen are staff reactions at shows and being respectful with wearing or not wearing a shirt.
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It will be interesting to see Madison and Blue Coats scores in a head to head venue.
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Yeah, I vote for one seating area down low and one up high. Actually, at about half the shows, I end up down on the track, up against the stands. I never even make it to the bleachers.
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Is this a problem. Yes. Corps staff should know better than to act in a way that reflect poorly on their organization. That's almost definitely an ideal that was expressed to them at some point when they were marching.
However, there isn't a great way for corps to police it. The admin of the corps can't be everywhere at once. Again, the best way to handle it (and it seems that it is being handled that way) is to get in touch with the corps, or (god forbid), say something to the staff member creating the problem. I know that every organization I've ever worked with in a teaching capacity has just kind of had an understanding that acting like an idiot in the stands wasn't really the way to conduct yourself. When I was a young staff member, I did what most young guys do, and modeled my behavior from what the older staff members did. They didn't really have to say anything. It never even occurred to me to act any differently. Perhaps there's a disconnect in that regard these days. Do I quietly make notes to myself during my groups' performances? Sure. Do I cheer (within reason) when something that we've struggled with goes well? Absolutely. But I do understand that the performance is more important than what I think of the performance. That's no different from the way I conduct myself as a fan when I'm not on the clock.
Exactly. Very well said.
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What I would like to see the most from staff is for them to "model" the same behavior they expect from their corps members. Many of them don't. One of the glaring deficiencies in many drum corps is that director's do not set an expectation of their staff members to "lead by example."
Jason
I don't agree with the "many" part. We definitely try to lead by example. Our kids know what our expectations are (be respectful, represent the organization, etc.) and we try to lead by example.
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Only in a world like drum corps would it be the customers job to seek out the company and its subsidiaries to tell them why they don't like their product.
It should be the other way around.
So, back to your restaurant example. If you have a bad experience in a restaurant, you are not expected to voice that opinion, whether it be to a manager, the server, or even through a corporate website? The other night we were at a restaurant, and the server brought us the wrong appetizer. We pointed it out, and the problem was solved. If the corps director does not know it's going on, how can the situation be fixed?
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You don't hear me saying I'm not going to another show.
I do however, know one band director who isn't taking his band to the Omaha show this year.
He had a bad experience last year with staff members who were doing this nonsense in the stands, and even using obscenities.
That's a bad experience. Did you know who they were, and if so talk to the corp director? That would make me mad too. No one knows I am staff when I am in the stands though. We go on early, and we take the kids back to the lot, and I usually come back over to catch some of the other shows. I go up, find a place to sit, and watch as a fan. I keep my comments to myself until we are out of the stadium where I can talk with other staff members in private. I'm sorry if you had a bad experience with it. That's too bad that some staff members are not respectful.
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I have to agree with WOOHOO... I don't think that rude staff are causing the downfall of DCI. As I have stated, I know it has happened before, but I think it's a very small minority of the time.
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I think I've mentioned it on here at one point but sure.
We were in Texas practicing for the San Antonio show I believe.
The guard wasn't having a good day of rehearsal.
So when they were in sectionals, the guard staff told them all to run over to their water coolers for a water break.
They were instructed to pick up the cooler, pour out some water and to run back to rehearsal. That was their water break.
I rode the guard bus and it was an interesting ride.
Just so everyone knows, Texas in 2002 was actually pretty nice and not a sweltering heat like normal, but still doesn't excuse it.
Yeah, that's pretty harsh. You have to be able to chew some ### when you teach, but water is water.
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No, I 'm not going to take the bait and name Corps here. As a matter of fact, when on a few occasions over the years that I've had a bad experience with a staff member, I've taken the issue directly to the Corps Directors and the issues were resolved to my satisfaction and they thanked me for bringing it to their attention. I don't see any Corps better or worse in this issue of rude behaviors. But thats just my own personal experience here too. Also, I don't think it's appropriate to go onto a public forum like this with a personal bad experience with a Corps and name the Corps. It can be resolved without such a public display, imo.
I never asked you to name names, so if you think I'm baiting you, sorry, you are misrepresenting what I wrote. I simply asked if your experience was with the same group or groups over and over. I think that's a fair question, because you assert that this is a major problem, and I question if it is limited to certain groups. I have been to many shows, and I don't see this as being that prevalent of a problem.
Music City 2014
in DCI Open Class Corps Discussions
Posted
Hey 3rd&10, I was also a part of that ineffective staff for three years. As you can see I don't hide behind the computer. If you want to discuss the finer points of teaching you can contact me directly also. I don't know what your credentials are to judge us ineffective. I'm sure you're qualified though.
How many of those MDCD shows did you see in those years? I know you were just running your mouth without thinking, and you probably didn't mean to offend, but frankly I'm glad you did. It gives me a chance to elaborate on what the former brass caption was talking about above. See, with a world class group, when you have this neat thing called auditions, you get to listen to a bunch of great players who are most often probably music majors, and majors on their instruments at that. How many trumpet players do you think auditioned for Crown this year? You know how I got my trumpet section the three years I taught with Music City? Phone calls and text messages. We begged, pleaded, and cajoled people into giving it a try. I think I had as many non trumpet players as trumpet players until 2012. They were great kids, hard workers. They were flute players and saxophone players and, well, you get the idea. Top 6 in brass with a bunch of non brass players? I'll take it. I bet BDB and SCVC and Oregon Crusaders don't have that problem. Oh, and since you probably know the shows that we played, I'm sure you remember how much help we got from the design of the shows, right? Right, I'll let you go back and check that out.
I'll let you go and get in touch with the members who marched those years. I bet they would tell you how ineffective we were. If you want references, you can contact me and I will send them your way.