2muchcoffeeman

"Shrink the tour" reminds me of the decisions in the newspaper business to shrink the paper, shrink the newsroom . . . shrink all the reasons why people would pay for your product in the first place. The product that every drum corps sells is the experience -- educational, personal, social, whatever -- to the member. Shrink that, and you shrink the reasons why they would want to buy your product.

How does it look? It looks bad. The question is: How bad? And so what? I think most people who are generous in spirit would say: Eh, no big deal. You had a lot on your mind. "Should have been notified." Sure. Yeah, of course. Conceded. Lots of things "should" happen when a monumental decision is made. But look, regardless of how much foreknowledge everyone had, there comes the decision crunch time, and in the middle that hurricane of deliberation among leadership, some stuff is going to get set aside until Topic A is decided. In the scheme of things, pulling the plug on recruitment programming relatively quickly in the hours after making that agonizing decision does not strike me as a public-relations catastrophe. It seems natural to me that not only recruitment but a number of ordinary business operations would continue to grind on in the hours after making such a decision, and they will be wound down in due course. And the sun rises tomorrow.

We pushed our bus up the final quarter-mile to the Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70. 40 kids with their shoulders to the bus, in billows of black smoke, some of it diesel, some of it clutch. Good Lord, could you imagine the response to something like that today. We have a much safer environment today. State-of-the-art buses. Health and Safety staff. It's all to the good of course. It's also more expensive. LIfe is a series of tradeoffs.

What people don't recognize is that the COVID year was the best thing to happen to corps budgets in a long time. Radically reduced costs. Payroll subsidies.

I can teach YOU how to be a millionaire, and NEVER pay taxes. You say to me, "Steve? How can I be a millionaire, and never pay taxes?" First, get a million dollars . . . . /Steve Martin

It's a revenue source, not a "profit center." Revenue is not the same as profit. Profit is what's left after you've paid expenses. 152 members paying $4,000 each for the summer is $608,000 in revenue. Is that a lot? Sure. But the annual budget of a finalist corps is north of $1.5, $1.6, $1.7 million, and undoubtedly higher for some corps. The tuition revenue covers only about a third of the annual budget. Put another way: It costs [$1.7M / 152 =] $11,184.21 per marching member to run a finalist corps from one season to the next. The members pay only a third of that amount. The corps has to find the rest through Bingo, fundraising, souvies, etc. Camp revenue, meanwhile, is only a fraction of tuition revenue. A thousand auditionees paying $150 for a camp is $150K, which is nothing to sneeze at, but once you subtract the food, the facility rentals and the staff transportation costs for the camp season, what's left isn't going to put much of a dent in that $1.7M annual bill.

Yeah it's way too easy to sit in our armchairs and nuke the Cadet's admin into the stone age because of an automated social media post. For all the grief they're taking, you'd think that CEA had deliberately fired a torpedo into its own hull and given potential members two middle fingers. For goodness' sake, people, a little grace, please. All this red-faced foaming at the mouth about a recruitment post is all a bit high-and-mighty.

I don't doubt it. ASPIRE has done what is necessary to run a WC corps in a financially sustainable way, and all props to them. It's another question whether their model can work outside of Boston.

I get what you're saying, but I'm dubious that a solution is as plug-and-play as "hire a seasoned np development professional." I put it in the necessary-but-insufficient category. Boston indeed is a model. It is not a readily replicable model. It has been built on the back of a large board of very well-connected people, it's true. But a big and well-connected board is not the entire story in Boston. First of all, it's Boston. Outside of NY, it's the epicenter of the U.S. financial-services industry. When it comes to grant writing, it is, as they say, a target-rich environment -- one that also happens to be local (a twofer!) to the grant officers at these global financial behemoths. Boston is a major metro that, outside of Surf 3 states away, is home to the only WC corps in New England and the Mid-Atlantic. You need to go all the way to Canton or Fort Mill to find another. Boston has diversified its revenue. It bought an entire music festival. And a music-instrument retail operation. Perhaps only BD has a more robust and diversified revenue stream. As for the BAC board, it's pay-to-play; every member is expected to provide an annual minimum 4-figure donation. On such a large board, the multiplier effect is not insignificant. Board members are selected for one purpose only: to leverage their connections to bring money to the organization. They also happen to be passionate about the corps and the youth mission. But people who are merely passionate do not get invited to the board, for the most part. The leadership in Boston is stellar and it is to be commended for taking advantage of its opportunities — opportunities, it should be said, that are available only to a monopoly organization that has a financially bottomless local market all to itself. Try to replicate that in Casper. Or even San Antonio, or Madison. Get the best "seasoned np development professional" you want; no doubt it will help, but I don't think it offers salvation. Madison is a nice place. There is money in Madison. But it ain't Boston.

Yeah, but they had little choice. Imagine a press release that BEGAN with the news of the ED leaving the org, and then 8 paragraphs later revealing the news that the corps would not be active in 2024. Now THAT would be burying the lede

I predict many marching members being pulled around on props towed by ropes

Wouldn't say that. 150 kids paying $3,500 each is $525K, which is real money for any drum corps. The total corps budget may be multiples of that amount, but that doesn't make the member revenue "a loss." It's simply a part -- a big part -- of the revenue pie.

Repost: DCI Bylaws Section 6 - Actions on membership status - Termination Membership is automatically terminated in the event a Member corps does not compete at the Drum Corps International World Championship during the year of Membership, unless that failure to compete is due to a probationary status. (Maybe I missed it, but DCI never put Santa Clara on probation. In its Dec. 12, 2022 press release, DCI said only that SCV "will opt-out of the 2023 Drum Corps International Tour." Not a word about probation.) Section 5 - Responsibilities and benefits of membership B. Voting for changes in membership status, including granting Membership to organizations... Section 2 - Eligibility for Membership Membership in Drum Corps International is available to competitive drum corps that: A. Participate in the DCI Summer Tour and at the DCI World Championships C. Have been approved for Membership by a majority vote of the current membership Seems pretty black-and-white to me: SCV will need to pitch its case for membership to the current members of DCI. These are the bylaws. They are still in effect; they are currently posted at the DCI website. SCV missed the 2023 season -- two years after the COVID exhibition year. Can't see how any COVID exceptions (which, again, are not indicated in the bylaws) would apply. By the plain text of these bylaws, SCV is not, and cannot be, a member of DCI until the current membership votes them in. I fully expect that to happen in due course, but until then, they enjoy none of the benefits -- schedule, financial, etc. -- of DCI membership. They are an independent.

Well, we don't know that. We're all a bunch of drum corps nuts trying to understand exactly what an arcane bit of California statute actually says. I should never rule anything out, I suppose, but given the information we have, it seems one of 3 scenarios is possible: 1. SCV, alone among California nonprofits, has been running a shell game with a tuition-to-bingo-to-SCV scheme for decades; 2. BD and other drum corps and other charities all do likewise, collectively evading detection by state regulators for many years; 3. The law actually allows for the way SCV (and others) do it, and that The Silicon Valley Voice does not have all the facts straight, hasn't explored the state law to the extent of its provisions and exceptions, and isn't asking enough questions to explain why the circular relationship between charities and their bingo operations is both legal and, in SCV's case, necessary. Based on what I know now, my money is on No. 3

So I guess the logic works this way: Corps members pay annual tuition. But bingo generates much more money than tuition. If you're SCV, would you rather operate on the tuition money, or the larger pool of money that bingo creates? The answer to that question is: The bingo money. So you pay your bingo workers with the tuition money, thereby making the bingo operation legal, and making it possible for the corps to collect the bingo revenue. I'm not a lawyer, either, but it sure seems to me that an argument can be made that bingo workers paid by the people for whom they are raising money are, in effect, being paid by the bingo operation. It's an end-run around the regulations. Call me naive, but I'm skeptical that VMAPA (to say nothing of BD) would game the system so brazenly. Some wise person once said that more bad things in this world are explained by incompetence than by intention. You'll need to convince me that VMAPA has intentionally flouted the law for 50 years and only now has been discovered. And if this is explained by incompetence, someone still needs to explain to me how this supposed incompetence has gone undetected for 50 years, and how identical incompetence apparently is routine at other nonprofits that work their bingo operations the same way. No, I'm still looking at the news report and finding it lacking needed context and explanation. My critique here is not with SCV; it's with the report published by The Silicon Valley Voice.

Thank you. You've done more work than the article did. But this is weird. This section of law essentially stipulates that all bingo work must be volunteer work. Nobody is allowed to get paid. Okay, I can understand the rationale. The bingo exists to support a charity. All the money should go to the charity. All well and good. Except the world doesn't work that way. There are millions of people who work for nonprofits and get their paychecks from the nonprofits for which they work. It is utterly ordinary for a charity to spend X% of its donation revenue on administrative overhead (which includes the act of soliciting donations) and to spend the rest on the charity's beneficiaries. What this attempt at a news account fails to do is explain why California has, apparently, exempted bingo from this. I mean, imagine a charity for puppies. Imagine a bingo operation that raises the money for the puppies. The puppies can't pay "membership dues;" they can't "pay" anything at all, including the salaries of the bingo workers. The only way the bingo generates money for the puppies, then, is if all the bingo workers are doing it voluntarily. And maybe that's California's point; maybe the point is to prevent the Bingofication of California by requiring the games be volunteer-run enterprises.

This is not computing. If that's how it works -- if that's how it has to work, under the law -- why would the lawyers say it wasn't happening?

Yeah okay, this article has issues. It has the feel of a blog, not a journalistic enterprise. Some vigorous editing could have strengthened it. There are leaks and gaps in it that make it less than 100% reliable. "Makes"? Meaning what? Gross revenue? Operating profit? EBITDA? It's one thing to generate millions of dollars in top-line revenue each year; it's another to clear millions of dollars in net profit. It's possible to ring up millions of dollars in sales and yet still lose money at the end of the year. This is sloppy writing in the very first sentence that sets an uncertain trajectory for everything that follows. Wait, what? SCV members did not pay tuition? Membership was a free ride? We're still in the first paragraph here, and the wheels are coming off. Remember, this article is meant for general-public consumption; most readers don't know the ins and outs of DCI operations. Journalism for a general audience needs to demystify things for the drive-by reader. But so far in this article, the general reader thinks SCV had been providing a free/subsidized experience to kids on the back of millions in bingo profits. Says who? Journalism 101: You do not even hint that someone even might be breaking the law (it's defamatory on its face) unless you have the goods: a prosecutor's report, say, or a police report, or even a named source by someone who is in a position to make such a claim. But this writer just puts it out there without attribution. This is a fundamental fail. And: "potential"? Talk about weasel words. Using it only underscores how rickety this structure is. Ah, okay, so this might be the source of the allegation of possible illegality? Let's see what Mr. Lesher has to say: . . . but no. He has written "a letter." He asks the mayor to "take action." Like what? What kind of action? And, crucially, where is the evidence of illegality? Is being not in good standing a crime? We are not even 3 paragraphs into this article. So far, the author has suggested, without attribution, that SCV might be on the wrong side of the law, and has backed it up with "a letter" whose contents are not described but apparently asks the mayor -- not a member of law enforcement -- to "take action," also not described. This letter is provided by a former board member, which is another chapter in Journalism 101: Be skeptical of allegations made by former employees. Which isn't to say Mr. Lesher isn't acting in good faith. He very well may be. But the article doesn't provide any information to establish his untainted sincerity. The reader has no information on which to judge Mr. Lesher's motives, let alone the veracity of his allegations. Okay, at last we get a description of the nature of the alleged violation of the law. But who is Lesher to say whether anyone is a lawbreaker? What credential or authority does he have to make this charge? Can we get someone in here, like maybe an actual charity regulator for the State of California, or maybe the compliance specialist for the CA association of nonprofits, who can say whether anything sketchy is going on? Anyone? No? Sigh. And does Vanguard fit this definition? It's not a frivolous question; the reason the article even exists is to report what's going on. So far in this article, the writer has not connected the dots between being a "charitable organization" under CA law, and being a "tax-exempt" organization under the IRS code. Are these terms equivalent in CA? The article doesn't say. CAN WE PLEASE GET SOMEONE INTO THIS STORY WHO IS QUALIFIED TO MAKE THIS ASSERTION AND NOT PUT OUR NEWSROOM ON THE HOOK FOR A DEFAMATION CLAIM? Huh? Really? A bingo operation can't pay its own employees? That sounds weird. Plenty of charities all over America are allowed to pay their employees. This bingo rule may be true in CA, but I'm from Missouri: Show Me. Give me the statute that says this. Let's include some of that language in the article for the 99% of the rest of the readers who are going to scratch their head over this, too. . . . and the reporter knows this, how? With this statement the writer has just accused SCV of another violation of the law; this information must be attributed to a source. Wait wait wait wait wait: We're making the reader dizzy. First of all, the lede says that SCV members didn't need to pay to participate. But now they're paying membership dues? Second, just think about what the article is describing here: There's a drum corps. Its members pay dues. Because of the state's bingo law, those dues pay the salaries of bingo employees. . . who run a bingo game to raise money for . . . . wait for it . . . the drum corps. What kind of wacky circular setup is this? Why is there even a bingo game in the first place? Why are corps members paying bingo employees to create bingo revenue to pay for the drum corps? Why not apply the members's dues directly to the drum corps, and cut out the bingo part? All of which is to say: I suspect the reporter has it wrong about the law forbidding the bingo operation to pay its own employees. I do believe there are strict guidelines in place (because it is gambling and because charity is involved), but I have a hunch the way the rules are characterized here is not a complete picture. Go back to the regulations and check again. And if the reporter does have the rules right, then the article needs to explain why there is this merry-go-round of money, from corps members to bingo and back to the drum corps. It's not logical to the uninitiated and the mechanics of it all will need explanation to even grasp why something might be awry. First, why isn't the reporter talking to Gavin herself? Why is she skimming off another publication? And why is she relying on Gavin's interpretation of the situation when she could just ask the state regulators herself? For goodness' sake, pick up a phone. How about the reporter does her own reporting and calls the lawyers herself? If they give her a "no comment," THEN she can rely on Gavin's testimony. The reporter is cheating the readers here.

Will the NFLPA succeed at converting all NFL stadiums (er, sorry, @mjoakes, I mean stadia) to natural grass? I don't know. If it does succeed, will the natural-turf revolution spread all the way down through colleges to high schools? Again: No clue. But if it is (successful), and if it does (spread), I am certain of this: The embittered, petty tyrants across America who manage HS athletic fields will receive the district administration memo in their windowless closet offices behind the cafeteria with a dark, cackling glee, and will encircle their keys and lock combinations with an even tighter clutch of the fist, raising the blood pressure of DCI tour managers beyond their already dangerous levels. Not to generalize or anything 😉

Mandarins ARE the West-Coast recruiting competition. Fans are fans, and they have visions of the bottle dance in their heads, but potential members, the slice of the population ages 18-21, saw Sinnerman and said I WANT TO DO THAT. That show was pure gas, absolute catnip to any performer who wants to do drum corps, who wants to perform. Mandies will have so many kids coming out for camps they'll be be loading the cut bus and sending it to Santa Clara.

True enough, but VMAPA doesn't need their votes. It needs only a majority of the votes of the DCI members in the room.

Word

There's a membership meeting in a couple of weeks, and that's where VMAPA will have to make its case to the members of DCI to restore SCV to DCI membership. I can only assume that VMAPA will come loaded with all sorts of evidence -- all the tax forms, government affidavits, balance sheets, royal decrees, blood oaths, ritual sacrifices, etc. -- needed to demonstrate they are square with regulators and thus deserving of membership. I assume that DCI will immediately announce the result of the membership vote, whichever way it resolves. I wouldn't think that the DCI board would "address this publicly;" I assume it will be DCI management (Dan A) that would issue any public statement about the membership vote. The board hires Dan to manage this sort of thing; I would think the situation is his to manage.

Which corps will be the first to go Full Barbie?

Yeah, it will be an odd sight during June to see them at the gate at 6 p.m. And will they get their DCI membership back? I expect they will. The current membership will, and should, grill VMAPA good and hard over its policies, procedures and paperwork of the past XX months, and with good reason. But at the end of the day, I believe all current members understand it is in their interest that DCI includes a healthy, competitive SCV. If they can be persuaded that SCV won't poison the product, they know that the overall product will be better with the Vanguard back in the fold.