NewToPosting

New guard caption head is a solid program builder - I'd imagine the trajectory will change (or at least start to) immediately.

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How does one teach a guard of 30+ people without a microphone and not yell? I don't know that yelling in and of itself is abusive, sometimes it's necessary so that your voice can carry to both sides of the field. It's what is being yelled that makes it abuse or not. Even when corrective, yelling at the whole guard is one thing, singling individuals out and yelling at them in front of others is a WHOLE other thing.

Did Daniel Belcher state that somewhere, or did someone speculate on an online forum? I looked for announcements, but found none that mentioned him spending time in another career. I did find a thread where a moderator made an assumption, then there was a discussion around what an EE was. If that info came from an announcement, can someone link to it?

The clock is ticking. No one thought to revamp the strategy during or post-pandemic? Not trying to be a doomsday person. Businesses fail when they "want to revolutionize X", but have no strategy and therefore no tactics. Being aspirational is cool - nothing wrong with it at all. But strategy is different. Drum corps staffs probably understand this really well - "We want to win in Y caption". OK, what has to start in November to set the team up to be able to do that? What training has to start then? It differs from a goal (hit a caption score of 19.2 by Z date). If the strategy is effective, the goals are clearer and even if you don't hit your goal, you likely will have made significant progress to that end (or identified another tactic to help get there). There's no tactic. "We want drum corps for the masses" and corps are (for all the reasons) finding it harder to stay afloat. Tours are getting shorter, meaning fewer shows, meaning fewer opportunities for souvie sales, meaning fewer eyeballs, meaning fewer potential members, which in turn means that the value proposition of paying $5k to march a season diminishes from a member experience perspective. (a lot of assumptions, I know...) Good luck to the new guy. The clock is ticking.

For a goof, I went to dci.org and looked at their Strategic Plan (which was last revised in 2018, per the website). It's fluff. Well-meaning fluff, but it's not really a strategy. "Increase accessibility" - FAIL. They talk about serving participating units, but nothing about growing the number of participating units. Wouldn't that be an easy strategy, upon which tactics could be built? Strategy: "Increase the number of participating units" <--opens a WHOLE conversation about tactics that could accomplish that. There is NOTHING in their strategic plan about growth. I'm not a horn person, but to me, that's akin to NOT crescendoing through the whole note, when you don't put active energy into it, it wanes and twists on the vine. No wonder.

Are you talking about me? 1 - you don't know I'm a guy. 2 - what I said was a repeat of what a DCI jannual attendee posted on FB. I also didn't say it would be "dead", but that the corps are talking about not having enough money. I'm not saying it will die - I sure to god hope it doesn't. The point, to make it perfectly clear, is that THE EXISTING MODEL OF TODAY IS NOT SUSTAINABLE. How do you have a conversation about that?

True - but the Scholastic classes also benefit the local circuits (where they may be fewer Open and World class groups). In the local circuits, Scholastic groups DO have more of a say (just my opinion and experience), because the local circuits MUST ensure their local groups are successful. I think that's the perspective I'm trying to take that I think is missing from DCI (and it's not a new perspective - many have derided G7 for doing that very thing - not caring about the lesser-thans). My point is that without local or regional support, DCI in its current setup doesn't care about a group that has an operating budget under $3M and without that, no one else does (over-simplifying, I know). Couldn't DCI just start a few regional task forces whose goals were to increase local participation and work with the existing World class units to also make sure that benefits them? It seems a case where we have locked shields, not swords.

I'm somewhat removed from Soundsport (I know less about it), but could that somehow be a jumping off point, or at least something to invest in, because it would do something similar - give experience and then after the members compete, they get to see the elite groups. It seems if it were positioned/marketed differently (I'm not trying to point fingers AT ALL), could it be made more robust and give a sustainable path to drum corps?

I get that it's not without some things folks don't like AND it has its own struggles, but they are not existential struggles. What drum corps has now are solely elite groups (I'm over generalizing, but the healthiest part of drum corps is its World Class) with very few "intro" opportunities. It's a circuit of unicorns. How do you create unicorns?

If only there was a pageantry organization that had Local, Regional, and National circuits, where the Local groups learned, the Regional groups competed, and the National groups (the elite) attracted the Local participants. I know everyone "hates" on WGI, but they've expanded their Championships weekend from 1 to 2. Drum corps just reduced from 2 to 1. BOA is too different an animal to compare. WGI's model is not without flaws, of course, but even in "dead" areas, groups are able to get off the ground and into national competition within a year or two. It would take a drum corps a small investment firm to be able to pull that off now. But, WGI is killing the activity. Let's definitely NOT learn from what's working. </sarcasm> (Not a WGI homer, either, it's hardly the golden beacon, but many drum corps participants do WGI in the winter and do not have the same 5 year outlook as drum corps - something works in the setup)

Seeing a post by an attendee on Facebook, it sounds like most corps don't see making it beyond 5 years and that the existing model cannot sustain itself. There was talk of corps who have posted things on social media like, "we're in the BEST financial position we've ever been in" who had to actually go deep into their endowment and scholarship funds just to survive.

Yes, allegedly (and to my knowledge, that person was not affiliated with Crown in any way, ever). There are DEFINITELY students in the area who would want to do drum corps and either an Open Class or All-Age corps (who treated members correctly) would do really well. Honestly, the location lends itself to a shorter DC season, as well. Do your "Summer Training" in July, meet up with the tour as it rolls through Charlotte/Winston-Salem, and head up to Indy for Finals. A total tour of ~3 weeks or so. Would love to see it happen!!

I wonder who would teach the guard, since the last guard CH is not eligible.

What's less rare is people who work in iterative environments (software development, manaufacturing/continuous improvement, production of any sort). The iterative nature of drum corps (put something on the field, then tweak it, then max it out) is very useful in lots of careers. Coordinating "across captions" is also very helpful. In other words, the value isn't in producing pro performers (though that's great), the value is the educational component, which can be applied across career trajectories.

I guess no good deed goes unpunished. What if she ended up being the person who was keeping it held together? I don't know that to be fact, but I do remember her having nearly weekly fundraising efforts for the Cadets. She brought back pre-GH folks (who were still interested in even discussing the Cadets publicly). Prove that unexpected bills received in October 2023 had anything to do with Denise. If you're going to call her out like that, pony up the proof. Emerald Marquis is no longer around. You wanna blame Denise for that, too? After all, she was the lead tech there and is clearly the cause of the activity's woes (I'm being incredibly sarcastic).

I have not scrolled through all of the 60+ pages in the thread, so this may be divulged somewhere (apologies if so). I read the Chairman's note. There was an odd line: "Meanwhile, the reconciliation of last season’s expenses is not realized until the final bills arrive in September and October. It was only within the past week that the CAE Board reviewed the final results for the year and reached the painful conclusion that our income was insufficient to cover our expenses and that we had less cash on hand than our current debts and obligations." Has it been made clear what unexpected expenses rolled in around September/October? This sounds like somebody put the summer on a credit card and people didn't know until the bill came a couple of months later. Otherwise, how do you not know that, with the season ending in mid-August? Especially after allegedly being diligent about cost-cutting measures (as mentioned earlier in his release)? Did Hoppy win a settlement or something? Say what you will, but I saw Denise doing Zoom fundraiser after Zoom fundraiser while she was running the org and then that all seemed to stop with her retirement. It's all such a shame.

There are neighboring activities (winterguard, marching band) with circuits, so It's not like it's impossible. More groups would have to start up - smaller ones. How can that happen? Working with existing circuits (some drum corps already do this) and either integrating with them or not.

A slightly different take on the props/staff discussion: Let's say the variable costs of more/fewer props doesn't really do much to the budget. What are the opportunity costs of having potentially smart people (the staff you hired) focused on the logistics of those things, rather than on sustainable growth of the ensemble? Not suggesting the corps don't properly utilize their people, but are they utilizing them optimally? The corps are in trouble, but the sculptor who builds multiple $50k+ props across *diverse revenue streams* (i.e. drum corps, fall marching band, colleges/Universities, indoor drumline, winterguard, winds, soundsport) in the activity is doing JUST fine...

The strategy should be in identifying which aspects of drum corps have commercial appeal. If you have a group of people who can run a mobile kitchen, those things can make a lot of money (of course, legalities, food preparation standards, money-handling, a go-to-market plan all need to get worked through). It might somewhat go against the "not-for-profit" classification, but can a supporting body utilize corps assets to generate money?

Parades. Community events (such as First Fridays, Art Walks, engagement with local symphony if there is one, Crown has done shows at Nascar events in Charlotte, I taught a corps that teamed up with a local rapper and did shows around town). Clinics with local bands. Summer sporting events. Soundsport. Clinics for just anybody who wants to learn. Start a winterguard. Start an indoor drumline. Start a Winds group. Local theater group engagements. Most corps have food trucks and there's a WHOLE foodie scene in pretty much any medium-sized town nowadays, utilizing *gasp* food trucks!!!! Nobody goes to a circus and says, "Gee, I really hope the circus can make it down the road". It's in the town and then it's gone, just like modern drum corps. Yes, the local engagements cost money, but they also bring in revenue...and eyeballs...and engage with potential future members (that, unfortunately, most likely WON'T become the activity's "elite" performers). The top of our activity is incredibly esoteric. There's a LOT more "popular" things, in the sense of being "in the population", that a regional schedule could look like. A drum corps can do a lot more than just be competitive for competition sake. I wish the activity would move in that direction to maintain the competitive aspect.

Are there general guidelines from DCI on separating an adult member while on tour? Are there general guidelines from DCI on separating an underage member while on tour? Staff? Volunteers? What's the Standard Operating Procedure? If there's not any, could there be? This is the second example I've heard of a member being "cut" on tour. Seems like corps don't know how to do it, because of the 2 I've heard about, 0% of them did it "correctly" or "respectfully".

A national governing body? Totally agree!

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I know for a fact Crown was holding "everydays" at Belmont Abby College in 1991 (their second competitive year). They may have been there the year before, as well. I think drum corps have been holding spring training/pre-tour/everydays at college campuses for decades (well before the 2000s)