Wow this thread is discouraging. This is my first DCP post but I feel it necessary to post.
Background/knowledge: My kid was a rookie at cadets this year. That same kid didn't want to come home this year because they loved their experience with the cadets this summer.
That same kid had marched other corps at which they had worse experiences.
That same kid never thought they would be a cadet but now knows they don't want to go anywhere else.
As a parent I also volunteered and toured over 20+ days doing various things for the corps. Also have volunteered at 2 other corps where I had children March. I saw and experienced many things with this corps and others.
Note, there are positives and negatives with all the corps. But also note cadets may seem more expensive but there are no hidden costs. It covers everything. Other corps get you by tacking on other fees.
In any event, I have much respect for the cadet organization, including but not limited to the staff (including hop), the administrative staff and especially the members.
This summer was not easy by all means for any of them but hey if things were easy it wouldn't be the same experience now would it? Nor would our kids learn to overcome the challenges presented.
Did they want to place higher, of course they did. Does that mean they failed? HELL NO. There were many good shows this year.
Does it mean the staff sucked or needs replaced? HELL NO.
Lastly, about the guard. Kristy is tough but the work these kids were doing appeared to be more complex and difficult than those guards who scored higher. What makes no sense to me is how when the show did finally stabilize that the achievement scores for the guard went down.
It also makes no sense to me how the corps final score went down at finals when it was clearly the best run they had of the season.
I watched top corps have collisions/falls/many drops in finals but their scores all went up.
The judging system makes no sense to me but I know how the experience was.
In summary, I don't know anything about changes to the staff or organization and clearly the judging system confused the hell out of me but I do know that no matter what happens there were many who actually did have a good experience and it's sad that most people only focus on the negative. This activity is clearly about perception and there are clearly politics involved but it seems to me that even if hop and team did exactly as everyone wished it wouldn't be good enough. They were doomed by many posts on dcp from the get go. I often wander how the negative affected their summer.
I can only hope that many of these rumors are squashed and things get more positive so that we can move on and prepare for a fabulous 2017.
