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mjoakes

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Posts posted by mjoakes

  1. On 12/14/2022 at 3:54 PM, LabMaster said:

    I read a few more posts and see you still think people think you want to start a corps.  But you want to know what it costs to start a local corps.  Nearly the same question.  What you’ve been told is you need a business plan . Developing that will tell you what you need money for.  So you need to figure out what a local corps would be.

    Start with $500K and go from there.  And travel only within 100 miles from home.  

    I was briefly involved in a start-up corps from Indiana aiming for Sound Sport status. The organization had some members, bought some horns, and practiced a show designed for them. But there was no credible business plan. It was the brainchild of someone passionate about drum corps and music and educating young people. Good. But you need some business people heavily influencing what is done.

    The cost? I don't know. I think the founder maxed out credit cards and sucked dry their savings. But I can't verify that.

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  2. 1 hour ago, wolfgang said:

    Different people have different personal thresholds where they say no more, no dci for me this year.

    I know of some who paid for tix, got caught in the entry fiasco at Finals last August, and decided that was their last straw. No more dci.

    Others may have seen the ticket price increase and opted out. Others may compare 2022 w/SCV, SCVC,Legends who are not coming out and decided no (though Spirit, Columbians, and last I heard, Cascades are planning to come to Championships).

    Even in past years, show trends, A&E, desire for different city and other factors caused some people to decide not to come to Indy.

    If you are/were planning to come to Championships, what would be/was your personal tipping point when you decide(d) no, not worth making the trip any more?

    Another year with shows like a couple this past year. Those shows went off the drum corps rails for me. I know others liked them, and they were performed well. But regarding my personal preferences prompting me to spend money on DCI shows, no thanks to more of that mess.

    Already, this is my first year since 2013 that I did not go Friends of DCI or put my name in early for August seats. 

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  3. 1 hour ago, Phantom56 said:

    A ten minute show? Please NO. The corps travel hundreds of miles through every night--to perform for ten minutes?  I really wish to hear Crowns brass for as long as possible.  I say less rehearsal time--more performance time. 

    It's fine with me. And if there's a repeat of some of the gimmicky junk from 2022, cut the shows to 5 minutes. Maybe we'll get at least a full 4 minutes of live, member-played music.

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  4. I'm sad about SCV. They'll recover as smart people eventually help make key decisions. Or they won't, and drum corps will still go on without them. Maybe changed. Maybe not.

    Some of you probably will be able to add to this, but I'm kind of trained to ignore the talk of more shoes to drop or last days of DCI. The Cadets and Hopkins scandal was going to explode across other corps, too, possibly bringing down DCI as we know it. Then the pandemic was going to be the end of DCI as we know it. Now finances at SCV is another canary in a coal mine.

    There are some interesting perspectives to consider from these 51 pages. But much unhelpful drama to wade through.

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  5. 5 hours ago, Drum Corps Is Now a Bust said:

    Let's get something straight about a situation that is rarely if ever discussed on fan sites like this. The success of the Blue Devils in the contemporary setting in which now live directly correlates to money. It's easy to raise the bar with the money BD has to throw out year after year and show after show. Most drum corps don't have the financial resources of BD to buy championship instruction and talent to match. It's about envy and jealousy for me. It's about who has the money in modern DCI. Money now determines who does well consistently and who rarely if ever will. There are non-profit organizations that attempt to achieve work much more important and serious than BD does and that attempt to fulfill their missions with much less financial resources than BD brings in year after year. My point is that money is buys championship and consistent placement in modern DCI more any other single factor. Raise the bar equates to spend more money.

    There is no magic required to be a financially healthy and viable nonprofit. 

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  6. 1 hour ago, Cappybara said:

    Some people are very loose with their language and don't mean what they say in a literal sense, but some end up interpreting it that way. Hate obviously is a strong term to use.

    Good point. A lot of people are very sloppy with the language, and it's been going on for centuries.

    Maybe here on DCP we can improve things just a little by writing more precisely and stopping use of "hate" and "haters" to describe everything we don't particularly care for.

    • Like 3
  7. I'll donate.

    But I think I did this 3-4 years ago for a corps also announcing they were in trouble during tour (truck accident?), and then subsequent reports made me feel like I might have gotten a little scammed. That probably wasn't literally true, but I recall some discussion at least about the fuzziness of the request.

    I donated to Pioneer, too.

    And I think it is arguable about planning. Things change from the date of projections, of course. All forecasts are wrong. But for this tour, organizations ought to have set out only with very healthy reserves on hand. Maybe JS had reserves. I don't know.

    So I am not at all attacking JS management, since I know no details. I'm just making a general point: There has been enough uncertainty for enough months that good boards had all they needed to understand risks. All kinds of businesses and nonprofits are dealing with great uncertainty and much of the same economic conditions.

    • Like 1
  8. 6 hours ago, Weaklefthand4ever said:

    I am going to take a guess that DCI is leaving that up to the individual corps as a) They are not truly a governing body with any real sway over what happens at the corps level and b) The cost would be enormous and I would doubt that DCI would be footing that bill. I wouldn't think that individual corps would be able to carry that kind of additional financial burden with fuel prices etc already up and no revenue for 2020 and 2021. 

    Granted this is my guess and I am not an authority on the subject and could be completely wrong. 

    Good guessing.

  9. Summer after high school graduation in 1970s I worked trumpets for three Indiana high school bands. Attended three band camps in late July and early August. (If anyone is interested: Winchester, Anderson, and Edgewood high schools.)

    I remember it being so super cool for me to be on the other side of the marching band, teaching and drilling students when I was just recently taught and drilled. There was definitely a sense of power. Again, I felt cool, part of the staff, eating with the staff, doing staff meetings. Then getting in front of students and feeling a bit of a big shot at 18 years old. Don't believe I was a jerk at all. I wanted to impress that I could genuinely help the trumpet section.

    But I get how some young (and old) staff members must feel after putting in good time and effort as MMs themselves. There's a power trip involved. And that can lead to excess and really sh**y behavior.

    As a BTW, Anderson did great at fall competitions, and while I was a freshman at IU, I received a bonus check from the band director. Maybe $25 or $50. That was a HUGE amount of expected cash flow back then.

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  10. 40 minutes ago, Poppycock said:

    The short answer is that while some viruses gradually disappear, most viruses do not just “go away”. Cloth masks and face coverings have limited impact on lowering COVID-19 transmission, because they have minimal ability to prevent the emission of small particles. Many people wear their mask under their nose or even under their mouth, remove their masks when talking to someone nearby, or fail to practice physical distancing when wearing a mask. If mask worked, they would have worked by now. 

    Considering current events, you should be more concerned about Lucas Oil Stadium Safety and Protection. Security procedures are questionable. Is DCI using metal detection, bag checks, access control, security rovers and field security, or critical crowd management functions? I have read on here where people had to request seat hoppers to get-up out the seats they had paid for. Count the number of backpacks being worn! How about all the equipment being unloaded and brought into the stadium. Was any of it scanned? What is the evacuation protocol during a large or small-scale attack, stampeding crowds pose just as much of a threat as the actual attack. IMO unless things have changed since I was last there, I would not call DCI Championships in Lucas Oil Stadium a safe and secure venue. 
     

    There was a time when I would quickly call this overreacting. Sad to realize now that @Poppycock isn't.

    Was just at a large Kroger in Bloomington and wore a mask. Several others + many of the employees had masks on. (As a BTW, this huge Kroger near campus is referred to as KroGucci by IU students.)

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