87cadet
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Posts posted by 87cadet
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On 8/3/2019 at 2:32 PM, Fran Haring said:
What Jeff said.
The proposal certainly is worthy of discussion... but it's probably best to wait until tour is over to address it with the Cadets/YEA folks.
Their entire focus right now is on getting the corps to Indianapolis.
I agree, Fred and Jeff. Mostly.
Sustainability and viability of any organization, though, especially one recovering from an upheaval and scandal caused by a parasitic, manipulative and myopic former director, demand that steps be taken now to change course, innovate, and build community.
(His) Ego is what took the corps to its knees.
Now egos must be set aside.
Lack of self-awareness of limitations in talent and creativity also must gently be set aside. Not all people are cut out for creativity at this level. Most ideas that seem to work well in high school programs don’t work well under the scrutiny of more sophisticated audiences and on a truly national stage.
High school and WGI are echo chambers anyway. Parents clap at anything. Paying fans mostly won’t.
Now is also the time to celebrate the energy and talent and grit of the current MMs who are maxing out a deeply flawed and immature show design - a design that, had it been shared widely many months ago - would not have been received well and likely would have been changed.
Open Innovation is the answer. If the top leadership at YEA truly is committed to the long term viability of The Cadets, and especially to the current and future marching members, families who support them, and friends, alumni, and donors, and to creating a collaborative environment for staff to do what they do best.
It’s time to ZAG.
For the good of the organization, and for the future of DCI and and marching arts, a new direction is sorely needed.
Recruitment and fundraising also depend on it.
Some corps out there is going to Zag and take drum corps into a new/old and more engaging direction.
Let’s help make it possible for that corps to be The Cadets.
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On 7/29/2019 at 1:07 PM, HockeyDad said:
You sent an email. That’s being “bold”? I don’t mean to be snarky but...
You don’t know how to contact BOD members?
My vision of being bold would involve something like getting in your car, driving to where Doug and Scott can be found, and talking face to face. Several times if need be. Right now based on your post you have no skin in the game. That’s not bold.
If there is no receptivity or even acknowledgement from anyone in the organization that an idea is worthy of discussion, you are saying I should get in someone’s face - literally - and interrupt their work to advocate for a great idea?
And you consider showing up somewhere without an appointment to talk putting “skin in the game”?
I offered Cadets/YEA leadership my volunteer help to implement the idea. Would you suggest I write a big check?
What impact on the world would a donation to YEA make at this point, relative to the organization I most support, Doctors Without Borders?
I will support a well run innovative and engaging and impactful organization. I’m trying to make that happen.
Time and ideas and effort to implement them most definitely are “skin in the game”
That’s what a startup is. It’s called sweat equity. First you build a team in consensus about an idea. That’s the stage we are at.
Are you on the team, HockeyDad?
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Several days ago, I emailed a link to this thread and a brief offer of my volunteer help to the exec director and the general info email at YEA, also asking it to be forwarded to Doug and Scott. No idea how to email to the entire BOD as several of you suggested in private messages. Suggestions?
No response from anyone so far. Sigh. Trying to keep my hopes up though. Everyone’s busy, obviously, but now is the time to strategize for 2020 and beyond.
Now.
“There is no tomorrow!”
- Sir Apollo Creed
It’s clear to me that what the Cadets lack and have lacked is quality design ideas, whether or not they’ve had the talent to win gold. Most years in the last twenty, they’ve had the talent. No corps has so exasperatingly squandered incredible talent with boneheaded, tasteless, and graceless show design than the Cadets.
That must change immediately not just if they are to be The Cadets and consistently contend, but considering their financials, if they are to survive.
“Be bold and great forces will come to your aid”
- some German guy named Goethe who barely knew how to pronounce his name
C’mon Cadets! Who’s able to set ego aside? Who’s able to stop the many-year streak of soap opera high school level designs, and, ahem....be Bold and Beautiful?
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17 hours ago, FTNK said:
I'm not sure inviting all the cooks into the kitchen is the solution. I fear Cadets are going the way of Madison
If it’s well organized and the procedures are clear, it can work beautifully, as it has in many many other organizations. Sometimes employees are the “cooks” for a while, others it's the general public. Either way it’s a temporarily shared process, then handed back to the Head Chef et al.
The idea is a simultaneous know-your-customer campaign, fundraising and alumni engagement, recruitment, and reinvigoration of a new Cadets approach to image, innovation, and show design
No one loses for trying this. It adds value, increases engagement, gets people thinking out of the box, creates community creatively.
It would only work with a simple, transparent process. Something like this:
9/1-9/15. Open Innovation Competition concept and crowdfunding campaign. Announcement shared widely via social media, and direct outreach to alumni, especially those with music, band, or DCI experience.
$5,000 in Round One prize funds solicited from a target of 50% new contributors. If either funding goal isn't reached by 9/15, competition is cancelled and all donations given to the corps. Why? That would mean proof of concept failed, and interest is too limited for the project to be successful. But if goal is reached, the initiative is highly likely to yield useful ideas and increase community engagement.
9/15-9/30 RFP announced, including rules and procedures.
No Cadets staff members eligible to submit ideas or receive Round One prizes.
All ideas that win prizes become the intellectual property of The Cadets
Prizes awarded for winning ideas as follows:
$3,000 for winning concept and show design, the more detail the better, and the winner gets to work with the staff design team, ex officio, to hone and expand the idea, that is, if the staff decides to make the winning submission their show design, or some version of that submission. The staff need not be obligated to choose the winner as the 2020 show design.
$1,000 for second place
$500 for third
$100 for five awards for any ideas deemed applicable for 2020 or future seasons
10/1 All proposals are made anonymously and no one but executive director can access during Round One open submission from 10/1 to 10/15. This would enable anyone with conflicts of interest to also participate, because no one in DCI is best served by a struggling Cadets organization, and now is a perfect time to reintegrate tradition with innovation and seek means to incorporate but move past the WGI orthodoxy that may well be alienating as many fans as it is making.
All those planning to review submissions are asked but not required to make a small donation, maybe $25 for professionals, $10 for students, are required to present proof of identity, reveal connections with competing corps, and execute simple NDA/NCA obliging them not to share the intellectual property, especially with a competing corps, without consent of YEA. All moneys collected during crowdfunding Round Two should be directed toward expenses related to executing the 2020 show design.
10/16 Submission review. Online sharing of Google Docs or other appropriate virtual team application (Slack, Dropbox, etc.)
Review process with weighted voting:
Non-staff reviewers 49% of total value assigned
Staff reviewers 51%
10/31 Winners announced.
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4 hours ago, exitmusic said:
OP, I'm with you in spirit, except as any experienced entrepreneur will tell you, design-by-committee has never actually worked.
One person has got to be ultimately responsible for design. Suggestion box? Sure, but design-by-vote? Total disaster IMO.
Correct: the funnel of ideation must narrow ideas down and use the crowd/committee to do it.
That The One Designer on High must ultimately be responsible doesn’t mean they must Rule. More like a facilitator, striving for consensus, trusting the wisdom of a much larger - though selective and expert - crowd. And for sure the designer is most involved in execution and iteration.
Think .38 Special “Hold on loosely, but don’t let it go”
The idea is to avoid closed door Star Chambers in which groupthink and ego trump efficacy and creativity and stifle innovation.
The idea is to build community and give ownership in the ideas.
Open Innovation can be a deliberate rule or procedure based and transparent process, rather than ad hoc “involvement” of people in “the discussion” as I described in the original post.
It tends to work. And anything new and interesting like this is bound to get many many people excited, especially uninvolved alumni and supporters, as well as potential MMs.
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2000. I know you’ve seen ineffective design and wasted talent in your first year, and how it changed in 2000.
Regarding open innovation, no reason why returning and even potential MMs can’t be involved in contributing ideas.
The Toyota my son drives to high school has 210k miles on it in large part because they learned not top down edicts as management, but empowering everyone in the organization to create and innovate.
It’s called Kaizen.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen
Although I don’t worship guns, nor think the 2nd Amendment meant every man woman and child then or now must constitute the “militia”, .38 Special figured it out too:
”...hold on loosely, but don’t let it go / if you cling to tightly, you’re gonna lose control”
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For years, I’ve appreciated your insights too. Wise and incisive.
So many people love this corps and the activity so much. My hat is off to all of you.
But most of all and as always, I am in awe of those who have ever and especially who now wear the uniform and carry forward the tradition of innovation and excellence.
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My perspective is different than most on this board. I'm a trained musician, but not a professional. I have been a DCI fan since I marched in high school, but I no longer have a dog in this fight. I am writing because I want the corps that I've loved since 1987 to survive and thrive.I have no inside information. I can only applaud the strength of the community to keep the corps alive and thriving through the last five years of narcissism, neglect and predation from one person (and much of it continued for over thirty years, but the organization was so strong, people swallowed the pain and persisted). So I'm not pointing fingers at anyone, since we all must move on.So people understand a bit about where I'm coming from: I have degrees in four different fields, so I’m a generalist more than a specialist, and my areas of expertise are social entrepreneurship, writing, education and the arts. I've taught a few thousand students over the years at the university level, but I'm no longer an academic and exclusively am now an entrepreneur. I've worked as an open innovation consultant and management consultant for small businesses and non-profits, as well as for non-profits that have over one-thousand employees and for-profit companies valued in the ten figures. I've co-founded three successful companies and two successful non-profits, and three others that failed. I know what usually works, and even more, I know what almost never does.If I were brought in as a management and innovation consultant for YEA and The Cadets, I'd make the following general recommendations. Take them for what they are worth. Since they are freely given, maybe to some they are worth nothing. But if change is to occur, nothing is more important than diversity of ideas.1. Someone commented recently, quite brilliantly, that a certain former director still seems to be "living rent free in everyone's heads" in the organization. Exactly. Two years of reacting, and as such, some steps forward, and perhaps an equal number back in other areas. Reminds me of 2011 Angels and Demons, great achievements despite the terrible drag on creativity and achievement from the one guy at the "top". The imagery in that show reminds me of a famous quote by Walter Benjamin: "A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress."If The Cadets continue to try to "heal" or represent "healing" or do anything more than just create art, if they try to reckon with the past, or remain too traditional, they will resemble this Klee angel, but I am not even sure they could aspire to Benjamin's hope that it will result in "progress". And on the other hand, if The Cadets continue to try to innovate by imitating - which I believe they are, unsuccessfully and demoralizingly at times - we will have nothing but watered down WGI or Crown/BD/BC wannabes, so they will never exorcise their demons through imitation.2. The Cadets have the largest, most influential, and longest-tenured group of alumni in all of DCI. No one else is even close. It is unclear how many of them have been engaged beyond volunteering or donating money (and for many of them, not donating money. Yet.) Years of neglect of the alumni because of the way the previous exec director treated them have yet to be fully addressed or mended, it seems.3. Creative people have big egos, staff included. Great staff have that Achilles heel, and so do mediocre staff. Usually the mediocre people in any organization are mediocre in large part because they are unaware of their own limitations, and overcompensate by being wary of involving others either in the creative process, or in management and execution, or all of the above. So mediocrity can easily breed mediocrity, and in such situations, few want to take a big step back, let ego go, and truly evaluate how and who and what to do differently. New staff are brought on board and they are handed the keys and told to drive. Ego and a desire to change cause a new approach to be followed. Design decisions are made by a very small group of people, and by the time there is a product to respond to, it's too late to change fundamentally, making innovation all but impossible.4. Potential MMs don't care much about tradition, unless that tradition is recent success. They care even less about having to bear the burden of organizational trauma. In fact, that's the very last thing anyone new would want to deal with. The MM's just want to learn, grow, be great, and will go to that organization which has the best ideas, the best organization, the best leadership, the best alumni support, the most involvement, the most dynamic and different and distinctive experience they can have. Most young people want to look forward, and want to connect with tradition that always has been looking forward. And will go where forward thinking and proven execution and culture empower just that.5. This year's "closed door" design policy has so far mostly been a disappointment, based on consensus of show reviews as well as scores. Alumni and potential MMs had nothing to go on to get them excited other than join a mostly new staff and "trust them" to come up with something extraordinary. The earlier potential MMs in the Cadets find out about show design and music, the better. In this situation it’s the only real recruitment tool to continue to attract great talent.6. Most organizations must hit bottom in order to fundamentally change. Cadets have hit bottom. Several bottoms in the last few years. Failure is instructive only if egos can be set aside enough to learn though.7. Success depends very much on the following: engaging alumni not just for financial support and volunteering, but for creating an engaged environment that is unlike any other corps. Transparency and accountability are key. But that doesn't just mean financials, conduct and governance. It also pertains to creativity.8. The Cadets should try Open Innovation. In business and the creative world, and across industries, competitions are launched, prizes offered, ideas gathered and evaluated, and in that way, many people are empowered to have a hand and contribute. The wisdom of the "crowd" is a powerful one, especially when the crowd is empowered. This is an oversimplified description of Open Innovation, for sure, but it's basically how it works. You break down organizational walls, invite many others to contribute - some a piece here and there, others much more - continually solicit feeback, iterate and improve, and successful execution is much more likely. And you've created new community along the way.9 How to conduct show design with Open Innovation? Set up a prize for the winning idea or ideas. Solicit proposals - theme, music, narrative, even drill / staging concepts. Appoint a blue ribbon panel that includes staff - potential staff and actual staff - as well as alumni. Reach out to alumni who work with other corps. If they can't come "home" by joining the Cadets staff and leaving their own, at least they can participate. Simple NDAs/NCAs can be executed to disallow any other corps from "stealing" the ideas generated. Several finalists could be named and as many alumni / donors as possible given a vote, or they pay for their vote (I've seen fundraisers like this, including crowdfunding multi million-dollar movie productions).10. The Cadets could also host a similar competition for identity and approach. How to move past the current dictatorship of WGI, the ubiquity of spandex, the supposed "simultaneous demand" of body movement, the cliches and overwrought "message", the tired preachiness, the preciousness. Let the alumni and the fans have a voice in deciding what Cadets they want. Maybe traditional uniforms for the hornline? Custom unis for everyone else? So many possibilities. In the organizational world, this would be called a "know your customer" survey, simple market research, but for the Cadets, it's much more than that. There is a disconnect between what management and staff are doing, and what alumni hope for and want, and clearly, what's happening isn't inspiring new members to join as they would five or ten years ago.None of the above has been tried in DCI before - to my knowledge.If the Cadets are to remain and become again the Cadets many of us have loved for decades - the thinking person's drum corps, the vanguard of the vanguard, balancing tradition with innovation, the corps to which all other corps look to imitate - they have to see how everyone else is zigging.Openly, innovatively, the entire Cadets community needs to be empowered to ZAG, just like the tee-shirt from the 80s and 90s.I hope this helps. I'm so proud of the current MMs, and last year too. Incredible work ethic, effort, faith. They've already won the championship in my mind. Now we need to keep learning the lessons from their efforts. They only deserve the best from all of us. Let's make this happen.-
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7 hours ago, Cadetmom said:
I am new to the forums and really only created an account to thank someone for posting such wonderful pictures of the Cadets. However, this post is so disheartening to me. You see, my child just spent her 3rd year with the Cadets. She marched The Power of 10, Awakening and TFTFTF. The POT show got the Cadets 4th place and this year the lowest of the 3 years she's been involved. However, this summer was by far her favorite and most enjoyable. I have never seen her so devastated over a season ending as I did 3 days ago. She is still crying because she misses the show, the corps and 149 of her best friends. If you could have seen the looks on their faces at the banquet and the tears that were being shed because those kids had to leave each other, the show and the corps behind until next summer you would need no explaination at all about what the Cadets are about. I appreciate that everyone is entitled to an opinion but I just wish, as a mom of a Cadet and a fan, that people would be more tactful in their postings. Being a Cadet has a far deeper meaning than any placement or medal. Please remember that. My heart breaks reading such negativity from people towards the Cadets.
Criticism is directed toward the exec, and is based on many many years of behavior that has sharply divided the Cadets family and generates at least as much derision as respect from drum corps fans in general.
The MMs are ALWAYS respected and defended. They deserve only the best.
FHNSAB!
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On 8/13/2017 at 0:57 PM, mcjordansc said:
He does not need to step aside. He needs to run YEA and approach the Cadets like a CEO approached a business unit of a larger organization. Help with vision, approve executive hires, establish a budget, etc. Hire someone to run the Cadets day to day. You do not push out a person who has brought an organization the success Hopkins has brought the Cadets. The board helps him redirect his energy into developing a long term plan that allows the entire organization to succeed when he does decide to retire. I think if he walked away now the resulting chaos would basically remove the corps from any discussion of a championship for many, many years.
Wrong.
He has a chronic inability to delegate, empower, nurture, and trust subordinates.
A clean break and fresh start is needed to reunite the Cadets family and reinvigorate the tradition of education and innovation at championship levels. Period.
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25 minutes ago, MikeN said:
I have to say, I've seen a Cadets corps that felt like they were playing out the string. My one live Finals, it was pretty clear they just wanted it to be over.
This corps doesn't have that feel at all. They are still selling the heck out of a very non-traditional design, even if they're not getting the points the corps is used to. That's encouraging for both tomorrow and for the future.
Mike
I'm always on the side of the MMs.
To me, they epitomize the Cadets. So proud. So wanted and want every group of MMs - whether young (this year, 1989, etc) or chock full of vets - to have the absolute best staff and design in DCI.
Whether or not they do is the full responsibility of the CEO.
FHNSAB
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12 hours ago, 2000Cadet said:
I would kill for some music in motion right now. I'm kinda tired of the whole form-scatter-form-scatter stuff. This is the first year that I have not been excited to see the Finals competition. I haven't even watched it. I'm not really drawn to it anymore.
You know, we can sit here and complain and call for GH's resignation all we want, but the truth is, if they come out smoking next year (which is highly unlikely in my opinion), all those calls will dissipate. I'm not sure with whom he'd be replaced with, other than Tom Aungst, which is what someone else on here suggested, but I don't really see that happening anytime soon. I really think Cadets need to let the music be the foundation and leave the gimmicks alone for awhile. No more singers, tarps, stones, naked Jesus figures, Americana, stages, etc. Hell, do a show based on the French revolutionary war or something powerful, and not pandering. Honestly, I see my fandom for Cadets falling off within the next few years, and that's really sad for me because I've always worshipped Cadets. Time will tell.
Apathy and frustration do battle in my Cadets heart.
Spot on for your list of pandering. SO many missed opportunities over the last 15 years to have achieved greatness, were it not for chronic tastelessness and megalomania at the top of this organization.
Many of the embarrassments make me want to rename the exec Corky St. Clair.
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1 hour ago, 2000Cadet said:
I would prefer Cadets stop utilizing the same music and the same composers and introduce new music.
Exactly.
I believe it is incredibly unfair to current members when music that has been done by the same corps is recycled, because it inevitably leads to unfair comparisons, and inevitably, the current design and corps simply do not measure up to a championship caliber show from a generation ago.
It has been an increasingly disturbing and discouraging sign of a lack of creativity from the executive over the last 15 years. It's a sign of weakness and ineptitude, a sure sign that they would like to be parasitic on the past rather than innovate and create.
Bernstein shmernstein! Enough Bernstein already! (Hear this in a Brooklyn accent, like Bubbie's)
But if you signed the #### contract to do the same #### composer so many times - three friggin years?!?! - you better find new material and a new and illuminating way to do it.
No more recycling! Ever.
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56 minutes ago, MikeRapp said:
Look, I always appreciate and respect commitment to a specific execution, no matter what the art form. I am a creative director by trade, so I know what I am talking about. But if you are going to choose to use scoring as a determining factor of whether your art is achieving its goals, then I would suggest you look at what is working elsewhere and adapt.
Cadets last won the gold with Angels and Demons, which to me is a more advanced version of Boston this year. Since that show, nothing they have tried to do concept wise holds a candle to that show. They just keep daring judges to not respect how fast and loud they play...or how well they can execute purposefully obtuse or on the nose ideas. Judges aren't buying it, and neither are most fans. I would guarantee you that merch sales bare this out in glaring clarity.
Cadets used to be able to medal regardless of show design because they had more talent than almost everyone else. They certainly had more institutional educational depth than any other corps save BD. That just is not the case anymore.
This. A hundred times over.
Current exec's idea of design almost always more closely resembles inept, crass marketing than art.
When cadets have won the current exec has had a staff around him with a design too good to hamhandedly meddle with, I'd venture to say. Sadly that kind of situation has been exceptional (2011 seems like ancient history), and in today's reality (sub par staff, young MMs after so many staff and vet MM defections after last years management disaster) they no longer have the creative or marching talent to compete for medals.
Wholesale change desperately needed.
Now.
This year was the last straw, the last gasp of this new "strategy" (if that word is even appropriate), and, I hope and pray, the necessary painful nadir of the Cadets organization.
Unfortunately in organizations like this with entrenched longtime leadership, only repeatedly falling flat on your face enables some key people to see, understand, and act in concert to create fundamental organizational change.
With current management, Cadets will never contend again and the entire organization's sustainability is threatened.
With a new exec and a coming home of key staff and new top notch talent, Cadets WILL contend for medals next year, and annually, and educate and innovate like no one else, which is who the Cadets always were, and always shall be.
I call all in the Cadets family to come together, stand as a house united, give new pledges of support, and own the change.
I'm so ready to stop pointing fingers and finally be able to roll up my sleeves to help rebuild, but I will do nothing under the current management.
"We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we will save our [Cadets]"
FHNSAB
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On 8/8/2017 at 8:33 PM, MikeRapp said:
Barring an historic drop again next year, which I highly doubt, I think Hopkins will be running Cadets for the next decade. Very clear the leadership at Cadets is not willing to make a change for whatever reasons, the very least of which is likely the dci placements. People like Hopkins fundamentally know one thing, and that is how to survive. Unless someone on the board demands a change, or else, get used to the current situation.
For a corps that was a leader before DCI, and an innovator without peer after DCIs formation, any tepid resignation or acceptance of the status quo or continuing excuses for mediocrity and mismanagement I find to be so pathetic, so uncharacteristic of who the Cadets always were, I simply have no words.
What Cadets DO is like create, innovate, and embrace change.
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On 8/8/2017 at 8:15 PM, oldcadetsop said:
Let me preface, I am a FMM under GH. I have had business dealings with him after marching. I marched in the 80's and subsequently , ironically, did business with Cadets and Mr. Hopkins.
That said, I learned ALOT by my time with the Cadets, and Mr. Hopkins. Shaped me as a person and for what I am now. Our Alum may be the tightest among the corps out there right now. Do I like the path right now, no. Do I think, despite my regard for Mr. Hopkins things need to change yes. But I will say one thing, the current marching members are proud of their accomplishments this year. Young, talented and living a life experience they will never forget.
I get the placement, scores etc. From a fan perspective I can see the angst. These guys and gals are working their tails off. In this game, you do not control what another corps does. If they are better , so be it. I is not football where you go toe to toe with your rival. You control what you do and strive to be the best YOU can be. IF you do the best you can, you are a winner, 1st or 21st. Nobody can take that away from you.
I have upmost respect for the MM of Cadets as they have had an incredible season.
I think a change is needed tho. The activity has changed, for better or worse. I do think it is time for Mr. Hopkins to step down. Tom is a worthy candidate to take over the reigns as director, BUT not under Mr. Hopkins. It has been a fun filled ride. But times need to change.
FHNSAB
This.
ZAG!
FHNSAB.
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3 hours ago, candymancan said:
I know mamy of the current mm's and their mental health and stamina is just fine. The laundry block this evening is to make up for the one they didn't get last week (and it will be a nice small break for them). Those kids are loving their lives and the show this season. They are somewhat frustrated and confused (as are many) as to why they aren't scoring higher. (And no, before someone attacks me for this, they know the shouldn't be much higher). Nonetheless, this is the closest the Cadets have been as a whole in quite some time and they are loving their time together and even more so, loving this show. They read the hatred that is thrown on these forums and they don't understand it, but they truly believe in what they are doing and believe in themselves and the show. It's truly heartwarming. GO CADETS!!
You think like a grunt in a quiet foxhole imagining you are somehow being attacked, an imaginary siege mentality.
Open your eyes and think about years past as well as now.
Criticism of the Exec is anything but hatred. And far far from any criticism of the MMs.
Hop is not the Board, the staff, the MMs, the alumni and friends, and he is most definitely not The Cadets.
Everyone in the Cadets family ALWAYS puts the MMs first. We all want everyone to have the best education, experience, and opportunity to succeed in corps and mostly in life.
I loathe and chuckle at the term "haters" as it's usually thrown out there by the blinkered, immature, prejudiced, and provincial.
I love the Cadets enough to open my eyes, to have opened my wallet, and offer my deeply considered opinions, as hard as they are to have, and share them publicly. There is no longer any option but to go public and push for fundamental organizational change, finally beginning this time at the top.
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6 hours ago, henry7184 said:
I don't know about that. I don't think it has anything to do with liking what's on the field. It's a 7th place design (maybe even an 8th place design) being performed at a 7th place level. Next year - new, new, new.
It's a 7th place - or lower - exec with whom it is so difficult to work that this formerly august organization cannot attract the talented staff necessary to attract the most talented MMs.
Cadets will never contend again until Hop retires. Period.
BAC has passed us in terms of staff and talent on the field. That should be the last straw for any Board worth its title and mandate to demand change.
Current management and model is broken beyond repair.
Once a change is made, alumni and friends by the thousands will come home to support a rebirth of commitment to education and mentorship and creativity and achievement at the highest levels, one befitting the winningest and most innovative corps in history.
The emperor has no robes.
Time to go.
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13 hours ago, henry7184 said:
Seventh. It's done. It's a 7th place design and a 7th place corps. There is no way they are finishing higher. It's just not going to happen. Accept it now and you will save yourself some grief come finals. BAC's show design is better and they are performing a better design better. The Cadets had something at the start of the season, but like it recent years they tinkered with it in the wrong direction. I don't like the show today nearly as much as I did at the start of the season. It's completely overkill now.
This.
Going backwards, yet again.
Blame falls squarely on one person, yet again.
Sad to say, but I no longer expect to see a championship contending Cadets corps unless and until Hop courageously decides that the Corps is more important than his ego.
But I'm not holding my breath.
It's a tragic story repeated in business, sports, and the non profit world: overstaying your welcome, overestimating your ability, overplaying your cards, and stacking the deck (and Board) with yes-people who fail to see the obvious that any insider or outsider has seen for years.
The current management model is too broken to tweak, fix, or reshuffle. It's been that way for over a decade. Longer really, but changes in DCI and the wider culture (yes, there is a world out there that is not drum corps) has also changed enough to expose the Hop model as not just passé, but parasitic upon past success and gravely imperiling the future.
Cadets are not a middle of the pack corps. They are contenders or they are not Cadets. It's not about the medals. It's about the art, innovation, emotion, and most of all education.
Hop's publicly throwing the MMs under the bus on FB a couple weeks ago was the very last straw for me. That was ugly. Worse, it was pathetic, even unhinged. Not everything must be social media "content". Not everything must be shown and showboated. Let the kids, let the innovation, let the work, let the culture, let the performance, let the Art speak for itself. And I submit that all the Hop "content" on social media over the last ten years has been a sure sign and symptom of increasing discontent, another immature overcompensation for underlying lack of confidence, a clumsy attempt to cover a lack of faith in leadership by offering a pseudo transparency, a pseudo bottom up empowering and involving community, and too often, exasperating and utter ineptitude. Simple psychology: start with excuses, manage expectations, CYA, Doctor the spin, project blame, rinse, repeat.
You can attempt to flush the failures down, and when the process and results are posted ad nauseam on social media, and it looks all white and clean and new, almost like fine China, it's somehow easy to delude yourself into forgiving and hoping against hope for next year, and the next year, and the next year, and thus forgetting that you need to stand on your two feet and back away to see you're still just looking at a toilet.
This is a top down problem. The many thousands of alumni and friends and current team members must step up to fix it.
Now.
It's done broke. We gotta get woke.
I'm not gonna get stoned to be satisfied with the spurious "progress" of sixth or seventh. I'm stone cold sober.
I am dismayed by those who see this year as a step forward. From what?
Remember.....First as tragedy, or many of them, then a Stoned farce.
I don't measure progress from a series of ineptitudes and chronic mismanagement that resulted in the open festering weeping boil of a show design like Stoned. Hell, I even came out almost immediately after the show concept was announced a few years back and said to Cadets leadership and on this forum that "10" was doomed because it missed the entire point of the music, and sadly, I was right. The design and executive team of any of half a dozen or more dci corps would have won with that monster corps of MMs, because they had better design across the board, and they consistently have better design because they have better management and better execs who leave ego at the door when they go to work.
Nothing more important to a team than the leader. Any design or fundraising or morale or recruitment/retention issues are just symptoms of a kind of management that just doesn't work anymore.
Tyrants and egomaniacs like Toscanini are dead, though today we have another similarly famous (though much less talented) leader whose name begins with a "T" that I wish were dead, or never had been spawned. So it goes. The new and usually very successful leadership and organizational culture model is much more egalitarian, empowering, non-hierarchical, nurturing, creative. That is what millennials and GenZ love and have come to expect, and it's why Cadets have been passed by the Coats, Crown, Cavies, SCV, etc. (And you think I'm talking about friggin scores, don't you?)
All those corps have better and more talented and creative and education-focused and empowering teams top to bottom. Or as I should say, better all around. ;)
Hop must retire. (He won't likely be fired with all his BFFs on the board though.)
So much talent out there to find better exec and board leadership, staff, etc. Alumni and supporters would come out of woodwork to help and improve and reform and reload. So many people have been sitting on their hands waiting until this leadership era ends and a new great era begins.
Every year the cadets discussion threads generate more interest than anyone's. So many people care. So deeply. So many people are so frustrated. So many people need to come home and help.
Thank you Hop. I love you, but it's time to transition to another role in another organization.
It's bigger than drum corps. So let's aim higher, unafraid of the perilous skies, welcoming the springtime when kings go out through the Door, which, with our undying and renewed support, soon will reopen and surprise with a new entrance, not of another, but many hundreds, the family reunited and regenerated and once again revolutionary.
That's my rocky point, my simple song, my simple gift, my demons and my better angels, my somewhere, somehow, someday.
Zag!
FHNSAB
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I've been silent for more than a year.
Hop's FB post was the LAST straw.
You can criticize young people in private. You can force them to listen to your 'talks' if that's working (which it hasn't been for years).
But what an adult, an educator, a role model, a leader, an honorable person NEVER should do or be allowed to do - no matter what - is publicly excoriate young people, especially minors.
I used to love Hop.
I also used to respect him.
Now his recent behavior is an impediment to success, education, life development of the kids, and a blot on the entire Cadets organization.
No matter the finals placement, after this season, Hop must resign, retire, or be fired.
Time to move on. The current management is broken beyond repair, as well as increasingly megalomaniacal and vicious and profoundly destructive.
Thank you Hop for your years of service. Cadets wouldn't have achieved greatness for most of these thirty years without you.
Time to gracefully ride into the sunset
Lauda de dah de dah, Day O, daaaay O, daylight come and you gotta go home!
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Open Innovation and The Cadets
in DCI World Class Corps Discussions
Posted
No way out of the financial hole if it’s business as usual for design.
Open Innovation is an inexpensive and fast way to change things quickly and avoid continuing design blunders that threaten to sink the entire organization