FormerXyloWhiz

Double reply: I am certain that people's hearts are in the right place, but this is not ready for public yet IMO. Literally no human being is named or listed, board or otherwise. I would have no idea who I am actually giving money to or who is responsible should issues arise. 501c3 is claimed with zero information to confirm. No EIN is given. No information is given about which state you are operating out of. With only a name the IRS search option is a pain in the ###, but I can confirm at the moment that the organization does not show up on IRS.gov for tax exempt or charitable status (501c3) if the actual business name is "The 1934 Foundation." If that is not the formal business name, the formal name needs to be available. If that IS the business name, either the determination letter is less than 2 months old and isn't input yet, or it hasn't been issued yet. The language of what you are doing lacks clarity as to exactly who you are and whom you are fundraising for as well. The name gives an "obvious assumption" to the community in the know at large, but not saying it, along with the lack of corporate transparency makes it all feel a little "off" to me. Own who we are. The suit isn't gonna add you for merely mentioning that you happen to be former Cadets looking to sponsor drum corps tuition for marchers. If the mission is to help displaced modern Cadets find and afford new drum corps homes in the wake of the dissolution of the corps, I am on board for that. However, I won't donate to any charity that lacks this basic level of transparency. Full transparency is required.

Question: "The applicant must have previously marched and will be given precedent and favor until such time as there are no more students previously associated with our corps marching in the activity." So i'm unclear - are these scholarships specifically aimed at Cadets that lost their home so they can march elsewhere first, and once there are no more former Cadets, open to the marching world at large? Everything on that website seems to indicate that this scholarship could literally be for anybody who has marched any corps before until this particular sentence.

I also appreciate your thoughtful response as well. Go Kingsman! 😎

I doubt it. Drum Corps isn't special and immune from the realities of the world. Sexual violence is sickeningly common in American life in general: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/sexualviolence/fastfact.html "Sexual violence is common. Over half of women and almost 1 in 3 men have experienced sexual violence involving physical contact during their lifetimes." This is only based on what is reported, let alone the unknown unreported (it's vast). But let's put that aside and go with the data for now. So to math out some of this data (i'm open to any corrections): Just shy of 42% of the USA population has experienced sexual violence in their lifetime based on that stat. A little over 14% have experienced rape. 80% of reported rapes happen before the age of 25. Choose any random 5 drum corps members. 2 of them already have, or are likely to, suffer sexual violence in their lifetimes. Now choose 7. One of them is likely to suffer rape in their lifetime. Choose any corps. Current capacity of 150 = 63 will suffer sexual violence in their lifetime. 21 of them will potentially suffer rape their lifetime. 17 of those people will experience it before the age of 25 according to the cdc page. I don't know the actual membership numbers, but let's say 15 of the corps are at max capacity. That's 945 people marching this summer that will or already have in their lives suffered sexual assault. 315 of them will or already have in their lives suffered rape. 255 of them will experience it before the age of 25. Extrapolate it back over the multiple decades many of these corps have existed, I'd be shocked if there is any corps where this has never happened. And even if a modern corps does everything absolutely right to protect their members, it will still happen. The sickness is in society at large. We'll never change what is commonplace by pretending it is exception.

Unfortunately, statistically based on the odds and through the years - all of them.

Somethings really are, unfortunately, as simple as "boy grows up watching dad abuse mom, grows up and abuses his partner." Drum corps is no different. It takes work to find a different path than the one you were brought up in. Any time I have been involved in marching education I have been keenly aware and focused on not letting how I was originally taught be how I put things forward. Those old behavior pathways are always there, worn into the brain, and available to travel if I am not cautious and mindful.

I'll preface this by saying I agree with the spirit of what this person posted in general. But, as somebody who was there, they do not know what they speak of with the Cadets regarding Hop. Of course the abuse was there before him, because lets face facts: the abuse was, and is, everywhere in the activity. No corps is immune from it. The cycle didn't start with Hop, but he codified it there. He was dug in like a tick. His grip, an ironclad stranglehold. He was in charge for 34 years, more than one third of the corps' existence. He enabled the abuse there for those years and directly took part in it. Once he took over anybody who marched there can tell you: Hop's culture was the corps culture. Outside the abuse, that culture generally was "work yourself to absolute death if you have to in order to succeed." The work was literally all that mattered. Not people, not physical health, not mental health, not nutrition, not safety - work, even at the expense of all of these things. That was the lesson he wanted us all to get. With that culture, they won 6 out of 11 years with incredible performances. We all bought into that culture. We were flat out treated like dog sh** - and we lived for that experience. Looking back on it I see the absolute insanity. I would never let anybody treat me like that here in my adult life now. But I let them do it back then. Because they were the champions when I showed up for my first audition and I was not. I was a kid. I knew nothing. They're the adults. They must know. This is how you succeed. I must be wrong. I'll just take it. Removing Hop drastically altered the organization and the culture. Immediately. The members from 2018 - 2023 were genuinely supported and taken care of to a degree we never were. It was a valiant effort. It was imperfect. But it was far better. Abuse is everywhere in the activity. Hop made the corps an even easier place for abusers and perpetrators to thrive. I hold him directly accountable for that.

Well they better be recent - because the window of waived statutes of limitations is closed I believe.

I'd believe it, absolutely. It required decades of enablers.

Our alumni has tended to be of the mind of "we love the corps but Hop is a cancer that has to go" for a very, very, very long time. If I had to bet, my bet would be that more of our survivors would be of this vain rather than "burn it all down." Just my impression in my time amongst everyone.

Yup - many unlikely things would have to go exactly right, first and foremost of which would be current counsel to decide to finish out the case pro bono.

There is actually, theoretically, the tiniest of windows possible for the corps to come back at some point. The bankruptcy does not end the case. Just because the judge won't let them out as a Defendant doesn't mean they have been "found liable" so to speak for the past transgressions of the corps specifically as a legal standard going forward. CAE could still technically prevail on this particular case and incident and be found not liable for it. If the basis of that decision, as a judicial order takes it a step further specifically on the record declaring that they are not liable for the former orgs in any way, an astronomically against the odds revival has a possibility in the future. That said, I highly doubt that's how it would go. Far more likely that any CAE win would just find them not liable for the incident alone (there are decent arguments to be made here outside the legacy question). It's even less likely I think that this thing ever makes it to a trial so such a thing could even occur. So - it's still theoretically possible, sure. Exceedingly slim chance IMO.

There is no remedy for the kind of transgressions we're talking about here that can happen "immediately," be they local or national. If you're talking criminal it requires investigation, collecting of evidence, charging, trial, etc. If you're talking civil, it's opening a claim, assessing damages, negotiating money. None of that can reasonably occur quickly or immediately in any scenario, let alone when something happens on a bus headed west out of Akron that arrives in Indianapolis the next day. Reporting what happened after you leave the state just muddies the waters and makes things harder. These processes take longer than any DCI tour does. And since each DCI drum corps is basically a traveling circus, there is a decent probability that's how it will go. Enforcement of safety measures by any organization will always be directly correlated to their potential liability exposure. The gulf between morally acceptable and legally acceptable can be a canyon sometimes. That's just the reality of DCI's exposure. As for criminality, using the local protections under the law is neither simple or easy to do even when a victim clearly knows what happened and immediately wants to take action. Additionally, the final results are often a mixed bag. Don't assume the authorities usually get it right. They don't. Often, unfortunately.

There was a tie for first. So in my book - technically third. 1996 - technically 2nd!

It's debatable how helpful or useful the lessons from these programs are for various people in life. Some extraordinarily helpful, others not so much. But i'll say with confidence that the methods in which they teach and control in an effort to get you to buy into the program - Hop used them throughout his tenure. Some eat it up, others won't touch it with a 10 foot pole. Indoctrination is the word that comes to mind.