NDNation

Softly as I Leave You - Cavaliers 81, 82 and 83, I think.

I know this is really limiting my chances of finding tickets, but I'm hoping to find one ticket to all three nights (quarters, semis and finals) in Section 240 row 7 or higher. Thanks!

Hm... Same area of CA in the sense that NYC and Pittsburgh, PA are the same part of the country. Riverside and Concord are 425 miles from each other. That said, there's been a good number of BD members and staff who have spent their academic years at RCC. No formal relationship, though. RCC's performance style probably has most to do with the fact that Gary and Sheila Locke, long LONG time directors, have roots in drum corps. Another huge factor, though, is that Wayne Downey arranges and instructs for the band. You can see all the connections with BD at their website... http://www.rccband.org/ Gary Locke is probably one of the most influential people in California marching band history. He took over John North High School Band in the late '70s at a time when drum corps had relatively little influence on the Southern California high school band scene. Under his direction, JN became a powerhouse in their division almost overnight. (How well I remember since I marched in a neighboring HS band that had dominated the division to that point but suddenly found itself consistently losing to John North.) At a time when many if not most SoCal HS's were still wearing fur shakos and using Big 10 high step marching technique, Gary infused a drum corps approach at JN and saw quick success with it. Though it may not seem like a big deal now, it was truly revolutionary at the time. They became not only a huge competitive success but a fan favorite too. What was even more remarkable was that he only spent five years at JN but the program continued to be successful long after his departure. I'm not involved in the SoCal band scene any more, but I hear JN continues to be very competitive. It's pretty impressive that he was able to build that solid of a foundation in just five years. He left in 1984 to take over a brand new band program at RCC. At the time, I couldn't imagine why he would want to take on this challenge. RCC was (and really still kind of is) an after thought in the CA community college system in a service area that is a LONG way from the cultural hub of LA. To put it kindly, Riverside is kind of Cow Town, California-style. (Sorry if you're from Riverside. I'm from the Inland Empire too, so I'm not criticizing from the outside.) But just like John North, he almost immediately built a winner. I don't know that I would call Gary or Sheila visionary from a creative standpoint. They borrow heavily from a variety of other performing groups. I would say they are visionary, though, from an organizational development and management standpoint. What they've accomplished in their professional lives is truly amazing. And they're good and nice people too. I'm definitely a fan, as you can tell.

I do love me some Barbara Maroney. I miss those days. *Sigh*

Spot on and thank you, Kathy G.

"Close to You."

Gonna have to go with NY Phil. Or SCV '97. Light years better than Cadets or Bloo.

Madison Scouts Boston Santa Clara Vanguard Phantom Regiment Cavaliers Blue Knights Blue Stars Cadets Bluecoats Carolina Crown Glassmen Blue Devils

Strawberry Soup or Concerto for Guitar and Jazz Orchestra

I agree. Spontaneity has its time and place.

Boy, I am surely a dinosaur. I grew up in the midwest in the late '60s and early '70s when it was still common practice at many YMCA pools to require suitless swimming. Filtration systems were bad and fuzz, lint, strings, soap, and dirt off suits would muck up the pool pretty bad. The answer...you literally HAD to swim naked. (No coed swim sessions were even offered, of course.) We were required to take a shower before getting into the pool, and then all entrances from the locker room into the pool (which was indoor, of course) had this 3" deep little wading pool with disinfectant you had to step through to make sure you weren't dragging any grossness in via your feet. I was five when I took my first swim lessons, which is of course an age most kids have no body consciousness issues, so swimming naked was really no big deal at all. The Y pool was renovated sometime when I was in HS, and the filtration system must have been updated because they started requiring suits during newly offered coed sessions. For quite a while though (I can't recall when they stopped) they continued to offer all boy or all girl swims where suits were optional. And believe it or not, lots of kids still chose to go skinny dipping. It was just part of the culture. The Y was really the only place I swam, other than the river, so being naked in front of friends was pretty much normalized from the get-go. That really helped make summer camp and PE showers be no big deal a few years later. So, getting back to the subject, by the first time I marched drum corps, showering with friends was something I'd been doing for a decade. And looking back, I think almost all of us during that era grew up that way.

So, admittedly I have been asleep at the switch, but I'm trying to get up to speed. I've found plenty of info about the G7 proposal, as well as pro/con analysis. Mostly, I'm curious how it happened that the G7 reps on the BOD were either removed or resigned. I apologize up front for not keeping up on this news. I did go back through DCP and read everything I could find about resignations, but there are information holes I'm having a hard time filling in. Specifically... * When did the BOD resignations/recalls happen? * Who was recalled and who resigned? From what I can tell, there were five reps who were recalled, including Fielder and Valenzuela. But I saw other posts that said that Fielder and Valenzuals resigned. I'm confused... * What process was used for recalling BOD members? I've read that there are 9 board members, and 5 were recalled. Assuming the 5 members were recalled by majority vote, something's not working with the math, unless the 5 who were removed actually voted to recall themselves. * Any speculation on the strategy here, both on the parts of the removed/resigned members and the other members? Did the G7 reps come into the May 19 meeting presentation assuming that they would be removed? * Are minutes of BOD meetings posted anywhere? Most non-profits choose to do this (transparency, mitigating audit risk, yada yada), but I can't find anything on dci.com. I'm just a bit stunned. I did a two-year stint as President of a non-profit and have volunteered with this and other non-profits for over 20 years. I've never seen anything like this. Thanks in advance for any info provided...

So, admittedly I have been asleep at the switch, but I'm trying to get up to speed. I've found plenty of info about the G7 proposal, as well as pro/con analysis. Mostly, I'm curious how it happened that the G7 reps on the BOD were either removed or resigned. I apologize up front for not keeping up on this news. I did go back through DCP and read everything I could find about resignations, but there are information holes I'm having a hard time filling in. Specifically... * When did the BOD resignations/recalls happen? * Who was recalled and who resigned? From what I can tell, there were five reps who were recalled, including Fielder and Valenzuela. But I saw other posts that said that Fielder and Valenzuals resigned. I'm confused... * What process was used for recalling BOD members? I've read that there are 9 board members, and 5 were recalled. Assuming the 5 members were recalled by majority vote, something's not working with the math, unless the 5 who were removed actually voted to recall themselves. * Any speculation on the strategy here, both on the parts of the removed/resigned members and the other members? Did the G7 reps come into the May 19 meeting presentation assuming that they would be removed? * Are minutes of BOD meetings posted anywhere? Most non-profits choose to do this (transparency, mitigating audit risk, yada yada), but I can't find anything on dci.com. I'm just a bit stunned. I did a two-year stint as President of a non-profit and have volunteered with this and other non-profits for over 20 years. I've never seen anything like this. Thanks in advance for any info provided...

I'm wondering what attendance is like. We voted with our $$$ this year. Didn't go, and the stadium issues weighed in heavily on that decision. Thought it was interesting in the cinecast that they put out two pleas for people in the area to come to semis or finals. "Plenty of seats left." "Get in the car and come down here." Could mean nothing about attendance, but their tone seemed a little anxious. I could be reading something into nothing.

How do you guarantee self-protectionism and insular thinking? Make sure there's no one other than in crowd on your BOD. I think it would do a world of good to change the composition of the BOD to include a generous number of non-corps management appointees. It's hard to imagine why the corps directors would give up that power. But as someone else noted, this G7 thing is either going to kill drum corps or make it stronger. I truly believe that. My sense is that a can of worms has been opened. I'm hoping that the corps directors are forced into such a tight corner that their only choice is to make sweeping changes, and not the ones Hoppy is imagining. Then again, I never thought the NCAA conference reallignment debacle last spring would end with no sweeping change. Who knows... Maybe they'll bandage DCI up again and we'll hobble forward for another 5 years before the lid gets blown off again.

Funny... I thought the same thing last night. How odd that the man who took one of the most successful corps in its era out of DCI is now pontificating on the G7 thing. But hey... I think he's right, and sometimes you have to separate the message from the source. He may not have any integrity for saying it, but it doesn't mean he's not right.

If he were happy, he wouldn't be Hoppy.

I've been saying the same thing for years. You don't change the product to appeal to a larger market. You become the best you can possibly be, find the markets that already exists, and target them. Did no one learn anything from New Coke? Drum corps needs to be better at what it is...not try to be something else.

I dunno... I was about 1,500 miles away tonight, and it was still bad.

Is this George's motivation? "What people don't get about me is I love it the way it is, I really do," Hopkins said. "But it's not going to survive if we don't let other people in -- the next big wall is woodwind instruments." "Hopkins is optimistic a compromise can be reached to avoid a split with DCI." So, is that the strategy? "We'll stay if we can have woodwinds." (Sorry if that's been established and I'm just the last one to be the memo.)

Sorry if this question was already asked. I did do a search of past polls and topics and couldn't find anything. I'm just curious... What do you prefer for the broadcasts, whether we're talking FN, movie theater broadcasts, or the old ESPN/PBS days. I tried to set up a rendezvous at a local theater to watch Quarters with my sisters (who both marched), mom (historically, a huge fan), and some friends I marched with. Across the board, the responses I got ranged from "eh" to "not interested." A few just aren't that interested in drum corps any more, but a surprising number said they just find the multi-camera productions more frustrating than they're worth. As my mom said, "Too many tight shots that leave you wondering why they're focusing on 'that' while really great drill moments are being lost." Just made me wonder how others are feeling. I, too, think the shot selection for the multi-camera shows is odd at best, but I still think it's better than nothing or not going at all. Still, I would prefer just a simple one camera broadcast to what they're doing now. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like in the old PBS days they were more discriminating with their tight shots. Seemed like we got more wide shots with just a few tight shots here and there. That made more sense to me, as a viewer. What do you think?

Realizing the inadvisability of me sticking my nose in here, I'll do so anyway. :) I think you're missing the subtlety of Cathy G's response, which was snarky but pretty comical. (Or maybe I'm giving her too much credit.) You must admit that you're a bit ubiquitous with your policing of all things BD unfriendly, Plan9. You can see from my sig line that I don't get on DCP all that often, but even I see that. I thought it kind of funny that she bumped your unsolicited sheriffing back to you and turned it up a notch. Ah, the allures of DCP! It does make me smile.

Wholeheartedly agree. Taking nothing away from '87 Cadets, SCV was just on a whole other plane with their approach. '87 Cadets did AS the right way. '09 SCV did it even "righter."

The Ticketmaster thing with the glass panel is absolutely in DCI's control. Don't go back. Look... DCI was either going to be a hero or some level of schmuk with this decision. They rolled the dice. I don't blame them so much for that. I COULD argue that they should have looked over plans and renderings better before committing to this, but they probably did see the plans at a pretty detailed level. They rolled the dice and crapped out at some level. To some extent, I can work with that. Bold leadership is a good thing. HOWEVER, we now know that this is not working at the same level that Bloomington, Denver, Madison, KC and many many other sites did. Not even close. So now they MUST fix it. It is not acceptable to continue with this venue the way it is even one more year. DCI leadership acted boldly in getting into this deal. Now it's time for them to act boldly and get us out of it or find some way to mitigate the majority of the issues that are now glaring them and us all in our faces.

No offense, but you're not understanding the magnitude of the problem. Section 240 is a good example. This should be a primo section. Right between the 45's. There are 220 seats. (Yes, I counted and mapped this and five other sections for reference for next year). 72 of the 220 seats have a view at least partially obstructed by a panel...some worse than others. That's almost a full 1/3 of what I would call one of the best sections. Every section is like this...but not in exactly the same pattern. 340 has 64 seats. 38 of them are at least partially obstructed by a glass panel. There are about 8 seats in 240, 340 and 440 (again, these are the best sections in that they run from the 45 to the 45) where you are actually looking through two glass panels to see the field. And it's not two glass panels running the same way. It's a three sided box. So in 8 seats, you're looking through one panel that is coming right at you and ending a foot from your nose and then another one that runs parallell to the field about four feet away. And there is no way Ticketmaster is going to be able to tell you that's where you're tickets are. I talked to one of the people sitting in a seat behind a double glass panel, and he said he paid the full Super Premium price. Just really awful design for a drum corps show...