DCA is "filling a void" left by DCI's Super Corps Model

[Tom Brace]

OK, hurray for DCI. We can see how it works out. Joey says, "Void." You say, "No void." I say, "whatever." You still seem to be lumping me with him. Why?

Well, with your immense amount of free time to spend here showing off, um I mean, debating, you are still barely aware of what DCA is. It is possible that the targets of Joey's point are less aware than you are (being busy people running busy drum corps). That's why I suggested to Joey to take his point to them more directly. It is your contention that DCI's decisions do not force corps to fold. I don't think that you have proven the truth there.

I included all corps on both sides - and placed them in a historical context. Or are you THAT focused on minutiae that the bigger picture - the truth - goes past you, invisible? While for that particular year, the direction and magnitude are equal, the place the respective orgs occupy makes their meanings completely different. I ask the general public to consider where you'd rather be: at the top, and drop a bit, or at the bottom and drop some more?

Someone grinding an ax down to the handle ought not to wear goggles so dark that the truth bounces off his face like so many sparks. I don't know why you cling to that particular shibboleth: it's now a meaningless point. As far as any comparison to the Clintons goes, you, like she, soldiers on in the face of overwhelming evidence that reality has made your argument meaningless.

(edit: fixed a reference to DCA - orig read "DCI" which was not what I wanted to say.)

Noted.

[Tom Brace]

What offer? As far as I know, DCA isn't pictching the idea to anyone. WE as fans/members have made an observation that there is a void, and should they choose to come over, it can be filled. Frankly, if you think because you say 'no void' that we are let down that we haven't gotten through to you, we aren't. We don't care about someone who isn't affiliated with DCI any more, because I'll use your words, you aren't relevant anymore.

We do care for the activity, junior and all age. It was if your a 5 year old telling your mom "Mommy, look at those mean senior corps people who are trying to save the activity.

NOPE. One activity has had one of it's highest corps turnout, and the other its lowest. People want us to not count Open Class in DCI. Why? Are they not part of the activity? Do they not attend Championships like the rest of the corps?

Noted.

[MikeM]

Well, when Class A was started, it was held as a single, separate contest. The winner was the Class A champ.

Then, it was changed to a prelims/finals format, the same as Open Class, on a parallel but separate track. First, it was a Top 2, then it was a Top 3.

Then, DCA allowed the Class A's to also be admitted to Open Finals, if they were among the Top 10 scores, regardless of class. From 1997 until 2006, Class A prelims was held prior to the Open prelims.

Finally last year, all corps were in one truly Open prelims. (Just like it was in all of the years prior to 1997, in that sense.) But, DCA still takes the Top 10 scores for Finals, and the Top 3 for the corps that declared Class A (and aren't one of the Top 10).

Dale:

Don't wanna split hairs here, but I think that the 2007 format has been that way since about 2002.

Sky was told in 2002 that if we cracked the top 12 (it was 12 that year and 2003), we'd compete in open class finals instead of Class A, if we won that. Our goal prelims day was to make top 12.

We didn't, but won Class A.

However, and I could be wrong (and have been before), there wasn't a separate "Class A" prelims, we were pretty much seeded where we would have been had we stayed Open class that year.

EDIT: 2002 was a top 12 year for DCA finals as opposed to top 10.

Edited March 10, 2008 by MikeM

[Kyle B]

So you've spent all of your useless babble saying how Open class is being taken care of by DCI now, and with the FAB5 ticket option, but now you don't want to include them in your corps count because it will then prove your wrong that DCA is flurishing where as corps participation in DCI is at it's lowest point since it's beginnings. So instead of saying, hey guys...thanks for the numbers, you proved your point that DCA has been adding corps, you waste all of our time with the useless rhetoric.

I know I quoted myself, but anyone not surprised that Tom didn't respond to this?

[Dale Bari]

Dale:

Don't wanna split hairs here, but I think that the 2007 format has been that way since about 2002.

Sky was told in 2002 that if we cracked the top 12 (it was 12 that year and 2003), we'd compete in open class finals instead of Class A, if we won that. Our goal prelims day was to make top 12.

We didn't, but won Class A.

However, and I could be wrong (and have been before), there wasn't a separate "Class A" prelims, we were pretty much seeded where we would have been had we stayed Open class that year.

EDIT: 2002 was a top 12 year for DCA finals as opposed to top 10.

Mike,

It may be that, because of the 1-year nature of that "Top 12" vs the usual Top 10 format, DCA may have been different that year - and closer to your recollection than mine. We'd have to go to the recaps to check for sure, but I thought that I saw a separate A and Open prelims from the beginning of the Class A until 2006, and then 2007 had everyone in the same pool. It's a simple matter, easily cleared up.

I can say that, having sat through DCA Prelims in 2004, there was a separate prelims for A vs Open then - for sure.

[Dale Bari]

I know I quoted myself, but anyone not surprised that Tom didn't respond to this?

He gave us a terse "Noted" for your post and mine, while he (publicly at least) ignored my call for a little more, "flexibility" shall we say.

I say that we be gracious and not require a mile be given, when an inch will do. A cease-fire is as good as a peace treaty, at least for now.

[Meaghatron]

What's the difference? You seem to forget that "DCI" is the corps. DCI decisions are made by member corps directors; thus, they are just another set of "corps management decisions", for better or worse.

Yes, DCI is made up of corps directors. However, the individual corps management makes decisions regarding money, fundraising, recruiting, etc. If a corps' management is throwing around money, not doing enough fundraising, does little to no recruiting, and folds because of any of these things, then one cannot blame it on DCI. It's called responsibility, and corps management need to have it. Pointing the finger at DCI is just playing the blame game.

Edit: Grammar

Edited March 10, 2008 by i_play_percussion

[Tom Brace]

I know I quoted myself, but anyone not surprised that Tom didn't respond to this?

Noted.

<cease fire resolution being drafted by the Senate at present>

one final point...DCA should approach recently folded corps to present DCA as an option for them. I'd be anxious to hear their response. Anxious to hear.

[Tom Brace]

Yes, DCI is made up of corps directors. However, the individual corps management makes decisions regarding money, fundraising, recruiting, etc. If a corps' management is throwing around money, not doing enough fundraising, does little to no recruiting, and folds because of any of these things, then one cannot blame it on DCI. It's called responsibility, and corps management need to have it. Pointing the finger at DCI is just playing the blame game.

Edit: Grammar

Thanks for your post. Yes, it's too easy to blame DCI when in every case people mention on here I can point out how corps' management failed...not DCI.

[Dale Bari]

Yes, DCI is made up of corps directors. However, the individual corps management makes decisions regarding money, fundraising, recruiting, etc. If a corps' management is throwing around money, not doing enough fundraising, does little to no recruiting, and folds because of any of these things, then one cannot blame it on DCI. It's called responsibility, and corps management need to have it. Pointing the figure at DCI is just playing the blame game.

Yours is quite an obvious example of what NOT to do, as a corps director, as well as one that probably would not happen in a real-life corps. So, what is the purpose of posing such an argument, except as a strawman?

Would that that were the only way to interpret the situation. As I have seen audiodb (and others) do repeatedly, they would point to the (seemingly annual) addition of new equipment, the push toward corps being on the road more and more days, and the allowance of more members (that only benefits corps that turn away potential members already) as creating extra strains on DCI corps' budgets that may push some corps, otherwise fiscally sound in the absence of those pressures, to the brink of folding. [Did I leave any out?]

In any case, that is a more realistic interpretation of the situation. I think that reasonable minds can disagree on the truth of it. It may be that these pressures are exaggerated or that DCI has accounted for the additional burdens and has provided help to sustain those budgets. The history of drum corps is that most corps fold, and they each do so for a host of reasons. None of them, except outright fraud, could possibly be clearly pointed to as the "smoking gun" in any of them. So, let us not pretend that the case history is as starkly unambiguous as you portray.

The history of drum corps should cause all concerned to desire to limit the pressures on corps' budgets, not increase them.