keymodf Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 I think I can agree with goldingna. While I admire your ambition, isn't it a little presumptuous to claim membership in DCI open class so soon? Legends, the local corps here, is in their first summer of open class after being a DCI exhibition group for 2 summers. I know the cost of tour is quickly growing, but is $2750 an accurate price for a first year tour? 9,000 miles? DCI usually limits the amount of touring a first year corps can do in order to prevent that corps from folding within two years. Is it true that your design team has no drum corps experience? Making world class as soon as possible seems to be a recipe for disaster these days. Again, I'm excited to see a new group making an attempt to come out, I am just curious if you have made long term plans for the success of this organization or if you are just trying to throw a drum corps on the field as quickly as possible. Best of luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EndzoneEric Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 but is $2750 an accurate price for a first year tour? If so... WOW! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpiritOfJSUFan Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 To be on the competitive edge and with the economy as it stands right now. I am standing behind our fee structure. As like the rest of My staff, We are committed to providing a very mature, responsible, and professional Corps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldBones Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 Congratulations and good luck. It would be great to see the numbers grow for once. Too many startups end up not making it for whatever reason. I don’t want to put a downer on this either, but. . . . I remember a sit-down breakfast at one of the DCI meetings a couple of years ago with a startup corps. They came to the end of season and winter meetings, they had jackets, shirts, a logo, a website, and a few members. JW, the head of Div II-III at the time, joined us. He started talking to them. As he talked about the money stream and how they were going to be able to finance the corps on a yearly basis, I saw the dream die in front of me. It was quite sad. Have you talked to dci about the finances needed to run a corps? A lot of dreams have died when reality hits. Do you have multiple streams of money coming in to run the corps? (I.e. being from Mobile, I'm sure you will be on the road a lot). Bingo - Catering Hall - Bus Company. Drum corps is a business. Running it any other way is disastrous. I know some low end numbers for yearly budgets. 125000-175000 a year and that is with some creative fund raising. Have a REAL 5 year business plan in place. Kids realize very quickly if you are a pretender. Also, drum corps is no longer an "if you build it, they will come" activity. It doesn't matter where the corps is located. It this was true, ALL corps would have 150 members. Recruit heavily. Then when the kids come, show them something that will make them want to stay. I just wanted to point this out because too many people do not plan so well. If you already have all of this in place, you are off to a great start. Good luck Mobile. Hope to see you in Indiana in 09. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueStarsBari Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 Good Luck! It is great to see another corps coming into the activity. But just want to echo the previous posts. Be smart and have a solid plan. While year one is great the next 2-3 really show the meat of the corps. We are in a reality that even well established and popular corps can have issues and troubles. It is also not a bad thing to be in the open class and build a solid foundation. But again good luck and hopefully see you on the field! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WTalaba Posted July 16, 2008 Author Share Posted July 16, 2008 (edited) It is nice to see so many people concerned about the well being of Magic of Mobile. We thank you for all your tips and knowledge. I assure everyone we are taking the correct and necessary steps to make this organization a financially stable, educational, positive and legit corps. We understand the responsibility of taking on this great challenge and want to help spread high quality music education to the world. Please keep the feedback coming as we appreciate your input. Edited July 16, 2008 by WTalaba Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldingna Posted July 16, 2008 Share Posted July 16, 2008 It is nice to see so many people concerned about the well being of Magic of Mobile. We thank you for all your tips and knowlege. I assure everyone we are taking the correct and necessary steps to make this orginization a financially stable, educational, posative and lagit corps. We understand the responsibility of taking on this great challenge and want to help spread high quality music education to the world. Please keep the feed back coming as we appreciate your input. Geeze....I'm certainly not trying to be the grammar police, because I'm far from perfect in that respect. I probably wouldn't include the words "high-quality" and "education" in a paragraph with that many misspellings. That said, if this turns out to be a flop, at least they never claimed to be legit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WTalaba Posted July 16, 2008 Author Share Posted July 16, 2008 Geeze....I'm certainly not trying to be the grammar police, because I'm far from perfect in that respect. I probably wouldn't include the words "high-quality" and "education" in a paragraph with that many misspellings. That said, if this turns out to be a flop, at least they never claimed to be legit. Yeah, spelling is not always my highlight. So thanks for the spell-check! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThatsWhyISay Posted July 16, 2008 Share Posted July 16, 2008 (edited) Please stop. You are trying a bit to hard to win friends and support! Edited July 16, 2008 by ThatsWhyISay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CSGreen Posted July 16, 2008 Share Posted July 16, 2008 I would rather say please stop. Here we have a group trying to put together a corps (something that is getting harder and harder to do), and they are met with a lot of BS I wish this project the best of luck, I hope you are doing everything you need to do to make this project a successful one. DCP can be brutal, but the community itself can be worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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