Did the "Import Membership" Model Kill Local Recruiting?

[craiga]

I have to disagree with the person who said that drum corps want to win at the expense of local membership. I can only speak of the Boston Crusaders, which I have been involved with since I joined the corps in late 1979. (I would note that I was a kid from Maine, so I guess I was one of those "imports" at the time....btw, we had 26 horns that next summer).

During the late 80's and early 90's, I moved to Boston and along with being on the visual staff, I was intimately involved with recruiting for the corps.....to the point where I would join Jim Cronin and Dan and Melissa Greer at the corps office some weeks 3 and four nights a week during the winter. We would work phone lists (no email yet), visit local high schools and colleges, give presentations to kids and band directors, and have very professional looking promo booths at band shows and guard shows in 4 states.

Specifically, we were trying to get a "full corps' for the 1990 season (the corps 50th). Some nights, the corps office resembled mission control with phone calls and list compiling. Having a background in sales, I recall visiting UMASS, BU and BC, as well as a bunch of high schools. The recruiting effort was 150%.....but the reality was and is that the City of Boston doesn't have a single high school with a marching band, and the local suburban schools average 50 or 60 members each, with a few notable exceptions.

As a result of this mammoth effort, the corps had 118 members in 1990. And that year, the Cadets, once again, a huge number of Massachusetts kids.......which proves, kids will march where they WANT to march.

Much has been said about Blue Stars out of state rehearsals, just like BAC, but the bottom line is that corps need to do whatever it takes to survive. Although Boston continues to hold an audition in Massachusetts every November, the corps would not be around today if it had not broadened its membership base.

Finally, the broadening of the membership of BAC has always been an evolution, from kids from a certain church parish (Most Precious Blood) to a neighborhood (Hyde Park), to a city, to its suburbs, and now internationally.

And the corps is still around because of it. With Boston, at least, the recruiting wasn't driven by winning...it was driven by survival.

[Phantombari1]

Fanofnight hit the nail on the head. What impact do the rising fee's have on local recruiting and do the escalating fees limit the talent that ultimately make it to the top 15-20 top corps. (IMO) DCI is not getting maximum benefit from the talent pool available across the country.

Since DCI made the change to go above the 128 member level, the fee prices have not dropped. The business of running a Not for Profit company is getting out of hand. The field cannot accommodate additional members. Maybe it's time to seek Sponsors.

I can hear it now...

From Rockford Illinois under the direction of Rick Valenzuela and sponsored by Nike, Heineken, and Napa...the Phantom Regiment!

[Piper]

To the best of my recollection, the transition from a local to a more broad-based membership began in the 70's. It wasn't like the corps' started doing more recruiting beyond their home base - it was more the other way around. Kids would just start showing up on their doorstep from just about everywhere. Couple that with the evolution of technology like air travel, CD's, DVD's, and of course the internet and an evolution turns into a revolution. Please don't get me wrong because I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with that. It's merely my own historical perspective.

[MikeN]

Something else that's changed, and just to prove I'm not making this up or skewing the numbers, here's the link.

http://www.dci.org/about/

Showcasing the best of the best:

Each year, more than 8,000 students audition for the fewer than 3,500 positions available in top-tier DCI member corps

More than 5,000 members directly participate annually

66 percent are male

Average age is 19.4

72 percent are full-time college students

59.6 percent of the current college students are pursuing music education degrees, while 65 percent of those that indicated they are high school students intend to major in music education

Let me repeat the pertinent points -

Average age is 19.4

72 percent are full-time college students

World Class DCI corps deals with kids who are already used to traveling - they're in college, and they're almost adults. Obviously you will have your exceptions, as the 19.4 is an average (meaning half fall below that as well), but only 28% of marching members are in HS, part-time college kids or out in the real world.

So the point I'm making is, why *not* recruit from afar? You're dealing with mostly college kids who can travel.

Mike

[MikeN]

Of course, now that I say that, I fully support a corps growing deeper roots in a community. The more that a city feels the corps is invested in them, the more the city will invest in the corps.

So why not have a full-time local unit? Just to pick a nearby example to me, what if the Crossmen had, not only their 150 members who travel in the summer, but say a 50-person unit of all San Antonio kids that performed year-round, under the Crossmen name, in the Crossmen uniforms, playing "Crossmen" type music, but may or may not be in the summer corps? Invite 'em to the banquet too, each year - they're Crossmen as well as the summer guys. How would this hurt the brand at all? You would be likely getting kids who aren't WC quality, obviously, but you'd be teaching marching and playing skills to kids without having to foot the cost of a full-fledged touring "B" corps. And one that would be bringing in money and attention to your group on the local level.

Mike

[texmex]

Of course, now that I say that, I fully support a corps growing deeper roots in a community. The more that a city feels the corps is invested in them, the more the city will invest in the corps.

So why not have a full-time local unit? Just to pick a nearby example to me, what if the Crossmen had, not only their 150 members who travel in the summer, but say a 50-person unit of all San Antonio kids that performed year-round, under the Crossmen name, in the Crossmen uniforms, playing "Crossmen" type music, but may or may not be in the summer corps? Invite 'em to the banquet too, each year - they're Crossmen as well as the summer guys. How would this hurt the brand at all? You would be likely getting kids who aren't WC quality, obviously, but you'd be teaching marching and playing skills to kids without having to foot the cost of a full-fledged touring "B" corps. And one that would be bringing in money and attention to your group on the local level.

Mike

Wouldint happen.....Tx Band Kids from San Antonio would look at it as being on the B team...the JV...whats in it for them? They can go back to their pretty decent marching band in August after doing something else in the summer. What you have to realize is back in the 70s, 80s and 90s to some extent Drum Corps was their music education. Thats not the case anymore. I wouldlike to see some sort of datat showing how many scv cadets and blue devils b kids actually go on to the A corps? I think you will be surprised. The only reason those groups are still around is because music ed in Cali ispretty bad. yes there are some good marching groups out there BUT nothing like Tx or Indiana.

I have kids here who marched open class for a year and now are making the Blue Knights and other world class groups. When I ask them why they imply their high school marching experience is better than open class and their training is better so why not go world...? I cannot argue with that...but then you have huge swaths of kids that get cut from the top 8 and then dont march anywhere? Why? They would rather go back to a pretty decent high school marching band experience and try again when they are 18-19.

Also you have to realize this about the average age being 19.4...DCI has done this to itself with the RIDICULOUS starting dates of "spring Training". In tx school go to June 4th now....state law....and school starts on Aug 24 or somewhere around there. Alot of groups are doing Move Ins the weekend of May 24?? a week before memroial Day weekend. When I marched in the 1990s move ins was rt after Memroial Day weeekend and then it was two max three weeks and then your gone on tour. I looked at one top 12 corps asking for its drum battery to move in for almost 5 weeks! High Schol admin(which I am about to become) are not letting kids out of going to school at the end at least here in Tx. Its all about money and adm and butts in chairs ot get the money...and when they let drum corps kids out then guess who esle wants out of school early...the sportos...for their summer league vball...baseball...softball teams traveling the country. Honestly some corps are not offereing contracts to kids who still have to be in school until June 4th here...so if someone is complaining about the age and no high school age kids thats a big part of the reason.

[fifer]

Thanks craiga for the inside look at the situation. And best wishes to Boston in 2010 – keep rising!!

Tied into the local recruiting discussion also needs to be the discussion of local support. And when talking support, there are two pieces, volunteers and financial.

With modern technology and travel options, virtually every need for volunteers can draw from a national (global?) pool of potentials; not to mention many activities can be done at home, no matter where home is. With many camps no longer in the corps’ “local” area and most corps being “away” for most of the summer, the need for local volunteers is not as crucial as it used to be. Maybe a bad thing for sentimental reasons, but with most “local” parents spreading themselves thinner than in the past (three kids in each of two sports, one also does dance, another does MB, another is on a travel soccer team, etc.) it becomes necessary to broaden your pool of potential volunteers in hopes of finding the fewer who can focus more on this one activity.

We have also seen how many corps over the past few decades have lost any or all financial support from their local communities and/or businesses. Corps HAD to broaden their horizons for sources of donations in order to survive. Corps that are too tied to local financial support are also subject to the local economies and can be devastated if in the wrong place at the wrong time (I’d hate to be trying to keep a local Rhode Island drum corps solvent today with one of the nation’s worst unemployment rates, etc.)

It’s up to each of us to work on the local level to make sure there are options for local kids who don’t want to devote the time and money it requires to do DCI to participate in some form of music. If your local market will support a parade or OC drum corps, great – but someone in that local market needs to be the driving force (in this devastating economy, DCI certainly doesn’t have the money or resources). But if the local market does not have the kids or support for even a parade drum corps, then what kind of music performance group would the local market support?

Sometimes it just seems like we’re trying to force-feed drum corps on local areas just because those areas used to have a local drum corps. But how many of those local areas still have the same mom-and-pop stores that were around in the 60’s? How many of those neighborhoods still have the same families living in them since the 70’s? How many more of your local neighbors are involved in other activities and/or have friends and acquaintances beyond a 30-mile radius than had these connections in the 80’s?

For good or bad, “local” is not what it used to be. So how do we expect the new local market to support the old drum corps model?

[IllianaLancerContra]

It certainly did not help.

Back in the 70's / early 80's many corps had limits on how many 'exports' they would take. So the corps would not 'fall apart' in the fall.

Somehow that changed. I recall a few years ago the Phantom member that lived closest to Rockford was from 90 min away.

And we wonder why there is limited local support.

[Drum Korps Fan Man]

It certainly did not help.

Back in the 70's / early 80's many corps had limits on how many 'exports' they would take. So the corps would not 'fall apart' in the fall.

Somehow that changed. I recall a few years ago the Phantom member that lived closest to Rockford was from 90 min away.

And we wonder why there is limited local support.

I would say that this changed because fewer local kids were interested in Drum Corps, or at least in the local corps.

I think that, sad as it is, society seems to have forgotten about and moved past the Drum Corps activity. This isn't necessarily any one person or organizations fault.

This is a rather poor analogy, but it seems that Drum Corps, compared to other forms of entertainment, is rather like the vinyl album; popular for many years, but now overshadowed by something 'better'. There are still those of us who assert that vinyl sounds beter, just as we here at DCP assert that Drum Corps is more fun, but society as a whole disagrees with us.

I think that the membership 'pool' has become nationwide for many corps, not because of the leadership, but because they needed to expand their recruiting range in order to keep their membership up and maintain a talent level.

So ultimately, this debate, I would say, boils down to whether we, as a community, want the corps to be better, but have members from all over, or to be not as talented, and their products be not as good, and be smaller, but their membership is from the corps' "home city" or region.

personally, I like the system the way it is now.

thoughts?

[MikeN]

Wouldint happen.....Tx Band Kids from San Antonio would look at it as being on the B team...the JV...whats in it for them? They can go back to their pretty decent marching band in August after doing something else in the summer. What you have to realize is back in the 70s, 80s and 90s to some extent Drum Corps was their music education. Thats not the case anymore. I wouldlike to see some sort of datat showing how many scv cadets and blue devils b kids actually go on to the A corps? I think you will be surprised. The only reason those groups are still around is because music ed in Cali ispretty bad. yes there are some good marching groups out there BUT nothing like Tx or Indiana.

I'm using the Crossmen as an example solely 'cause they're local to me. Insert any WC name there. I taught music in Austin for a few years, so believe me, I know what you're saying there.

My response would be then - don't make it a JV. Make it a small, elite group of musicians. An "all-city" group, if you will. They'd be Crossmen (or whatever corps) the same as the summer group, only their performing schedule is different. Give them access to the corps staff, music, etc - they're still the Crossmen, only they're playing 1x or 2x per month in San Antonio (or whatever city) at events raising money and getting the Crossmen name out there. Don't design it as a second-class program - give them DCI-caliber education on a full year basis. That'll get you a core of kids that you can send out.

Of course I'm just BS'ing and brainstorming here, but the point I'm trying to make is that it doesn't have to be an "either-or" sort of thing - there are lots of ways for corps to more tightly integrate themselves into the local community despite the fact they're a national touring production composed of 72% college kids, 56% of which are music majors, only home-based in X city.

Mike