Carolina Crown Performing Arts Training Center

[2000Cadet]

I really wanted to hold off and respond till after the voting, but I cannot! This is the most ridiculous idea I have heard in Drum Corps...or perhaps seeing the video on the Chase website just was completely in-adequate! Infuriating! Who is going to buy into this idea and why would Chase? This is a money pit of a concept...who is going to use it when the camps are not going on...why does it have to look like the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts? I just think this is a poorly strategized concept which makes drum corps look incredibly bad and poor business people. Simply ridiculous. I was going to be a fan of CC after watching them for the last several years...this is not happening.

Quite honestly, there is not a good concept offered by the other drum corps in the competition either. I mean, be specific, give us a long range strategy for how the funding will be used and multiplied over a 50 year period...instead we sit on the turf and talk about buddies and cry about the experiences we had. Perhaps that is great, but what makes the difference to anyone who has never been involved. This activity is so self indulged and this situation is such a prime example. After being a drum corps fan for 21 years...I might find something else to vote for.

Tell 'em why you mad son!

[FTNK]

You don't see Cavies, Phantom or Colts being called out for participating in the contest. But Crown has been repeatedly called-out for being an unworthy recipient of these funds.

I will. I think it's obscene that ANY drum corps, by virtue of their loyal and committed fanbase, has been able to break into the running for the $1 million.

I marched 3 years of drum corps and I really honestly do not think that arts education is MORE deserving than all the other problems out there in the world. Crown's "The Issue" writeup trots out the same tired statistics about how "arts education programs" make people smarter, more successful...correlation is NOT causation. If you want to read more deeply into this position, I suggest reading here: Music Ed and Advocacy from a Critical Perspective

Even with that aside, take a careful look at Crown's proposed use of the $1 million. The music building at my former university recently got renovated and comprehensively rebuilt, and the bill was $9 million. How is Carolina Crown going to build "a theater large enough to hold concerts and recitals" as well as "indoor rehearsal and training facilities and outdoor training fields, dorms, a cafeteria, and more" for $1 million? Are they playing Sim City, where you can build a school for $200 and a hospital for $300?

[John Murray]

Ouch...

[skimannc1]

I am a band director in the area of Crown and I would be one of the first if not the first to line up to use this facility. I would love to use it during the winter seasons because currently our guard and drumline practice in less then adequate facilities. I would even consider holding band camp there to get away from distractions at the high school and also to be able to utilize multiple fields as opposed to just one.

I'm not sure but I doubt the GWU is being used for free and with this facility that would free up that money which they could use to help out corps members or use in a benificial way as well.

Crown has been very advantageous in helping the local area schools and is continuing to reach out in anyway possible. Crown has loaned out instruments to numerous schools that need them.

I'm not sure that the reason you see the Kennedy Center picture is just because that is a picture we can all relate to.

I do encourage everyone to vote with their heart and the way they feel lead. I for one will vote for all of the corps because I have seen first hand what drum corps have done for the youth in our country. I think that it instills the discipline, charachter and life skills that they need later in life. I think it's the next closest thing to someone going into the military. I get a sense of some of the values of what I see in soldiers, I see to a degree in drum corps but on a lower level. The students are respectful and very hard working which is what I've aways seen in our service men and women.

[dcsnare93]

I am simply amazed at the negativity that is displayed here, and on some other threads.

Yet I knew it was going to happen.

I challenge each of you that has gone negative in these threads to put your energy to good use.

Vote for the charity that captures your attention.

After this campaign is over, I would also challenge each of the same people to contact their nearest drum corps and offer there assistance. And if it's not a drum corps, then the nearest non-profit that you deem worthy.

Believe me, Drum Corps and other charities will welcome you and put you to work based upon your abilities.

Maybe this whole Chase campaign has awakened alot of folks to the fact they indeed need to do more,

not just drum corps but other very worthy charities.

Come on folks, put your energy to good use.

Make a positive difference.

I haven't seen a lot of "negativity" in this thread, other than a few people seriously questioning the proposals these four corps' have submitted. Some of us feel there are much worthier causes to support than a corps' dream project, I don't exactly see that as a "negative" thing, nor an indication that some of us don't already help out charities/non-profits in any way we can (e.g., donations, volunteering, etc).

Anyway, I do agree with the premise of your post. People should try support the causes they care most about. That said, I did vote for 1 corps out of my 5 votes.

[Lance]

I can't even begin to tell people how much SOOO many areas I know of wish they had a place like Crown is proposing around.

We just got a winter drumline together along with a winter guard (for the first time) with a few schools in the area, but getting rehearsal space is impossible. And we have 5 high schools with kids participating. Every gym and every auditorium is taken up every day of the week. It's the same for a bunch of places around.

Let people be negative over something that can yield such wonderful things. All it does is make them look bad.

[BMBob]

I think it's funny how we all consider ourselves "friends" of the activity, yet some people are actually arguing that a corps should NOT be getting free money to help achieve its strategic goals!

I sure hope I don't have any friends like that!

I am not arguing with that at all. I have an issue with the fact that it sounds to me like "achieving their strategic goals," as you put it, is the point of this facility, while the advertising makes it out to be a grand charitable gesture.

[Paralda]

I don't understand why everyone is freaking out about voting for drum corps when they're "not deserving," when in reality, without four drum corps having gotten this far, most of the people posting on this board wouldn't even know about the chase giveaway.

[CrownLeadSop]

I'd just like to say that "The Caf" is awesome.

[glory]

I will. I think it's obscene that ANY drum corps, by virtue of their loyal and committed fanbase, has been able to break into the running for the $1 million.

I marched 3 years of drum corps and I really honestly do not think that arts education is MORE deserving than all the other problems out there in the world...

I understand what you're saying and the noble motives behind it. The problem with such a stance, however, is it suggests we should aid the neediest cases only. If that were the standard, we wouldn't spend a penny on drum corps or anything else so trivial. It can't only be that way for a lot of reasons.

Charity, if that's the term, isn't always direct or even efficient. We might agree that cancer or heart disease are greater scourges than shortfalls in arts funding and opportunity. That doesn't mean that one million for cancer research has greater value for mankind than it would if that million were used for something else.

Doing the right thing doesn't have to mean doing the only thing.

HH