In light of the elitism

[Ed from Kansas]

Everybody agrees that Junior Drum and Bugle Corps is a youth activity, right?

DCI states that the activity is for youth from the ages of 14 to 21, right?

If these two things are true, then why not live by them?

Although all corps abide by the letter of the law, they don't abide by the spirit of it. Most World Class corps are loaded with people that are 18 to 20 years of age. Where are the younger kids? Either marching in an Open Class corps or, in most cases, watching from the sidelines.

Why not put a rule into effect that on June 1, of each year, the average age of the corps must be 18 years or younger? This still allows for kids to march until their 21st birthday but also allows the younger kids to get an opportunity to march thereby keeping the ranks full for future years. It also better fulfills DCI's mission.Jus

I'm sure that there are those who will say that it will ruin the activity. Look at it now. It is suffering from lower attendance and interest, plus the fact that a few of the corps, those with the highest average age, are wanting to be treated in a different manner than the balance of the corps because they are the ones who fill the stands.

Just a thought.

[TerriTroop]

Hmmmm gonna have to say I can't really agree that this is a great idea. I like the idea of leveling somehow, but this doesn't quite do it for me. I would rather have some significant changes to the judging system to reward more execution again and to make absolutely certain that a corps that goes without synthesizers has no disadvantage at all in competition with those that do use them.

While I enjoy watching crazy fast or difficult drill, I have to say it looks a bit sloppy way too often. Just because it's fast and/or difficult doesn't make it worth more points - unless you can execute it better than what I've seen so far. And some of the sloppiness is also from a design standpoint. I think it probably looks crazy amazing on pyware (or whatever people are using for drill design software), but once you put an actual human body on the dot some of the amazing gets lost in translation.

Anyway, I really don't know if I can go with the average age proposal. But I'm all for tackling the problem from other angles.

[Lance]

If the idea is to make every corps like a middle of the pack corps, this is a great for that.

[Ed from Kansas]

The idea isn't to make every corps a middle of the pack corps. I'm sure that some organizations would do just fine because of the population in their area. Others might struggle a bit more and some of the lower tier could move up. The idea is to be more competitive and fulfill the stated mission of DCI.

[2000Cadet]

Everybody agrees that Junior Drum and Bugle Corps is a youth activity, right?

DCI states that the activity is for youth from the ages of 14 to 21, right?

If these two things are true, then why not live by them?

Although all corps abide by the letter of the law, they don't abide by the spirit of it. Most World Class corps are loaded with people that are 18 to 20 years of age. Where are the younger kids? Either marching in an Open Class corps or, in most cases, watching from the sidelines.

Why not put a rule into effect that on June 1, of each year, the average age of the corps must be 18 years or younger? This still allows for kids to march until their 21st birthday but also allows the younger kids to get an opportunity to march thereby keeping the ranks full for future years. It also better fulfills DCI's mission.Jus

I'm sure that there are those who will say that it will ruin the activity. Look at it now. It is suffering from lower attendance and interest, plus the fact that a few of the corps, those with the highest average age, are wanting to be treated in a different manner than the balance of the corps because they are the ones who fill the stands.

Just a thought.

I understand your point. Even though this is a youth activity, it is still a competition and I think corps are going to try to take members who are going to show they can work hard to be competitive.

[Michael Boo]

The corps with the best instructors, best recruiting and best managements are still going to be the best corps even if they were the only ones required to march with an average age of whatever. The corps with inferior recruiting and less competent instructors and management aren't going to soar to the top even if every member made their state's all-state band and have full scholarships to Julliard.

Corps that make it to the top scratch and claw their way to get there and the instructors know how to get the most out of the members. Give a powerful nation bad leadership and it will soon be on the rocks. Give a struggling nation competent and committed leaders and it will eventually be a leader.

Parity cannot be legislated.

[dbc03]

Why not do stuff to make the other corps better instead of trying to bring down the top corps to the level of the bottom corps.

Don't punish corps because people want to march there, that is ridiculous. I would be so ###### if at 21 I had been told that I was better than some 15 year old kid and would make the corps but they already filled their quota of 21 year olds, sorry guess you have to go age out somewhere else

[BRASSO]

I understand your point. Even though this is a youth activity, it is still a competition and I think corps are going to try to take members who are going to show they can work hard to be competitive.

I'm all for that too. And when the top Corps " take members " from the lower tier Corps, cough up " a finders fee " to these lower tiered Corps. Afterall, the Top Corps ranks are filled with marchers that didn't just fall out of the sky into their laps at their camps, did they ? Where'd many of them come from ? ( lower tier Corps )

Some of these Open Class, and lower tiered World Class Corps took these marchers in. Taught them the hard work and discipline. The fundamentals of playing and marching. They essentially groomed them. THEY invested THEIR time and THEIR energies and THEIR Corps costs to the marcher. But who ultimately gets the benefit regarding this training and grooming ? Bingo, if you said the proposed G-7 Corps do.

So if the G-7 Corps now want a bigger slice of the revenue from the lower tier Corps., fine.

Start then with a" Finders Fee " payment allocation to every other Corps whose talent you took from, that postioned you to want to demand more revenue from them now.

That'd work.

Edited May 22, 2010 by BRASSO

[dbc03]

I'm all for that too. And when the top Corps " take members " from the lower tier Corps, cough up " a finders fee " to these lower tiered Corps. Afterall, the Top Corps ranks are filled with marchers that didn't just fall out of the sky into their laps at their camps, did they ? Where'd many of them come from ? ( lower tier Corps )

Some of these Open Class, and lower tiered World Class Corps took these marchers in. Taught them the hard work and discipline. The fundamentals of playing and marching. They essentially groomed them. THEY invested THEIR time and THEIR energies and THEIR Corps costs to the marcher. But who ultimately gets the benefit regarding this training and grooming ? Bingo, if you said the proposed G-7 Corps do.

So if the G-7 Corps now want a bigger slice of the revenue from the lower tier Corps., fine.

Start then with a" Finders Fee " payment allocation to every other Corps whose talent you took from, that postioned you to want to demand more revenue from them now.

That'd work.

This is going to punish the kids who WANT to move on. The top corps aren't going around and handing out fliers at Pioneer rehearsals or anything. These are kids who no longer want to be with their old corps and want to march somewhere else. If corps want to retain their kids then that should be on them to convince people to stay, not a matter of punishing people for wanting to leave.

[BRASSO]

This is going to punish the kids who WANT to move on. The top corps aren't going around and handing out fliers at Pioneer rehearsals or anything. These are kids who no longer want to be with their old corps and want to march somewhere else. If corps want to retain their kids then that should be on them to convince people to stay, not a matter of punishing people for wanting to leave.

I hear you, but it's not like this concept is unprecedented in other enterprises.

If you are a Div. 1 college athlete at a school, and want to transfer and play for another school and team, can you just willy nilly leave and go to that other college and play like you can in DCI Drum Corps ?

Heck no. As a matter of fact, both you and the new school would be in VIOLATION of NCAA established rules and guidelines if you and the new school did so. You might be disbarred from playing ever.. and the school put on probation and fined for using that player from another school. NCAA makes a transfer have to sit out a whole year before being allowed to participate in athletics at the other school. If people think this is Draconian, keep in mind that these policies were put in place for a reason. And more importantly, they work for the very reasons they were intended for. And since such transfer policies were put in place, MORE schools are participating now at the Div.1 level now.... not less.

Edited May 22, 2010 by BRASSO