Slingerland Posted February 24, 2013 Share Posted February 24, 2013 (edited) Okay, now you want to separate the corps who do not tour nationally. There are only a few of those left, all on the west coast. Okay, now you want to separate Pioneer, and I suppose all of open class too. Okay, now you want to separate smaller corps. Okay, now you want to separate community-based corps. Okay, now you want to separate corps who are there primarily to teach... You really ought to decide just what or who it is you want to separate, because it is not going to be practical to impose as many separations as you have listed here. They're all very easy to separate, actually, and yes, you read what I wrote exactly correctly. All of those characteristics you cite are pretty much shared by the same group of corps. Open Class is there to give their kids a chance to do drum corps, learn how it is played, have some fun doing it, and not have to sell a kidney in order to finance it. That's a beautiful thing - the thing that would make it even better would be if all of the marketing efforts went to promoting them as stars of their league, not as "also on the program" performers, as happens now all too often. Organizations who don't have the interest, ability, need, desire, or means to tour nationally and compete with the corps who DO have the interests and means to do all those things should be competing in a different league altogether. Put that in front of most normal adults and they'll agree with my positions. The worlds of sports and business normally sort themselves into logical affiliations, either by regions, capacity, product categories, or competitive level; DCI is resistant to that in part because (I suspect) some adults associated with the various corps would feel offended if their corps was classified as a regional corps rather than a national touring corps. Again, you have to look at the situation as a business question, not as anything having to do with pride or passion or ego. The business of DCI s to sell tickets to events and other products and bring in money that can be returned to the co-op members in exchange for their work. The ability to do that would be enhanced, not weakened, if the message and the imagery they were able to use was consistent and clean, if their product could be easily defined as "the Top 16 (or 18) drum corps in the world." To be brutally honest, there are some organizations that are now classified as "World Class" by DCI's system who really aren't. We all know it, we just hesitate to say it out loud for fear of offending the members and supporters of those corps. If DCI ever went the route of hiring a professional executive team who came into it with business, rather than 'drum corps' being their motivating interests, I would imagine that such a re-alignment and clarification of status would be one of the first things that would be addressed. Some people might feel stung, but in the long term, it would be a very healthy development for all concerned. Edited February 24, 2013 by Slingerland 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu Posted February 24, 2013 Share Posted February 24, 2013 The amount DCI would have actually paid in taxes would be negligible. DCI receives about $350k/year in donations... which is kind of tricky as the bulk of these donations are really just ticket sales masked as donations, rather than straight ahead donations. Even still, $350k out of a $10M budget doesn't really justify remaining a non-profit entity. In fact, it could be actually costing them more money to be a non-profit entity (they could have taken quite a lot of write downs over the past several years, limits partnership/investment potential, etc.). Fine; have the G7 take MiM into the world of For-Profit; but leave DCI a non-profit to benefit all youth who stay within DCI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielray Posted February 24, 2013 Share Posted February 24, 2013 Fine; have the G7 take MiM into the world of For-Profit; but leave DCI a non-profit to benefit all youth who stay within DCI. DCI was not established to benefit all youth. This happened before I was born and even I know that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slingerland Posted February 24, 2013 Share Posted February 24, 2013 (edited) Wow, let's not let the facts get in the way here!!! Selective editing. I mentioned that DCI calls itself a youth organization, but I then went on to say "and that's misleading", since it is. DCI provides no real direct service to the kids marching the corps; their food, instruction, medical care, transportation, uniforms, etc, etc, etc are provided by their individual corps, not by DCI. It's a producers cooperative, not a direct services organization, and most certainly not a charity in the genuine sense of the word. Edited February 24, 2013 by Slingerland 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu Posted February 24, 2013 Share Posted February 24, 2013 DCI was not established to benefit all youth. This happened before I was born and even I know that. I agree; DCI was not established to benefit 'all' youth. But it was established to benefit all youth engaging in DCI activities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu Posted February 24, 2013 Share Posted February 24, 2013 Selective editing. I mentioned that DCI calls itself a youth organization, but I then went on to say "and that's misleading", since it is. DCI provides no real direct service to the kids marching the corps; their food, instruction, medical care, transportation, uniforms, etc, etc, etc are provided by their individual corps, not by DCI. It's a producers cooperative, not a direct services organization. I am not using selective editing in that DCI is officially and factually registered with the IRS as a youth activity and that their own Mission Statement claims it is a youth activity which is intended to be a fraternal collective. What I am pointing out is that many here, including yourself, have added to those facts by introducing the 'but monkey'; showing that the top dogs (ie G7) in DCI are not engaging in what DCI claims to be to the IRS and in it's own DCI Mission Statement. It is this 'but monkey' contradiction that Dan Acheson was eluding to when he wrote his rebuttal to the G7 proposal; and it is this 'but monkey' in which the corps apart from the G7 are screaming about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielray Posted February 24, 2013 Share Posted February 24, 2013 I agree; DCI was not established to benefit 'all' youth. But it was established to benefit all youth engaging in DCI activities. DCI was originally only 13 corps. I did not support or include the dozens of other corps out there, but was membership was limited to just the 13 best corps out there at the time. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu Posted February 24, 2013 Share Posted February 24, 2013 (edited) DCI was originally only 13 corps. I did not support or include the dozens of other corps out there, but was membership was limited to just the 13 best corps out there at the time. The 'best' corps of the time; really? Out of the thousands and thousands of corps in existence at that time, some in the VFW, some in the Catholic Youth League, and thousands of other corps which never engaged in competition against them, they were the 'best' corps? Edited February 24, 2013 by Stu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slingerland Posted February 24, 2013 Share Posted February 24, 2013 What I am pointing out is that many here, including yourself, have added to those facts by introducing the 'but monkey'; showing that the top dogs (ie G7) in DCI are not engaging in what DCI claims to be to the IRS and in it's own DCI Mission Statement. There's no butt or but monkey in the room. DCI can claim anything they want, but the actual review of what they do shows that the focus is and always has been on providing media products and selling tickets to events featuring drum corps, not providing any direct service to the kids in the corps. Coop venture, not a charity. I'm not sure why anyone would object to that very accurate description of what they are. It's not like being in a cooperative is operating a ponzi scheme. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu Posted February 24, 2013 Share Posted February 24, 2013 There's no butt or but monkey in the room. DCI can claim anything they want, but the actual review of what they do shows that the focus is and always has been on providing media products and selling tickets to events featuring drum corps, not providing any direct service to the kids in the corps. Coop venture, not a charity. I'm not sure why anyone would object to that very accurate description of what they are. It's not like being in a cooperative is operating a ponzi scheme. Here is your position in a nutshell: DCI is registered with the IRS as a 501c3 Youth Activity, it claims in it's own Mission Statement that it is a Fraternal Collective (along with all the other items within the statement concerning serving others) 'but' again 'but' it is not being ran in that manner. So, yeah, there is a real big 'but monkey' in the room. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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