danielray Posted March 5, 2013 Share Posted March 5, 2013 others later got heartburn with the thought of a 14 year older marching right beside a 48 year older. But as we found out later, the fears were unwarranted. They are warranted. Just as you should not have 12 year olds marching with 21 year olds, you should not have 14 or even 16 year olds marching with those much older. I find no scenario in which this is appropriate. DCI followers might get " a heart attack " now when I suggest here and now that perhaps its time to scrap their age limit. Most 22 year olders will leave DCI at 22 anyway. But I see no valid reason anymore why they should be FORCED too leave. DCA Corps have shown that Corps can travel on busses to long distances without problems. If you got a problem marcher in your Corps, its not his or her age thats the issue, its his or her moral compass thats broken. And THAT Marcher shouldn't be in your Corps at ANY age to begin with. If DCI allowed marchers to march over 22, some of the Corps below would actually get stronger imo as they wouldn't be losing so many of their marchers to the elites as they do now. This adds to stability across the board for the entire activity, imo We have aligned ourselves in kinsmanship with the College Marching Bands. Ok, so thats cool. But do these College Marching Bands require you to leave at 22 ? No.. they don't. Do they see it as a problem when these marching bands go into competition with one another ? No, they don't. So DCI should just scrap the requirement that you've got to leave now as you are now considered at the ripe " old age " of 22 to be over the hill to march. As I said, MOST will leave on their own ( some do now before 22 ) as jobs, school, career, marriage take over. But not for all, and many tell us that they wished they could have marched another year or a few. I say... so let them. I see no harm in it, nor any benefit to DCI to tell them " ok,.. now get out " Youth should be forced to stop marching in drum corps in the same way they should be forced out of their parent's house. There is a very clear reason why there is an age out policy... it is to encourage youth who have gained some incredible life skills through participation in drum corps to go out an apply them to the real world. While some do dig all-age drum corps, and that is certainly their right, it is not something to combine with a youth activity. It greatly dilutes the focus and value from a sponsor perspective. For the record.... if you are in college marching band and not being forced/bribed to do so, regardless of if you are 18 or 22 or god forbid any older.... something is genuinely wrong. Some cultures would consider college marching band a form of torture. :-) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu Posted March 5, 2013 Share Posted March 5, 2013 ... might as well be a neutered walrus... John Lennon was neutered? Well bust my buttons!!! I certainly do learn something new everyday! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielray Posted March 5, 2013 Share Posted March 5, 2013 There is a flaw in this logic that, again, misses the point of the discussion about whether or not DCI is "broken". I'm not convinced. This post, and much of your contention in most of your posts, is that, competitively, the corps aren't best served by being in the same league. That contention might be true if competitive placement were the single driving force behind the activity. But I don't recall having read any corps' mission statement or description of their program in the 990s competitive placement is the driving force behind why these corps exist. As evidence, I went looking at several corps' 990's and web site mission statements. Here's what I found: Madison 990: "To provide a program for youth in music and performance training through a positive environment." Madison web: "For over 75 years the Madison Scouts has developed and shaped young men's lives through musical enrichment and performance arts. Values such as honesty, integrity and accountability are taught and practiced through the activity that is modern day drum & bugle corps. A commitment to personal excellence and altruism serves as the foundation for the ultimate goal of teaching our members important life changing skills that will guide them now and in the future." Blue Stars 990: "The BS provide the membership with education and performance opportunities in the area of performance arts to help them to deveop life skill. Members learn though teamwork, dedication, a strong work ethic, setting goals, and discipline, that success can be achieved." Blue Stars Web: same Colts 990: "To use music and excellence to teach each other about success in life." YEA: "To support the development of life skills in life through their participation in the performing arts." Yea! Web: "Drum corps is an activity which attempts to do much more than provide a performance opportunity for students or entertainment for the audience. Through the drum corps experience, students will learn useful life skills such as leadership, goal-setting and teamwork, among others. The Cadets curriculum includes opportunities for students to exercise their potential not only as musicians, but as complete human beings." Phantom 990: "Youth education and performance activities" Phantom web: "The Phantom Regiment is a youth organization dedicated to the development of self-esteem and self-reliance. It encourages team work, sportsmanship, civic pride and contributions of one's personal best to a group effort. These lessons are learned through a musical and marching activity in which there is a blending of the arts and athletics." Troopers 990: "Drum and bugle corps of young people to act as ambassadors for the state of Wyoming…" Troopers web: "To provide a youth activity with positive educational experiences that promote the growth and development of specific life skills consistent with the Trooper Tradition of Excellence." BD Web: Music and the performing arts connect youth with their culture through a common language crossing generational, social, and racial barriers. The activities that a young person pursues influences the type of person he or she becomes. The experience that comes with participation in a performing arts organization builds discipline, character, pride, and self-confidence at a crucial age and forms the springboard to even greater achievements in adulthood. BD Performing Arts programs permanently enrich the lives of young people through a commitment to youth development and performance excellence while providing enjoyment for our local community and audiences worldwide." I'll challenge you to find a corps mission statement that says, or even paraphrases: "The mission of XXX-corps is to win DCI finals championships", or "Failure to win DCI finals championships, or to place competitively in its upper ranks demonstrates our failure as an organization to teach youth the "life lessons" that will carry them throughout their lives". Or anything like that. Your premise is that kids join a drum corps in order to win finals, or be competitive with those who do. It is not. Kids want to be a part of a WC corps to tour the country and perform not just at local shows but also regionals and world championships. You seem to contend that all kids want to be a part of only the top-12 or 16 in order to be competitively comparable with the top corps. I would contend that, for a majority of kids, geographic proximity to their homes is equally, or more, important. Many kids who don't have a corps relatively close to them will choose to not participate at all. For those kids, building more corps in more locations, that can travel the country on the tour is the best solution to get them involved. That would be contrary to your plan of limiting the number of touring corps. Finally, your solution to segregate the corps and limit the lower end to a lower league would be a death knell. Even at the lower ranks, many corps get significant in-kind assistance from corporate partners. Your solution would likely concentrate corporate support in the upper "leagues" and deny those lower-placing corps the corporate support they need. In addition, your idea of pushing the lower-placing corps into a "minor league" will cause a "lesser than" reputation that would likely turn-off kids who participate for the chance to be a part of the WC tour structure and competitions. Competition and winning, or placing high, at finals is not a driving force for most corps. Directors teach that personal excellence doesn't come from a placement, yet you seem dogged in defining corps by that very placement. Life-lessons is not taught by finals placement; if it were then more corps would have that goal as part of their mission statement. For many (most? all?) corps, competitive placement is simply a means to an end of teaching life-lessons, instilling work ethic, teamwork, time management, self discipline, commitment, goal-setting, etc. Is that to say that corps that don't score highly fail in those goals? Maybe you say yes. I'd bet most of those kids would say "No". If the activity places such little emphasis on competitive placement, why is the cornerstone of your "solution" competitive placement? Again, once a prostitute and a john define the situation, the rest is just negotiation. I'm not convinced that you've defined the situation, let alone the correct solution. Being created equal, does not mean you actually remain equal. Using reference of political philosophy .... the concept of genuine freedom acknowledges that all men are created equal, while simultaneously understanding that this very same freedom will ensure, through personal choice via individual liberty, that they will not remain equal. There will be variations in both opportunity and action. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garfield Posted March 5, 2013 Share Posted March 5, 2013 Friends of DCI is basically a ticket scheme to get ticket advance revenues instead of being 100% locked into the timeline of the ticketing provider. FDCI does have a ticket component, but it's much more than that. It ties the member to DCI emotionally. Friends get access lanyards, the opportunity to judge marching-member nominations in several categories, the opportunity to be a part of the awards ceremony, as well as other benefits that the average ticket buyer does not. Yes, I get great seats and get to sit in the same seats year after year, but the emotional tie-in to the activity at its highest level is visceral. Just watch the attendance at the annual Friends breakfast on Finals morning to see it. For me, personally, I have given over $50,000 to drum corps over the last 30 years. All but $2000 of that I've given through DCI, not individual corps, because I made the conscious decision to support all the corps via DCI instead of having to choose my favorite corps to give to each year. I'm sure I'm not alone in that, because I sit with fans every year who've donated just like I have for the exact same reasons. To your point, and in contrary, if DCI eliminated Friends and put those 50 yard line seats up for sale to the general public, I'm positive they'd sell each one of them at the same prices they're now getting. Based on that fact, Friends is not as much a ticket "scheme", or revenue balancer, as it is an emotion tie between the overall activity and some of its most ardent fans. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slingerland Posted March 5, 2013 Share Posted March 5, 2013 In my business I get paid to question the accepted logic. Otherwise, I'm just a lemming. And in mine, it's to look at what businesses and people are doing and ask them why they've never noticed that huge obvious booger hanging from their nose before posing for their official portrait. What I'm suggesting is that DCI has no obligation to fill stands. Their mandate is to coordinate a tour. If DCI hosts shows and fewer fans come because the product being sold is unattractive, that's not DCI's problem. (Think Jaguar instead of Lexus.) If DCI is to host events, but not care about making them as wildly successful as possible, then they have no real reason to be. Another organization should be formed to take over who would care about making sure that every seat is sold. I'm not a fan of the G7, but I'd go along with them on that point, if that were the choice. DCI is an events and marketing company FOR youth organizations, not a "youth organization" themselves. IF DCI's leadership feels the corps' products aren't sellable enough to the fan base, then it seems to me that onus would be on them to stand up and say "here's what we think; the surveys say this, and you guys need to address this." If the corps directors refused to go along, the only real course of action would be to throw in the towel and leave the corps to wallow in their own mess. There are some strong personalities involved in this activity, but the only way some of them will give you respect is if you show them you won't be pushed around. Given a popularity contest among various directors. it's unlikely Dan A would lose to a few of the loudest voices in the room, so there's no reason for him to be shy about standing up for more populist, more sellable shows, IF that's what he really thinks DCI needs in order to grow their fan base. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu Posted March 5, 2013 Share Posted March 5, 2013 Being created equal, does not mean you actually remain equal. Using reference of political philosophy .... the concept of genuine freedom acknowledges that all men are created equal, while simultaneously understanding that this very same freedom will ensure, through personal choice via individual liberty, that they will not remain equal. There will be variations in both opportunity and action. Careful there Hoss; you have accused me of being too philosophically in tune with the U.S. Founding Fathers, now you are sounding a lot like me!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielray Posted March 5, 2013 Share Posted March 5, 2013 Your bullet points are a mix of corps-problems and DCI-problems and, if I use your definition that DCI itself should only be focused on shows and media, only the first and last bullet points could relate to DCI. So why are you proposing a solution that restructures the activity? And does restructuring into leagues address the other bullet points that are, clearly, at the corps level? I would say it does not. The solution to "getting the mice out of the kitchen" necessarily requires the directors themselves to give up control of the activity. Considering the Seven's contentions and their recent desire to have total and complete control, how realistic is this solution? Without that solution, and with a diversified BOD, your solution fails. No corps with a voting position will relegate itself to a "minor league". I would suggest that, instead of putting thought and energy into dividing the activity by competitive placement (which goes against the mission statements of nearly all (all?) corps, you'd be better served by trying to find a solution to the control-structure of DCI that would allow the kind of change you envision. Because DCI is so desperately broken that if there is not a drastic change, within the next 8 months or so, it will likely cease to exist in any form near the current level. If there is not dramatic change, it will either cease to exist all-together or will continue to exist in a form that is weaker or more fragile than present. This is simply the reality of the situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slingerland Posted March 5, 2013 Share Posted March 5, 2013 (edited) John Lennon was neutered? Well, a few others in the group certainly felt that.... Edited March 5, 2013 by Slingerland Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielray Posted March 5, 2013 Share Posted March 5, 2013 FDCI does have a ticket component, but it's much more than that. It ties the member to DCI emotionally. Friends get access lanyards, the opportunity to judge marching-member nominations in several categories, the opportunity to be a part of the awards ceremony, as well as other benefits that the average ticket buyer does not. Yes, I get great seats and get to sit in the same seats year after year, but the emotional tie-in to the activity at its highest level is visceral. Just watch the attendance at the annual Friends breakfast on Finals morning to see it. For me, personally, I have given over $50,000 to drum corps over the last 30 years. All but $2000 of that I've given through DCI, not individual corps, because I made the conscious decision to support all the corps via DCI instead of having to choose my favorite corps to give to each year. I'm sure I'm not alone in that, because I sit with fans every year who've donated just like I have for the exact same reasons. To your point, and in contrary, if DCI eliminated Friends and put those 50 yard line seats up for sale to the general public, I'm positive they'd sell each one of them at the same prices they're now getting. Based on that fact, Friends is not as much a ticket "scheme", or revenue balancer, as it is an emotion tie between the overall activity and some of its most ardent fans. The very reason it exists... at all... is to adjust timing of ticket revenue distribution. It was actually invented for this purpose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu Posted March 5, 2013 Share Posted March 5, 2013 Well, a few others in the group certainly felt that.... "If I were John, and you were Yoko, I would gladly give up musical genius!" - from the Barenaked Ladies song "Be My Yoko Ono" 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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