Can the Star of Indiana Model Work.....Again?

[ibexpercussion]

All great points. A thing I thought about as well, is that while yes, many extremely talented young people would be inclined to join such a group, there is one major thing left that would need to be in place besides the on-field talent. STAFF/DESIGN team.

[ajlemm]

"If I were megarich, this is what I would do"

- every DCPer

Yep. I keep hoping to win the lottery. Would LOVE to give all the corps a pile of money!

[t-mac]

Who exactly made up the original staff for Star and what corps did they come from?

[mingusmonk]

Who exactly made up the original staff for Star and what corps did they come from?

Director Jim Mason

Tour Director Moe Latour

Administration Nancy Dreher, David Beck

Equipment Eric Lund

Transportation David Crouch, Bob Lendman

Promotions Jim Stock

Uniforms Michael Cesario (Designer), Kirsten Streib, Carol Brown, Allison Lendman

Orchestrations Larry Kerchner, Dennis DeLucia

Musical Direction John Simpson, Carl Ruocco, Jay Webb, Steve Scully, Jeff Secor, Dave Tippett, Bob Dubinski, Todd Parker, Jonathon Gurney, Bruce McConnell, Jim Jeffries, Jim Miller

Dance Arrangements Ron Perez, Wendy Hicks, Alyssa Cimino

Choreography George Zingali

[ibexpercussion]

Who exactly made up the original staff for Star and what corps did they come from?

Jim Mason

George Zingali (drill writer from the Cadets)

Mark Sylvester (Cadets)

Dennis DeLucia (Bridgemen)

Michael Cesario (Cadets, Phantom, Dutch Boy)

Edited August 15, 2013 by ibexpercussion

[perc2100]

I seem to recall that part of the business model for Star of Indiana was that it obtained a good deal of its funding form the Star bus lines. So a lot of the Star 'start up' money was actually to get the Star bus lines up and running, which then helped fund the corps after that point. Pretty clever.

I thought that while Cook did start for-profit business to help fund the corps, it was quite a while before the businesses actually became profitable/helped direct money to the corps.

The idea of starting a charter bus company is pretty genius, and if I remember correctly there were other organizations that helped Star throughout their years after DCI.

[Farmboy]

I seem to recall that part of the business model for Star of Indiana was that it obtained a good deal of its funding form the Star bus lines. So a lot of the Star 'start up' money was actually to get the Star bus lines up and running, which then helped fund the corps after that point. Pretty clever.

Interestingly, the bus company outlasted the corps. http://www.charterstaramerica.com/charters/history.htm

[Rufus67]

If I recall correctly from a rather extensive article about Mr. Cook, his emphasis was on running the organization as a business with the entire proceeds/profit of that business being sunk back into the running/operation of a drum corps. There were three financial pillars that he set up to make that happen at least a year before they started thinking about putting anything on the field:

• Bingo - called it the "life blood" of drum corps
• As others have mentioned the charter bus service (believe it was more common back then for corps to own their own buses? In any case, needed to do something with them out of season)
• They also operated at least one FBO (i.e., airport)

I think that's the model that would need to be used today in order to replicate the success of Star - start supporting companies first (that may or may not have any direct relation to anything drum corps) and get them successfully generated a steady flow of cash that would then go into operating the corps.

I'll see if I can find a link to the article and post it.

[BDStaffAlum]

OK. So what corps from 2013 are today's 84 Bridgemen? Persistent high-placing finalists. Having won multiple high caption awards at finals. 1 year removed from making finals. With an elite staff.

I don't think any of them meet all of those qualifications. But with both Glassmen and Music City, you would have staffs with experience and a good group of members that will follow them.

[Tekneek]

The Star of Indiana model is a self-sufficient concept. Bill Cook started several companies and had the non-profit entity own them, so the profits went to them. He had business know-how and the connections to get the right people in the right places. Not every person trying to do this is going to be as successful. It's unfortunate that there isn't another wealthy person out there who cares about the marching arts enough to finance the whole operation.

I think the model Bill Cook followed with Star would be a good model for any non-profit operation though. Rather than your goal being to fund raise and seek donations each year, run some profitable businesses that can help sustain your operations.

The Star of Indiana website had some really good pages that went into his philosophy about how to start and run a drum corps. Unfortunately, the site appears to be gone now.

Edited August 16, 2013 by Tekneek