A NEW CORPS

[fep211]

Coming from a college marching band that is student-run (the famous/infamous factor depends on the year), I wish you guys the best of luck. You need to be really organized, and really passionate. What you most need to be is able to inspire that level of passion in everyone in the organization. Not an easy road to establish, but its definitely doable (considering we only practiced 4-8 hours a week, and learned a new show for every home game).

[bill]

I am the director/founder of the light brigade drum and bugle corps, a new corps that is just starting up in the DCI finals state of Indiana. as of right now we do not have very many members and are not officially a DCA corps. for the 2014 season we are just planning to march in the small drum corps association so we can raise our funding and membership. I would like anyone in the state of Indiana or the surrounding states to take a look at our website and strongly consider joining.

sites.google.com/site/42lightbrigade/ (you may have to copy and paste url)

we are an ALL AGE corps for the time being until the corps is strong enough to handle a full tour then we will make a decision as to whether or not to be DCA or DCI.

Go for it!! Best of luck!!!

[BigW]

I don't have time to totally dissect this, but there are some red flags- wasn't there a similar move a couple of years ago by someone in this region to start something up and was found to be a HS student? This sounds too familiar in certain aspects.

I am familiar with the FFA model, growing up in rural PA and teaching in upstate NY. Gone unsaid in the comments was that from my observation, the well-run FFA chapters had an incredibly talented, extremely professional, top-notch vo-ag educator that guided and advised that program.

At WCU we had the student Field Operations Council, I believe it was dismantled later. It worked well, BUT-- the members of the FOC, including myself, all had several seasons of experience in DCA and DCI units, being taught by incredible educators. We were ready to go, we had been trained to teach. You want names, I can provide them as to who was on that FOC with me. Great people. The point was that we had experience as performers.

Another point is this: Most corps now sell the educational experience and professional, knowledgeable staff as a reason to be there. No one wants to be used as guinea pigs. Usually staff learns the hard way apprenticing with a HS program first or by getting an education degree.

John is right- Sound Sport is a better option. Haven't heard beans about SDCA for some time on DCP. Have there been any SDCA organizations who are or have moved on and grown? Seems like there is talk, a lot of talk, a lot of this and that but no real growth or results I know of. It could be that they're not promoting themselves as well as they should- or- nothing much is happening.

I have to run to work, but I'll discuss the final red flag later. I'm not sure whether I should be insulted, amused, bemused, entertained, or a combination of all the above in regards to that issue.

[N.E. Brigand]

Haven't heard beans about SDCA for some time on DCP.

There were four SDCA threads posted to the DCA forum in January, none getting much response, unlike the SDCA vs Soundsport thread in the DCI forum.

[BigW]

Thanks for that link. Seems SDCA has some issues in getting their message out....

[BigW]

Coming from a college marching band that is student-run (the famous/infamous factor depends on the year), I wish you guys the best of luck. You need to be really organized, and really passionate. What you most need to be is able to inspire that level of passion in everyone in the organization. Not an easy road to establish, but its definitely doable (considering we only practiced 4-8 hours a week, and learned a new show for every home game).

That could be a whole topic of discussion in and of itself when considering the Stanford Marching Unit Technicans et al.

[BigW]

"the corps being ran by (for lack of better words) "grown ups" that have no idea what they are doing"

Yeah- there have been cases of that, and they don't last long.

The wording of the entire statement makes me think Peter Pan wrote it.

Corps that ARE successful ARE ran by "grownups" (age irrelevant, maturity counts here) who DO know what they are doing.

What's the business plan? That's the main issue. Corps who fail in general don't have a solid plan in place to ensure long term viability.

Also, if you want sponsors, I'd think they'd want to see those kinds of things in place with responsible, knowledgeable people taking care of it.

And I'm a smart enough "grown-up" to tell you I don't have an answer in that area. I'm smart enough that if I wanted to start an organization, I'd find people who were able to do just that for the corps. I'd make sure the right people were taking care of the business end and doing it well.

Most corps fall into problems when they're ran entirely by, to be blunt,... people like me, people who have the skills to take care of the creative and on field/educational issues, but aren't skilled at making sure the corps has reliable transportation, the staff is paid, the equipment is in good repair and well maintained, there's lunch and dinner ready after and during practice and the money is there to cover it and cover any possible and well, likely emergencies. It doesn't matter how cool the show is, how talented the kids and staff are if you end up broke halfway through the season. Sometimes, being "grown up" is knowing your strengths and weaknesses, knowing how to delegate authority to the right people because you might not be skilled at a certain aspect or aspects of running a corps and you'd be crazy and delusional if you thought you were, and understanding there's more to this than an initial concept and idea.

[contra111]

LOL, I think you all are being duped! I bet this was the scenario, a couple guys got cut from a DCI corps last year or didn't make the cut this year at the Cavies, Scouts, Bluecoats, Colts...you pick the corps. Got hammered one night, say, February 5th around 9:30 to 10:30, bemoaning the fact that "if we RAN things it would be different". I can just imagine the wild things they came up with that didn't make it to their "website" or in this thread's initial post. Notice the time stamp on the initial post. C'mon guys, getting drunk on a Wednesday night when you have school the next morning, tsk tsk. Hope you weren't late for homeroom. If you do get this off the ground, maybe you should change your name to "THE LITTLE RASCALS DRUM & BUGLE CORPS". Sorry for being a skeptic, it just doesn't add up. If you do get this going and you are able to go into a second season, I will gladly make a donation to your organization.

[BigW]

I don't have time to totally dissect this, but there are some red flags- wasn't there a similar move a couple of years ago by someone in this region to start something up and was found to be a HS student? This sounds too familiar in certain aspects.

I did notice.

I do think it's that kid from a couple of years ago.

[naterb27]

sorry I have not posted on this again I haven't had much time lately. as far as the grammar errors go I made the version of the website you have been discussing at about 3 am and I didn't do a very good job of checking it. the whole "grown ups" thing was very poor wording on my part. what I meant by it was some big suit from a corporation or non-for-profit that would just want to take over, or someone who no one knows anything about.

the problem is I was a member of a corps last year that was just starting up we didn't have very many members and we didn't know exactly what we were doing as members. almost all of the corps activities were handled by somebody who just moved to a nearby town, no one knew anything about him but we trusted him because he was supposedly working with the local high schools to get members and figured that the ymca he was running the corps from had surely done a background check on him. well then a perspective member paid for a background check. well it turned out he was wanted for statutory rape in Tennessee. I feel like this problem can be avoided by making sure the corps is run by its members.

for the record I will admit that I am a high school kid, that happened to get cut from phantom this year, but I have wanted to start up a corps around here for quite some time not just because I was cut. I do remember some posts on indianamarching.com about a high school kid starting a corps and it being a huge scam, but it was not me. if I remember the posts right I wasn't even in high school when that happened.

I posted the link to the corps website so that I can try to get some members to join. this whole corps idea is my senior project and people at my school love the idea behind it but many of them are not free this summer to march. I talked to the guy from sdca and he said he has seen groups as little as 5 people perform at these shows, if that's all this corps ends up being is 5 people I can be fine with that but I am going to try my best to get more than that.

please forgive my probably horrible grammar in this post but I am not that great at using proper English especially in forum posts

If you still don't like the idea behind this then I would prefer if you don't keep posting on here to try to change my mind. if you don't like it just ignore it. its that simple.