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Has this ever happened in DCI history?


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44 minutes ago, BigW said:

About the only way to avoid the problem is to cross the border with an empty trailer and make a pickup of what's to go inside it with things already purchased here in the US waiting for it somewhere. A definite PITA.:blink:

The next year the Corps ensured that all of the souvenirs were made in North America prior to going to the States, which was still a PITA. Things are getting worse, as DCI can only ship media products to an American address, which is preventing me from purchasing my beloved DCI finals DVD's.

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9 minutes ago, Opti-Burr said:

Personally, I stopped going to the US over 10 years ago because every time I went there, the American Customs Officer left me with the feeling that I wasn't welcome.

 

He made us feel that way and we’re citizens! 

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3 hours ago, Opti-Burr said:

Twenty years ago I  volunteered for a Canadian Drum Corps, looking after selling souvenirs. I was driving a van, pulling the souvenir trailer and when we got to the boarder, they pulled me into the secondary inspection garage, as they wanted to see what was in the trailer. They went though everything, item by item, and separated out everything that wasn't made in North America. These items they loaded back into the trailer and told us that those were the things that weren't aloud in the country. We loading the remaining items onto the buses, which continued on to our first destination, while I went back to Canada to the parents of one of the kids, who agreed to store these items in their basement. After offloading the trailer into their house, I drove back to the border, were I encountered the same Customs Officer who wanted to look into the trailer again to ensure that it was indeed empty before allowing me entry. This was WAY more than a ontime inconvenience, as now we only had around half of the stuff to sell, which the Corps relied on the feed the kids. With how tough it is to enter the US today, it must be a major nightmare for a Canadian Corps to entry the States.

The Garfield Cadets once spent 4 hours at the border after midnight with all their possessions from buses, vans, food truck, and equipment vehicle (anything with a corps logo) opened and splayed out on the pavement. Although each bus had an adult aboard with the all the passports for each bus' occupants, the Customs agent came aboard and woke up a sleeping mm. The interview went like this:  "Huh?"  "Where were you born?" "In a hospital."  "Everyone off the bus and open everything you own for official inspection."  For a nice touch, the Border patrol repeated it all in French. Canada was evidently still furious the Islanders won the Stanley Cup those years of '81 & '82  (plus two others.)

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20 minutes ago, xandandl said:

The Garfield Cadets once spent 4 hours at the border after midnight with all their possessions from buses, vans, food truck, and equipment vehicle (anything with a corps logo) opened and splayed out on the pavement. Although each bus had an adult aboard with the all the passports for each bus' occupants, the Customs agent came aboard and woke up a sleeping mm. The interview went like this:  "Huh?"  "Where were you born?" "In a hospital."  "Everyone off the bus and open everything you own for official inspection."  For a nice touch, the Border patrol repeated it all in French. Canada was evidently still furious the Islanders won the Stanley Cup those years of '81 & '82  (plus two others.)

That's a great story, and I'm sure you're right about the hockey. lol We had a 3 hour delay that time, and for me, what should have been a 4 hour drive ended up taking 10 hours.

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It was 1975. Our corps took a trip to watch DCI finals in Philadelphia. Our director made it happen. Many thanks to him. When traveling we always took the Niagara route around Lake Ontario except in 1975 we took the Philadelphia to Kingston route. I had hugging Madison Scouts members on my mind when border patrol decided to inspect our buses in the early morning. Every horn case, drum case and luggage had to be removed and repacked at the border. The Great Lakes are big and wide. Always take the same border crossing so patrol know who you are. We figured Kingston crossing had a daily inspection quota and they met their daily quota by 7:00 am. with 2 buses full of sleeping kids. lol good times

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 5/9/2018 at 12:43 AM, Jeff Ream said:

and music programs in canadian schools aren't what they once were.

That's for sure!!!  While I can't talk for the entire province of Quebec, in and around town here, I see a decrease of approx. -75% of the music programs in about every school since the time when I started to visit them for recruitment purpose in 1993 (25 years). 

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On 5/9/2018 at 2:25 PM, BigW said:

If you want to discuss the health of the activity in Canada, there's a few things in the equation that hurt it badly.

1: The lack of strong instrumental music education programs in Canadian schools. BITD when Corps members were trained pretty much through drum corps alone, Canadian corps did very well. As DCI corps began to go older with more well educated members in brass and percussion, the Canadian corps began to slide. Interestingly enough, Ontario and Quebec still seem to have solid Indoor guard circuits and teams.

 

2: Deaths/declines of the local support circuits (ODCA and FAMQ) didn't help. Quebec's location in particular made it an outlier. It was a major effort to tour South of the border. Tough enough to get to Montreal from here let alone Ville d'Quebec, Jonquiere, or the Saguenay area.

 

3: The intense competition in Quebec for a lot of the same kids caused corps to eat each other alive. I can direct you to a rather interesting article in English on that if one is so inclined.

 

4: The activity outgrew a lot of the traditional sponsors (Lions Clubs, Optimists, The Patros (Tim K might know about those!) Scouting et al) to manage the corps and pay their bills.

 

It's a real shame Les Stentors evidently aren't coming down this year. I think it's been bad for the activity in general to lose any of the Canadian corps, in particular the ones from Quebec. Why? Maybe it's because they were so separated by language, culture, and geography, but they were a real source of different approaches to the activity, and they brought with them amazing, original, and brilliant ideas in design that opened a lot of eyes and were a heckuva lot of fun to watch and listen to regardless of where they placed. There's a lot of stuff and shenanigans from the old days I frankly don't miss. The corps from Canada, I do miss.

Great post BigW!   I agree with a lot of it. 

Quebec indeed have a great indoor season with a lot of winter guard and a rapidly growing drumline circuit. We went from 1 show (drumline) about 3-4 years ago with 3-4 drumline (+ competing team from Ontario) to a 3 shows season and a championship of approx 15 drumline a few weeks ago. 

FAMQ still run a two days happening with the summer unit from all horizon in 2 differents cities. The Stentors started it in 2011 if my memory serve me well.  FAMQ co-organise it now with whoever is the corps sponsor.  We try to move from city to city every few years to give everyone the opportunity to shine home! 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

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On 5/10/2018 at 9:09 AM, Tim K said:

You’re correct. At the 2016 show in Manchester, one of the volunteers of Les Stentors told me about the difficulties tossing the border. The bus had to be inspected, each bag was inspected, each instrument case had to be opened, and the kids had to stand outside the bus while it happened. They arrived in time for the show, but a torrential rain storm that delayed the start time also took away valuable warm up time.

Border story are always exagerated... probably because it make for a more spectacular story to tell!!!  

To my knowledge, the Stentors never had any trouble crossing eitheir way.  Time have changed.  So yes, we now need passport (16 years old and over) and yes we all need to get down the bus, get inside the office for a passport scan which take about 30 secondes each (3-4 officers a the same time to proceed everyone). 

We categorize as "difficult" when an officer ask 3-4 questions, or a kid forget his passport home, or when they look inside the kitchen trailer.  All in all, it takes between 15 and 30 minutes everytime for the entire corps.   It actualy take way more than that in any airport of the world.  But we still make stories... and they get exagerated a lot while traveling in the stands. 

Now we sometime wait in car lane for an hour before reaching the bus exit to custom.  That is another story. 

Of course, as an organizer, there is a major stress as there is not much we can do if somebody wants to be a j.... to us.  We do bring food... the entire tour food (1 month) accross the border and follow all the direction the border office provide on their website. 

We do have refugee now in the corps as well as a lot of people with foreign origin. That makes it a bit harder on paper work prior to crossing. 

And... sometime... an officer (who's having a gun) is having a bad day and enjoy to play tough on a 13 years old, 85 pound kids who doesn't speak english. That is sad and always become a legend!  But it wouln'd refrain the corps to enter USA.  It is just sad that somebody feel the needs to show their power to well behave and polite kids who is already quiet and shy to be in there. 

Edited by Gabe92
typo
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On 5/10/2018 at 3:24 PM, Opti-Burr said:

The next year the Corps ensured that all of the souvenirs were made in North America prior to going to the States, which was still a PITA. Things are getting worse, as DCI can only ship media products to an American address, which is preventing me from purchasing my beloved DCI finals DVD's.

Can you make arrangements with someone you know in the U.S. to buy the DVDs and then send them to you?

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On 5/10/2018 at 1:18 PM, Terri Schehr said:

We drove into Canada through Niagara Falls a couple of years ago.  The border guard going in was pretty laid back.  Going back into the US...that guy was pretty snarly and all business. 

Driving to Newfoundland three years ago (well, to the Newfoundland ferry in Nova Scotia), we got some strange questions from the Canadian border guards crossing from Maine into New Brunswick. Among other things, they asked where in New York we'd acquired our car (with its Ohio plates). Then we realized what was up: there'd been a jail break in New York a few days earlier, and the two convicts, fairly close in age to ourselves, were rumored to be heading for Canada.

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