“Failure to Protect”

[George Dixon]

1 minute ago, Bucbari said:

Can we maybe bottom line this discussion?

Is this it?....Is this the end of Drum Corps as we know it?

it's not the end - it's a chance to make a fresh beginning IMO

[LabMaster]

2 hours ago, rpbobcat said:

This all goes back to whether DCI is going to be a governing body or not.

Right now,the structure of DCI,including the make up of the BoD is akin to "the tail wagging the dog".

As I sated a few posts earlier,drum corps need an independent governing body with the authority to 

implement and enforce policies and procedures for all member corps.

 

 

You do know how DCI came about right?  It is not that it is the tail wagging the dog, it’s just the tail was here first and created the dog.  In effect DCI .org works for the corps BoD.  Unless the BoD changes how DCI as and .org functions, little can change.  No matter how much you wish otherwise.

[LabMaster]

2 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

or they can give up touring.

Yup.  That’s an option. That would likely shorten the life of that org though or fundamentally change how they would operate.  

[garfield]

21 hours ago, karuna said:

It boggles the mind that anyone is still defending DCI's CEO in this matter. Anyone even peripherally connected to drum corps knows that everyone knows everyone's business.  To say it's a tight-knit community is an understatement.   To suggest that a former staffer and corps director who now is at the head of the organization had no knowledge of any of this is absurd.

Furthermore to suggest that his hands were tied by the corporate structure is even more reprehensible. If Acheson truly knew nothing, it speaks to willful ignorance.   But no reasonable person can possibly believe that he knew nothing when the entire drum corps community knew at least something.  Heck many DCI fans with no official connection to drum corps knew about many of these things.  

So... did he know about any single case of sexual abuse?  Yes.

Did the board conspire to keep DCI officially powerless to act.  Probably.

Does that relieve the CEO of all responsibility.  No. 

Ultimately all of the participating members (including the victims) were his responsibility.  If the board sought to render him helpless to act,  he had a duty to act,  to report and to protect. This nonsense that he knew nothing is pure fantasy. And this ridiculous notion that he could do nothing with said knowledge is just plain sad.  

Like it or not,  he let this happen on his watch.   And that fact alone makes his removal imperative.  

I'm sorry, I've read this with an open mind several times trying to understand the world you think exists.  

If I could just get you to see that you've created a "reality" about DCI that didn't exist prior to 2018, I think you'd have a breakthrough and take a different position.

The Board Member corps established practices and policies decades ago that stripped DCI  - Dan's office - from all major decisions.  Intentionally, and directly.  I have not seen actual documents, but I've been told by several people in the know that it was, essentially, "...Stay out of it.  Don't do anything except forward it on."  The Board as a whole, or to a director himself, only and largely dependent on the issue.  That was then when policy dictated "escalation" and not, necessarily reporting to law authorities.  Today, you'd be absolutely right in your base connection between these decisions and Dan's office.

But, before 2018, DCI was almost exclusively an event management and promotion non-profit. It's BoD, the directors, picked it clean every, single year so that there was never a fully-funded realistic budget. 

If the policy that Dan was charged to follow was wrong for the day, the fault should be directed at the BoD member corps directors (and minority outside directors).  Dan and his office had no reason to suspect that the policy they were charged with following was NOT being effective at the corps level. There was NO reporting mechanism that went back UP to Dan's office, as I'm told.  And it wasn't a mistake in management, it was intentional.

In today's world, he'd be accountable for acting as you want because they have granted teeth and enforcement ability.

All the participating corps were NOT his "responsibility" in any way you're suggesting!  Please, change this one assumption you've made!  The corps voted that THEY were responsible in the way you're suggesting and specifically stripped all such decision-making from the CEO's role.

Neither Dan A nor his office staff let anything happen as you describe.  There was no reason for them to suspect that the issue was not being handled as planned by the individual corps, and there was no power available to him that didn't risk his career to go outside of the P&P established by the BoD and approved by their counsel.

Now it's different.

Dan may not be up to the task of managing the tour and his office's new role.  Only he and time will tell that.  But I do know for certain the the mountain of recruiting a new CEO, getting him/her up to speed on just the governance is a long process.  Expecting that person to run the tour as successfully as Dan's office apparently has (NO COMPLAINTS - ZERO - ABOUT THE TOUR), forces a debilitating learning curve that will potentially and unnecessarily hobble the activity at the very time that organizational clarity and reliability is critically important.

What you're saying should be done is tantamount to the proverbial baby and the bath water.

[garfield]

2 hours ago, rpbobcat said:

This all goes back to whether DCI is going to be a governing body or not.

Right now,the structure of DCI,including the make up of the BoD is akin to "the tail wagging the dog".

As I sated a few posts earlier,drum corps need an independent governing body with the authority to 

implement and enforce policies and procedures for all member corps.

 

 

This is exactly right - the tail has been wagging the dog since 1972.  Intentionally and directly.

Now it's different.  Thankfully.

[garfield]

15 minutes ago, Bucbari said:

Can we maybe bottom line this discussion?

Is this it?....Is this the end of Drum Corps as we know it?

No, that happened in 1963, 1969, 1974, 1983, 1990, 2000, and 2013, so far.

[garfield]

1 hour ago, George Dixon said:

I agree. Sad but true. Daylight is our friend, in this case.

I don't think the response can be "business as usual" or "business mostly as usual" - personally I feel everything should be on the table. Dan should go. An external review should be conducted and a specialist/consultant hired to help adopt the path forward. DCI / corps relationship & structure may need entirely reworked. The tour model needs a hard look - organizations wishing to do a protracted tour need higher hurdles to top. Perhaps the activity loses minors and becomes an 18-24 or so activity for college/grad students

Clearly things need to change. And in a wholesale manner. If I were a DCI corporate sponsor I would walk unless Dan resigns. JMO

Nope, too much.  Too sweeping and unnecessary.  Destructive for no justification and doesn't preserve talent and relationships that are tangential to the problem yet integral in the successful reincarnation of the Governing Body, which has to come first. Tour Structure, Sponsorship dollars, centralized supervision, purchasing, and much more comes AFTER proper governance and leadership is in place.

Dan's office's value in managing the tour is a key component in the revenue stream that will keep the activity alive in whatever form it takes.  Unless he's directly implicated, it's too valuable a mistake to make to fire him because of what "should have been" back then.

IMO, and I know you're thoughtful about it.

 

[corps8294]

1 hour ago, BRASSO said:

 For context,  The former YEA BOD and and DCI HQ were not about to do anything with George Hopkins. That was going to be buried forever, lets face it. It took an outside media, this reporter, to get the ball rolling to weed out alleged rapists, sexual assaulters, sexual harassers, sexual predators, and their Enablers in DCI.  This reporter ultimately is potentially saving future victims from harm marching in DCI Drum Corps. Critique her perhaps imprecise word usage in sentences, her headlines, etc or anything else minor in her article if critics must. But the big picture here is that she is doing parents and current and future marchers a huge service here with her reporting, imo. THATS the overarching value in what she is doing here, imo.

This is true and more proof as to whom was really calling the shots and "dictating" the activity. It sure the h**l wasn't Dan Acheson. General George was in charge and whatever he wanted, he got. The DCI BOD was afraid of the guy as was the majority of the rest of the activity. 

[Fran Haring]

15 minutes ago, garfield said:

No, that happened in 1963, 1969, 1974, 1983, 1990, 2000, and 2013, so far.

Don't forget 1971. That #### circus production, and also Alice in Wonderland.

A T-shirt from '71 said  "The Year Drum Corps Died."

I think those T-shirt sales died first.  LOL

[IllianaLancerContra]

30 minutes ago, garfield said:

No, that happened in 1963, 1969, 1974, 1983, 1990, 2000, and 2013, so far.

The "deaths" in the years you mentioned were due to 'Creative Differences' on how the activity should evolve (you forgot 1993 btw).

The currently threatened "death" would be  due to criminal actions on the part of some; and criminal negligence on the part of their enabler's (aka the Corps' governing boards, & by extension DCI).