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Madison Scouts now officially co-ed


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1 hour ago, MikeD said:

With the angst being generated here, you would think they are becoming the Madison Bon Bons.  (yes, I am old!).

the guys legs will be too hairy

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2 minutes ago, seen-it-all said:

Several years ago, some old marching buddies and I sat around at Allentown talking about old times and the subject of the corps we marched in possibly altering or eliminating certain traditions came up. As one would expect, there were various opinions expressed and the debate was lively.

When the topic of them possibly eliminating what we considered to be a extremely important tradition, we all sort of agreed that, "It'll never happen. The alumni would never stand for it."
As the years went on and I was teaching that same corps, I had plenty of conversations with board members and the director about all of this, and their perspective was enlightening to say the least. A perspective we rarely hear about on boards like this.

Firstly, there was indeed a very vocal portion of our alumni base who expressed their concerns about all of these changes. Which was fine. The admin was actively seeking input as they gathered information and considered their decisions, which took a lot of time. But it was the way that many of these vocal alumni expressed those concerns that really undercut their position in a big way. When you're the director or administrator of a corps and you spend countless hours/months/years working your tail off only to be basically yelled at by alumni, telling you how incompetent you are, how you're destroying the corps and sh**ting on everything that came before (in addition to other despicably vile personal insults and physical threats that cannot be printed here), you start to wonder, why are we trying to bend over backwards to please these people?

In addition, I was shown internal records being kept which indicated that a large portion of the most vocal alumni had not only never donated a single dime to the corps, but had never even volunteered to help out when the corps needed help. To be clear, this wasn't ALL the alumni, or even all the alumni voicing their concerns. But it did include many of the most vocal and combative alums. I found that to be extremely telling.

In the end, over several years, many of the traditions were updated to better reflect the times, some were (thankfully) eliminated, and the admin was pleased to know that the overall support from alumni about these changes was much larger than the dissent. And while the corps still reaches out to their alumni and can count on a certain amount of yearly contributions from them which is considerable, they also view some of the alumni as occasionally being part of the problem. The ones who don't contribute anything other than negativity, invective, and who honestly believe that the best course of action is to go back 20-30 years and do it exactly the same way they did it back then. Which simply makes no sense in 2019.

Just some two cents from somebody who never marched in the Scouts and really doesn't have any horse in this race.

I know one who would do anything for the corps whenever possible, and was rarely vocal in any criticisms, and per his facebook page today, hes done with the corps. the appeal to him was The Brotherhood...the Mighty Men of Madison. He could have stayed home, done 3 good corps within 2/3 hours of home and possibly even won it all...but he cose Madison because they were Madison. I am sure there are many more. 

 

Adding females will NOT solve the serious issues with design and instruction. if they didn't have Chuck this year, I'd be guessing 18th place. Wait isn't this the administration that announced a college kid being the arranger, then bailed within weeks/months? 

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I keeping hearing words like brotherhood and fraternity.  But if the people using these terms were to make a list of all the values they associate with those concepts, I wonder how many of those values would really be specific to having a particular anatomical configuration.  

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1 hour ago, Jeff Ream said:

I know one who would do anything for the corps whenever possible, and was rarely vocal in any criticisms, and per his facebook page today, hes done with the corps. the appeal to him was The Brotherhood...the Mighty Men of Madison. He could have stayed home, done 3 good corps within 2/3 hours of home and possibly even won it all...but he cose Madison because they were Madison. I am sure there are many more. 

 

Adding females will NOT solve the serious issues with design and instruction. if they didn't have Chuck this year, I'd be guessing 18th place. Wait isn't this the administration that announced a college kid being the arranger, then bailed within weeks/months? 

The Scouts have Chuck and are ranked 17th. Did the Scouts  announce a college kid as their arranger and then fire him???

Edited by FlamMan
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6 minutes ago, skevinp said:

I keeping hearing words like brotherhood and fraternity.  But if the people using these terms were to make a list of all the values they associate with those concepts, I wonder how many of those values would really be specific to having a particular anatomical configuration.  

I've often used the word camaraderie when reminiscing years drum corps and winter guard. Thanks for your insightful and poignant posts. He, she, we can equate to whee.

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2 hours ago, FlamMan said:

Exactly right. It's a self preservation move by the BOD and CK. If they were to fire CK now, just imagine all of the people who would flip out over the firing of someone who replaced a misogynistic, chauvinistic and sexist membership policy with an inclusive, diverse and woke policy. 

So the policy change was solely the director's decision and not also that of the board?

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Today I received the routine DCI email blast with all the latest news.  Of course the top story is celebrating the Scouts going co-ed.  I find it ironic that- in the same email blast- there is a story celebrating Crossmen's all female guard.  Why when it is male brotherhood/camaraderie it is bad/toxic but if female it is celebrated?  I have no problem with Crossmen's guard being all female, I just feel that it should be able to work both ways.  Why can't it be empowering and inspiring for young men to share the field together in brotherhood?  From today's story:

“There’s something magical about the feeling of an all-female guard,” said Lydia Marshall, head drum major of the Crossmen. “When it clicks in DCI, it is one of the most empowering and inspiring things that you can see. It is absolutely incredible to share the field with those ladies and be in the show with them.”

For the record I marched in a co-ed corps and feel gender absolutely makes no difference to one's ability to perform in drum corps.  I couldn't imagine my corps being anything but co-ed.  That said, I don't understand why all-male things are immediately deemed negative but all-female celebrated.  If people want an all-male or all-female experience I don't have a problem with that.  

Edited by Guitar1974
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58 minutes ago, skevinp said:

So the policy change was solely the director's decision and not also that of the board?

Reading and comprehension is a skill.

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42 minutes ago, Guitar1974 said:

Today I received the routine DCI email blast with all the latest news.  Of course the top story is celebrating the Scouts going co-ed.  I find it ironic that- in the same email blast- there is a story celebrating Crossmen's all female guard.  Why when it is male brotherhood/camaraderie it is bad/toxic but if female it is celebrated?  I have no problem with Crossmen's guard being all female, I just feel that it should be able to work both ways.  Why can't it be empowering and inspiring for young men to share the field together in brotherhood?  From today's story:

“There’s something magical about the feeling of an all-female guard,” said Lydia Marshall, head drum major of the Crossmen. “When it clicks in DCI, it is one of the most empowering and inspiring things that you can see. It is absolutely incredible to share the field with those ladies and be in the show with them.”

For the record I marched in a co-ed corps and feel gender absolutely makes no difference to one's ability to perform in drum corps.  I couldn't imagine my corps being anything but co-ed.  That said, I don't understand why all-male things are immediately deemed negative but all-female celebrated.  If people want an all-male or all-female experience I don't have a problem with that.  

Such is life in 2019.

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37 minutes ago, FlamMan said:

Reading and comprehension is a skill.

I know the announcement said it was a board approved decision.  However, I thought the "they" in your "if they were to fire CK now" meant the board, since I assume the board would be who would do that.  

But maybe you meant the alumni or someone else.  Because if you meant the board, I don't know why anyone would blame them for firing the guy who made the policy change since they themselves approved the policy change.  

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