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DCI Exposed Again?


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23 minutes ago, Algernon said:

2 questions - did Encorps attend the Open Class meetings in 2019? Did they provide adequate financials to gain approval to be a touring corps? 

No idea. I'm suggesting that what is described in the first post of this thread, is, as garfield says, not the result of malice.

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42 minutes ago, N.E. Brigand said:

Yes, Hanlon's Razor presumably applies here.

"Wait, I thought you were telling Encorps about the new minimum size rule in 2020 that will be confirmed in January. You thought I was telling them? Dang! Better tell them now. Are there any other corps we forgot to inform?"

And, if this fiction is the conversation being imagined by the BoD of Encorps, who haven't heard any confirmation yet about their 2020 prospects, said BoD, as part of learning the proper management functions necessary to run a successful touring product, would demonstrate to DCI their dedication to following through on the myriad details of running such an organization by picking up the phone and pestering someone at DCI until they got the answer they wanted at most, or a firm answer of any sort in the least.  Part of understanding how to interact with DCI is understanding that they have an entire season to produce and one's seeming important issue might just not be on the radar of the home office at the moment.

Sounds like Encorps did that.  It also sounds like they knew it was a big hill to conquer to get to 55 members.  

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1 hour ago, Algernon said:

2 questions - did Encorps attend the Open Class meetings in 2019? Did they provide adequate financials to gain approval to be a touring corps? 

Occam's Razor applies here.  Absolutely Encorps attended and surely they showed financials that showed promise based on attaining a minimum of 55 members.

Until Encorps or DCI says otherwise, I'm going to believe that Encorps was at every meeting and was fully prepared with pro-forma numbers.  It's unfortunate that sometimes pro-forma numbers end up being fiction and nothing more.

Edited by garfield
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3 hours ago, wolfgang said:

I mentioned Academie Musicale '90 and Boston '83 to point out the irony of two top 25 corps (in an era with lots more total corps than 2020) that would not even be allowed to see the field today.

The 2000 16th place Pioneer was teeny. I would guess under 80 members, maybe way less. 

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4 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

anything 1983 has no bearing on this

And Happy New Year to you.  A reference was made to Boston and I thought I connected it to the discussion which had a relationship to corps size.  I apologize it did not achieve a sufficient relevance for you.  

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57 minutes ago, LabMaster said:

And Happy New Year to you.  A reference was made to Boston and I thought I connected it to the discussion which had a relationship to corps size.  I apologize it did not achieve a sufficient relevance for you.  

I thought the reference to history was valid.

As I recall, BAC’s legal issue with using the moniker  “Boston Crusaders” had to do with bankruptcy ... but I may be wrong. But yeah, BAC was quite small back then and they have bounced back with a vengeance despite great odds. 

Edited by Jurassic Lancer
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5 hours ago, garfield said:

And, if this fiction is the conversation being imagined by the BoD of Encorps, who haven't heard any confirmation yet about their 2020 prospects, said BoD, as part of learning the proper management functions necessary to run a successful touring product, would demonstrate to DCI their dedication to following through on the myriad details of running such an organization by picking up the phone and pestering someone at DCI until they got the answer they wanted at most, or a firm answer of any sort in the least.  Part of understanding how to interact with DCI is understanding that they have an entire season to produce and one's seeming important issue might just not be on the radar of the home office at the moment.

Sounds like Encorps did that.  It also sounds like they knew it was a big hill to conquer to get to 55 members.  

I can't tell from your post: are you saying that Encorps did, or did not, do enough in a timely fashion to determine their status for 2020?

In this case, what you dismiss as "one's seeming important issue" and just one of "myriad details" for DCI amounted to an existential issue for this corps. And the clear impression of the statement from Encorps' board, quoted in full in the first post of this thread, is that the board feels they were jerked around by DCI. (Again, I'm not saying DCI was doing this intentionally.) Now, it's possible that Encorps' board is lying. But you haven't said that. And if they're not lying, then it appears that DCI made a rule change and didn't bother telling at least one of the corps who would be most affected by it until they were well into planning for 2020.

It's hard to come up with another issue that might affect some corps more than others like this, but here's a hypothetical:

Suppose in the spirit of inclusiveness, DCI's member corps had decided this fall that all corps had to be at least 40% co-ed next year. But due to some scheduling quirk, Cavaliers' director wasn't at the meeting where this was discussed. Say: there was a death in his family and he had to skip the meeting at the last minute. And nobody bothered to tell him for another six weeks or so about this crucial change, by which time Cavs had conducted a bunch of auditions with no women present. Finally he starts to gather from conversations with other directors that he's got a problem, and so he calls up Dan Acheson for confirmation, and Dan says: "That's right: without at least 60 women in the corps, you won't be allowed to compete in DCI next year. Sorry we forgot to send you the memo, but I'm sure you can handle this requirement."

Now in that case, Cavaliers perhaps have the willingness from their board to approve this change and the resources to do some late recruiting. But the pool of top female membership, who might have been very willing to be part of the newly coeducational green machine, has already gotten offers from other corps. And with a corps 40% composed of much rawer talent, Cavs drop out of Finals next year, with all the short- and long-term disadvantages that such a slip confers, including financial ramifications.

Again, it wasn't malice. It was just a mistake. But I'm trying to imagine you passing it off as no big deal, as you seem to be doing regarding Encorps' situation.

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Well last few pages have fallen into the “well this is what happened” but no clue if the poster was there or not.... so no idea of reading facts or fantasy...

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4 hours ago, N.E. Brigand said:

I can't tell from your post: are you saying that Encorps did, or did not, do enough in a timely fashion to determine their status for 2020?

In this case, what you dismiss as "one's seeming important issue" and just one of "myriad details" for DCI amounted to an existential issue for this corps. And the clear impression of the statement from Encorps' board, quoted in full in the first post of this thread, is that the board feels they were jerked around by DCI. (Again, I'm not saying DCI was doing this intentionally.) Now, it's possible that Encorps' board is lying. But you haven't said that. And if they're not lying, then it appears that DCI made a rule change and didn't bother telling at least one of the corps who would be most affected by it until they were well into planning for 2020.

It's hard to come up with another issue that might affect some corps more than others like this, but here's a hypothetical:

Suppose in the spirit of inclusiveness, DCI's member corps had decided this fall that all corps had to be at least 40% co-ed next year. But due to some scheduling quirk, Cavaliers' director wasn't at the meeting where this was discussed. Say: there was a death in his family and he had to skip the meeting at the last minute. And nobody bothered to tell him for another six weeks or so about this crucial change, by which time Cavs had conducted a bunch of auditions with no women present. Finally he starts to gather from conversations with other directors that he's got a problem, and so he calls up Dan Acheson for confirmation, and Dan says: "That's right: without at least 60 women in the corps, you won't be allowed to compete in DCI next year. Sorry we forgot to send you the memo, but I'm sure you can handle this requirement."

Now in that case, Cavaliers perhaps have the willingness from their board to approve this change and the resources to do some late recruiting. But the pool of top female membership, who might have been very willing to be part of the newly coeducational green machine, has already gotten offers from other corps. And with a corps 40% composed of much rawer talent, Cavs drop out of Finals next year, with all the short- and long-term disadvantages that such a slip confers, including financial ramifications.

Again, it wasn't malice. It was just a mistake. But I'm trying to imagine you passing it off as no big deal, as you seem to be doing regarding Encorps' situation.

Obviously, I don't know exactly what was or wasn't done by Encorps' BoD.  What I am saying is that it is THEIR responsibility, not DCI's, to assure they get their answer.  They are invited to apply for participation; it's not DCI's responsibility to drag them through the process.  That is part of their demonstration of their ability to handle the myriad details required to assure they can travel down the road without constant surveillance while assuring the safety of their participants (not DCI's "myriad", as I think you misread).

Your comparison to your fictitious Cavaliers story is invalid because 1. you presumed that DCI created, discussed, and passed a very significant rule change without ever involving Cavies in any pre-vote discussion, and 2. not one of the voting membership ever thought to contact an obviously-missing WC participant, and 3. the Cavies director never told anyone on his Board that he was going to miss the meeting and, if he did, 4. the Cavies BoD ignored the VOTING meeting that would affect them directly regardless of the issue being discussed, and 5. that the Chair of the DCI BoD would allow a vote while acknowledging at the same table that one of two (now, the ONLY) actual constituent (and a VOTING member) that would be most-directly affected by this action is missing from the table.  Five massive presumptions that don't parallel anything in the Encorps case except your insistence that responsibility lies with DCI in both cases and that, in both cases, equal attention by DCI is warranted.  

Last I checked, DCI employs an OC coordinator (named Dave who lives not far from you) who, from my own experience, is highly qualified and attentive to the groups seeking qualification to perform on the WC stage.  Do you presume some mistake was made by him, too, or that all culpability lies with the ED's office?  Occam applies here, too.  

I agree, and Thank You, for highlighting that it wasn't malice and it was most-likely a mistake.  You take from the evidence that DCI dropped the ball and failed one of their "constituents".  I take the position that, if one is serious about earning admission to their dance, one should be diligent in demonstrating the ability and willingness to take ultimate responsibility instead of laying it off on someone else.  Again, DCI owes Encorps nothing at all.

I also don't assign equal weight to DCI's responsibility to notify because I don't see Encorps as being even a constituent corps, let alone one to be called a Member of DCI.  If the DCI ED treated an actual constituent as your fictional story describes, I would suggest that Cavies have every right to enter a formal complaint, present it to the Board and demand action and accountability for the DCI's ignorance of a founding member of the association.  Presumably, that would be right before Cavies BoD chastises the director for skipping a voting meeting without telling anyone, and also right before the BoD chastises ITSELF for not assuring that more than one person is scheduled to attend the event, even if one of them is just a proxy, when votes will be cast that affect their operations.  At least in that regard, both organizations are expected to be the same.

 

 

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I take a different view on matters like the present Encorps situation.  Encorps, and any similar performing group, has a Right to be unhappy with any action/decision under the control of DCI management.  No problem. Encorps can either adjust and conform, or move along, outside any specifications set by DCI.  Encorps is even free to band together with other like-minded groups and act within a different set of parameters that are within easier reach.

DCI can never be all things to all people. Why would we expect that?

New, and more stringent restrictions on participation within DCI, I believe, are an effort by DCI management to “downsize,” so to speak. To guard against spreading itself too thin in dealing with what seems to be a growing list of new challenges it faces. To bring together a smaller point of focus, shore-up it’s ability by handling fewer conflicts, and to not over-extend itself.

If the management of DCI has a goal of becoming stronger through a different set of standards . . . . it’s their call.  Even if this means part of its Brand displays fewer product choices.

 

 




 

 

 

 

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