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On 8/10/2020 at 3:20 PM, garfield said:

I haven't seen anyone state yet:  Is there a suspicion that all of this is related to the Fred Morrison issue?

If it's all speculation at this point, I don't really care about it.

This appears to be another venerable org going down; I hope someone has actual first-hand facts.

 

Forgive my ignorance but what is the "Fred Morrison issue"?

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1 hour ago, Bucbari said:

Forgive my ignorance but what is the "Fred Morrison issue"?

2 issues know of - 

1 - Hiring a known (convicted) sex offender 

1a - Hiring someone to remove the sex offender's sex offense info from the web 

2 - Inappropriate comments concerning BLM 

Someone feel free to roll in here if I got something wrong

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1 hour ago, Bucbari said:

Forgive my ignorance but what is the "Fred Morrison issue"?

Fred Morrison is the former executive director of Crossmen. In late 2018 or early 2019, I believe it was, there was a news report about how Morrison (1) had hired an instructor who had previously engaged in inappropriate behavior and (2) had paid a firm to de-optimize that instructor's name for internet search engines so that it was harder for people to learn about his past (I'm not sure how one does that, but I think it's by creating a bunch of bogus content with that person's name and linking to that content everywhere possible so that the real results get buried at the bottom of search engine results). Morrison stepped down during or just after the 2019 season, I think.

However, he then joined the Crossmen board of directors (and reportedly was a notable donor, as he also is said to have been while he was their director). Then in June of this year, he posted an apparently derogatory message on his personal Facebook page about the Black Lives Matter movement. Crossmen's board and leadership felt that message didn't reflect the organization's values and put them in a tough spot (e.g., it's hard to recruit people of color as members, or keep the support of other organizations in your community, when one of your board members issues a public statement like that), so at their request, he left the board.

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5 minutes ago, N.E. Brigand said:

Fred Morrison is the former executive director of Crossmen. In late 2018 or early 2019, I believe it was, there was a news report about how Morrison (1) had hired an instructor who had previously engaged in inappropriate behavior and (2) had paid a firm to de-optimize that instructor's name for internet search engines so that it was harder for people to learn about his past (I'm not sure how one does that, but I think it's by creating a bunch of bogus content with that person's name and linking to that content everywhere possible so that the real results get buried at the bottom of search engine results). Morrison stepped down during or just after the 2019 season, I think.

However, he then joined the Crossmen board of directors (and reportedly was a notable donor, as he also is said to have been while he was their director). Then in June of this year, he posted an apparently derogatory message on his personal Facebook page about the Black Lives Matter movement. Crossmen's board and leadership felt that message didn't reflect the organization's values and put them in a tough spot (e.g., it's hard to recruit people of color as members, or keep the support of other organizations in your community, when one of your board members issues a public statement like that), so at their request, he left the board.

Then there should be no "Fred Morrison issue" at Crossmen anymore, right?

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27 minutes ago, cixelsyd said:

Then there should be no "Fred Morrison issue" at Crossmen anymore, right?

Probably. That he was able to stay around for some months after the news story about hiring someone who shouldn't be working with drum corps (and paying to conceal that person's history) might or might not indicate that there was or is a larger problem with the organization's culture. Think of Cadets, which continued to have a "George Hopkins issue" for a time even after he was no longer with the organization.

As someone who works in a non-profit performing arts organization that has laid off a lot of people this year, my first thought on hearing about staff departures at Crossmen was that it was probably due to financial concerns brought on by the pandemic.

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1 hour ago, cixelsyd said:

Then there should be no "Fred Morrison issue" at Crossmen anymore, right?

well his money brought them to texas

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1 hour ago, N.E. Brigand said:

Probably. That he was able to stay around for some months after the news story about hiring someone who shouldn't be working with drum corps (and paying to conceal that person's history) might or might not indicate that there was or is a larger problem with the organization's culture. Think of Cadets, which continued to have a "George Hopkins issue" for a time even after he was no longer with the organization.

As someone who works in a non-profit performing arts organization that has laid off a lot of people this year, my first thought on hearing about staff departures at Crossmen was that it was probably due to financial concerns brought on by the pandemic.

This is reasonable.

That said, there's been an AWFUL lot of time spent in these forums discussing the depth to which orgs <should> go (in the opinion of the poster) to root out the filth, grunge, and grime that has festered in the activity for decades (exaggeration for effect and sarcasm because, well...).

I would sure hate to think that a 'reasonable' conclusion would lead to missing a bigger, potentially more nefarious set of facts.  And I know you do, too.

Despite my, hopefully obvious, sarcasm, I do seem to recall that the announcement was cloaked in mystery about the "why" so many would depart at the same time.

And it also is reasonable to suspect that the BoD placed them under restrictions upon leaving that will assure we don't know the 'why' for a long time.

 

Edited by garfield
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1 hour ago, N.E. Brigand said:

Probably. That he was able to stay around for some months after the news story about hiring someone who shouldn't be working with drum corps (and paying to conceal that person's history) might or might not indicate that there was or is a larger problem with the organization's culture. Think of Cadets, which continued to have a "George Hopkins issue" for a time even after he was no longer with the organization.

If that is the comparison we are going to make, then to put it in perspective, Cadets had an entire BOD "defending" the "inappropriate behavior" of Hopkins.  I would say that what Cadets had was a George Hopkins issue, combined with about nine Fred Morrison issues.

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15 minutes ago, Jeff Ream said:

well his money brought them to texas

I don't believe that even his current level of giving would either support Crossmen alone or ruin him financially.  Total individual donations in 2019 were about $68,000.  Corporate in-kind donations totaled around $280,000.

Like most corps of Xmen's size, they run pretty much on member dues, a small stipend from DCI, even smaller financial donations, and a litany of in-kind revenue from mostly activity-related suppliers.  (They show an inventory of over $145,000 for drum heads!)  Of the $1.5mm +/- they spent to field 2019's show, about $825m came from member costs (tour fees, camp dues, etc), $350m came from contributions of cash and in-kind donations, and some misc income from events they held added about $150m more. 

They spent all but about $22m of their income in 2019.

In the notes, I see that Morrison has made half-a-dozen or so loans I'm presuming over the years, with the total owed back to Morrison (as of the 2019 filing) approx $150m.

His money may have brought them to Texas, but it's not kept them alive all these years.

My hunch is that, without him and his family, there will be some shoes to fill but, financially, they should be able to compete.  Financial support attributed to FM himself is small, and his relationships with vendors can certainly be groomed so long as they continue to attract members and play in the big sandbox.

 

 

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