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Vanguard Cadets Announce Hiatus


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4 minutes ago, Hirsbrunner said:

The macho concept of being “Vanguard” or being “more Vanguard than (insert anything here)” was some of most negative experience I have being around either part of the organization. 

2004 was nearly torturous for this reason alone. We were regularly called "not Vanguard enough" by key staff. No matter who says it or whether it's directed at SCV, VC or staff... it's toxic, just like patch culture. Didn't patch culture originate because the patches also got you a discounts on tour fees? That's what I remember. Go look at Santa Clara Fanguard vlogs on yt, they're practically dripping with it.

6 minutes ago, Hirsbrunner said:

I admired his ability to run the corps properly, and advocate for his members, but in his efforts and the apathy of the organization, the divide continued between them. To some degree why would A corps be willing to work with such an antagonistic attitude (which, again, I acknowledge was probably initially started by the A corps side)?

Similarly the mindset of anti-Texas and out of state membership is destructive to the Cadet Corp’s cause. Drum corps is much long past a regional phase (though I agree there should be increased outreach within the Bay community). Please don’t rope the out-of-state alumni with the administration, we want the Vanguard Cadets to field a healthy summer tour if possible too. 

Thank you for bringing more nuance to this. I've proposed this elsewhere:

SCVC recruitment strategy:

50% or more Bay Area cats or more (largely recruited from the alum who run HS programs)

50% outside

SCV recruitment strategy:

30% SCVC or more

30% other corps/outside of Bay Area

30% vets from previous year

10% misc (I'm happy to be in the misc category, but sure would love to not be "othered" for being a Texan. I was one of so few when I marched, but recognize that it's complex. Are we also not part of the family? Part of the legacy? Worthy of a seat at the table?)

It's also more difficult to ignore Texas like than it seemed to be BITD. There's simply more funding through and through for middle school and high school programs in my home state. It's an logical recruitment hub. But too much Texas anywhere is not good.

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3 minutes ago, scheherazadesghost said:

SCVC recruitment strategy:

50% or more Bay Area cats or more (largely recruited from the alum who run HS programs)

50% outside

SCV recruitment strategy:

30% SCVC or more

30% other corps/outside of Bay Area

30% vets from previous year

10% misc (I'm happy to be in the misc category, but sure would love to not be "othered" for being a Texan. I was one of so few when I marched, but recognize that it's complex. Are we also not part of the family? Part of the legacy? Worthy of a seat at the table?)

It's also more difficult to ignore Texas like than it seemed to be BITD. There's simply more funding through and through for middle school and high school programs in my home state. It's an logical recruitment hub. But too much Texas anywhere is not good.

SCVC has already been like 85% Bay Area / So Cal and 15% elsewhere. An interesting thing to note is that, at least I've been told, BDPA treats every patch the same: BDC, BDB, BDA. If current SCV staff and members flat out refuses to acknowledge SCVC years of experience, we aren't ever going to get any kind of unity or cohesion across the organization. 

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3 minutes ago, scheherazadesghost said:

 

10% misc (I'm happy to be in the misc category, but sure would love to not be "othered" for being a Texan. I was one of so few when I marched, but recognize that it's complex. Are we also not part of the family? Part of the legacy? Worthy of a seat at the table?)

It's not the individual out of state member. Every high level organization has people wanting to travel from out of state to join them (we sent many SCVC percussionists to Blue Knights for example), that's not the issue. 

It's when the organization intentionally moves their recruiting focus and audition camps to an out of state location, and recruit specifically from that out of state location because the caption heads have roots there. It becomes more about those caption heads than the students and the organization as a whole. It's about the systemic shift in organizational recruiting strategy, not any individual member who happens to be out of state. 

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4 minutes ago, TubaPlayer said:

SCVC has already been like 85% Bay Area / So Cal and 15% elsewhere.

Nice, that's excellent to hear. My numbers were based in not knowing this and attempting to reroute low Bay Area numbers. I'd keep it right there in the future. 🙂

4 minutes ago, TubaPlayer said:

An interesting thing to note is that, at least I've been told, BDPA treats every patch the same: BDC, BDB, BDA. If current SCV staff and members flat out refuses to acknowledge SCVC years of experience, we aren't ever going to get any kind of unity or cohesion across the organization. 

Yeah, I hadn't heard of this half-patch BS. Fully agree.

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2 minutes ago, MarimbaManiac said:

It's not the individual out of state member. Every high level organization has people wanting to travel from out of state to join them (we sent many SCVC percussionists to Blue Knights for example), that's not the issue. 

It's when the organization intentionally moves their recruiting focus and audition camps to an out of state location, and recruit specifically from that out of state location because the caption heads have roots there. It becomes more about those caption heads than the students and the organization as a whole. It's about the systemic shift in organizational recruiting strategy, not any individual member who happens to be out of state. 

:babies:

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“Not Vanguard enough..”

my first thought was “my ### #### check was Vanguard enough for you”.

More and more glad I marched in a Senior/All Age corps when I was 16-22. Anyone played mind games got called out real quick 

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1 minute ago, JimF-LowBari said:

“Not Vanguard enough..”

my first thought was “my ### #### check was Vanguard enough for you”.

More and more glad I marched in a Senior/All Age corps when I was 16-22. Anyone played mind games got called out real quick 

It directly contributed to my extreme weight loss from stress and cascaded into middle age with disordered eating. I ate like a horse before drum corps, no dietary limitations.

When a legend told us that on tour, I skipped meals staying behind with them to try and figure out what we were doing wrong. I wasn't even a rookie falling for it. I was a fully cooked vet.

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I have a question, as this information is horrible and does break my heart, as I've seen other Cadet corps fold over the years and it is just horrible to lose another one, even if only for a short time.

I hope this doesn't come across in a negative way, but are a bunch of these problems generational differences in expectations?

I get the sense that there are expectations that aren't being met beyond just health and safety. ...and in many cases health and safety aren't being met either, so not even the baseline is being met.

None of these corps have true, world class budgets. It seems to be that money is barely available for 1 corps in these mega organizations that are trying to be formed.

These organizations are not taxpayer funded. They are not monolithic institutions with unlimited funds. They do not have money to hire a full contingent of full time professionals, nor do they have money to secure the best things or the best sites at all times. This has always been an issue, it seems to me. However, the expectation seems to be that these are Julliards or summer universities with vast resources...  They are simply NOT that.

If we can not spend the required amount of money to have the best administration, we seem to end up with volunteers, predators, incompetents, or just simply not the best people to do things on a world class level.

Now we have 25+ organizations who are expected to fulfill all these lofty expectations, but maybe we don't have that many people who can provide this.  ...so young people have unmet expectations and notions about these corps because they have been MARKETED to over the years that will not be able to be met. It's not realistic on the budgets available in our niche activity.

This particular example just further cements a huge problem in the activity. We have these lofty expectations without the funding or infrastructure to realize those expectations. It's really scary.

I think a bunch of concerns are being communicated and cross communicated and there seems to be a bit of a culture clash between Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y.1, Y.2 ( aka Millennials), Gen Z, and (not quite) Gen A.

I really see the Gen Z or iGeneration as being very outspoken, and they're the current marching generations.

...I'm mentally walking the line between these corps providing a basic experience with good and nutritious food, treating people like humans beings, and with safety and the obviously over criticality of organizations not meeting every person's particular expectations.

These corps are NOT major financial institutions will tens of million dollar revenue streams.

Sorry if I'm being incoherent, as I'm multitasking, but I wanted to share some ideas that are popping into my head. I'm sorry if I'm not addressing the immediate issue here, but I feel a lot of discussion here is related to what I'm think about. 

Anyone want to give me more to thinking about and help all of us try to process and work through?

Edited by jjeffeory
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1 minute ago, jjeffeory said:

I have a question, as this information is horrible and does break my heart, as I've seen other Cadet corps fold over the years and it isn't kind.

I hope this doesn't come across in a negative way, but are a bunch of these problems generational differences in expectations?

I get the sense that there are expectations that aren't being met beyond just health and safety. ...and in many cases health and safety aren't being met.

None of these corps have true, world class budgets. It seems to be that money is barely available for 1 corps.

These organizations are not taxpayer funded. They are not monolithic institutions with unlimited funds. They do not have money to hire a full contingent of full time professionals, nor do they have money to secure the best things or the best sites. This has always been an issue, it seems to me. However, the expectation seems to be that these are Julliards or summer universities with cast resources...

If we can not spend the required amount of money to have the best administration, we seem to end up with volunteers, predators, incompetents, or just simply not the best people to do things on a world class level.

Now we have 25+ organizations who are expected to fulfill all these lofty expectations, but maybe we don't have that many people who can provide this.  ...so young people have unmet expectations and notions about these corps, which they have been sold over the years that will not be able to be met. It's not realistic.

This particular example just further cements a huge problem in the activity. We have these lofty expectations without the funding or infrastructure to realize those expectations. It's really scary.

I think a bunch of concerns are being communicated and cross communicated and there seems to be a bit of a culture clash between Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y.1, Y.2 ( aka Millennials), Gen Z, and (not quite) Gen A.

I really see the Gen Z or iGeneration as being very outspoken, and they're the current marching generations.

...I'm mentally walking the line between these corps providing a basic experience with good and nutritious food, treating people like humans beings, and with safety and the obviously over criticality of organizations not meeting every person's particular expectations.

These corps are NOT major financial institutions will tens of million dollar revenue streams.

Sorry if I'm being incoherent, as I'm multitasking, but I wanted to share some ideas that are popping into my head. I'm sorry if I'm not addressing the immediate issue here, but I feel a lot of discussion here is related to what I'm think about. 

Anyone want to give me more to think about and help all of us try to process and work through?

The housing and food side of things at SCVC before this season had been local family housing. That wasn't part of tour fees or anything but I liked that format. It took the issue of finding housing and food for the entire corps off the shoulders of logistics and admin and volunteers. It also meant that members had a nice cozy bed, whatever food they wanted to get, and was a great bonding experience for the housing "families". In total, I can't say this was more than an additional $500 on top of my tour fees, which were like $2000 at the time. We always ran below the budget (at least that's what we were told). This allowed admin to focus their energy on the actual time we were traveling as a corps. And usually, expectations were far beyond met, both from a budget and experience point of view. I'm not part of the current generation of marching members, but I can see this format working for them.

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