Per the California Attorney General Vanguard is operating illegally as a non profit

[scheherazadesghost]

Many of the alum I'm still close to worked jobs to pay for drum corps fees instead of going to college or the military. They had no familial financial support, worked more bingos than were required by a lot, and had tour jobs like loading busses or painting fields.

They were the best of us. And the rest of us with more means were lucky we got to spend a summer with them. The whole corps and org was better for including them.

I hate that money is now keeping people out more. My partner wanted to march BITD but couldn't afford it. He would've gone to Bluecoats if only because they were the sole corps holding Texas auditions then.

He ended up with a BA in music ed and advanced degree in sonic arts. I also saved money (and my health) by not marching my final two years and eventually earned an advanced degree in dance which allows me to teach the subject (and others) in higher education.

I would have loved not having to choose one over the other.

Edited May 9, 2023 by scheherazadesghost

[GUARDLING]

40 minutes ago, scheherazadesghost said:

Many of the alum I'm still close to worked jobs to pay for drum corps fees instead of going to college or the military. They had no familial financial support, worked more bingos than were required by a lot, and had tour jobs like loading busses or painting fields.

They were the best of us. And the rest of us with more means were lucky we got to spend a summer with them. The whole corps and org was better for including them.

I hate that money is now keeping people out more. My partner wanted to march BITD but couldn't afford it. He would've gone to Bluecoats if only because they were the sole corps holding Texas auditions then.

He ended up with a BA in music ed and advanced degree in sonic arts. I also saved money (and my health) by not marching my final two years and eventually earned an advanced degree in dance which allows me to teach the subject (and others) in higher education.

I would have loved not having to choose one over the other.

One has to respect a young person who makes a choice and follows through with it, one way or another. I have seen way to many times corps and winter programs with many feeling because of their talent that they are entitled to march , summer or winter. I have seen programs go down in flames because of this. Now the program is also at fault because of many reasons also including searching for those bodies and some good hearted programs who want to help and often get burned in the long run.

Personally , and JMO I have wanted those who were also great talents turn down a contract because they decided something else was more important OR they knew they could never financially support their desire. Now did I like it? No! but have to respect a young person who realizes maybe they can't do everything and hard choices have to be made. Life lessons Also huge respect for those ( like you said )who found ways to WORK for what they wanted🙂

Edited May 9, 2023 by GUARDLING

[Jeff Ream]

12 hours ago, Terri Schehr said:

It seems like everyone gives that subject a wide berth. 

until someone goes public with anything it'll stay that way for fear of legal actions

[Jurassic Lancer]

On 5/8/2023 at 5:10 PM, Richard Lesher said:

That's exactly what more than likely happened. 

I'm also privy to additional information that I have as hearsay (but entirely believe). I can only show here definitively by their own 990 filings  that they stopped paying for accounting services entirely as reported on their 990's, and that is 100% correlated with their lack of audits, lack of compliance, and end result of losing both their Corps.  

Basically, they do not have sufficient accounting and financial information about the economic direction of the organization to make sufficiently informed operational decisions in a fiscally responsible manner. 

What really pisses me off.................

When I was there overseeing finances............. it was just me (and I did it for free), and the operations manager and we were fixing a mess to begin with.

Right here, right now SCV has on the Board a CPA who is the Board President, and has been paying a CFO position going back to 2016 to people with accounting and business credentials. 

COME ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They have been spending $250K in regards to financial accounting, reporting, and CFO and Bookkeeping expenses to keep things straight. They cut out all the outsourced services and it goes completely sideways. 

It was the OUTSOURCED stuff they needed to KEEP if anything, and stop paying a non functional CFO six figures. 

 

Sorry for jumping in at this point, and perhaps there is discussion I haven’t seen yet … but I have to jump in somewhere. It doesn’t matter if all accounting is brought in house. You still need an outside, independent auditor to provide an audit opinion. In-house accounting is exactly what needs to be audited. 

[BigW]

On 5/8/2023 at 2:38 PM, IllianaLancerContra said:

I follow NASCAR and would suggest that it isn’t the model we want DCI to follow.  NASCAR is a privately-held, for-profit business owned by the France family.  The family makes, selectively enforces, and sometimes arbitrarily changes the rules as it sees fit.  But they do understand their audience and put on a good show.  
 

If what you mean is the corporate sponsorship is something that the Corps need, I’m more ok with that (although the devil is in the details).  I suppose we could speculate if the Pennzoil Cadets (with Yamaha Performance Technology) will be able to pass the Coca-Cola Spirit of Atlanta or the Union Pacific Troopers this weekend…

This was done 50 years ago with the "First Federal Blue Stars."

IIRC there was a kerfluffle back then from other competitors. Commercialism, crass, so on and so forth.

Circa 1980, there was a small corps in NJ called Fantasia III that competed in Garden State and DCE which had, if I remember a Burger King sponsorship and they had a BK flag in the Main Guard, which caused another kerfluffle from competitors. Needless to say, they folded after that mainly because they lost sponsorship over rules changes, pressure, and complaints from other competitors if I remember correctly.

 

Then we had Suncoast and the Circle K fiasco, biting the hand that feeds you monetarily is never smart.

 

There's been a real resistance to these kinds of things for literally decades. The situation now is that the spice must flow, the corps are looking at seven figure budgets. There's no scaling down or looking back. 

 

FYI... I'm finally healthy enough to try and post again. Been reading for several months when I felt up to it. When Jeff and his Dad saw me at Williamsport DCA... I was pretty ill. Been a long road to recovery. If not for the discipline I learned in this activity- If I was really, really, lucky, I'd be on dialysis. Not lucky, prolly gone from a stroke.... It takes a heckuva lot to kill a Baritone Player.

[KVG_DC]

Good to see you back!

[Sutasaurus]

9 minutes ago, BigW said:

This was done 50 years ago with the "First Federal Blue Stars."

IIRC there was a kerfluffle back then from other competitors. Commercialism, crass, so on and so forth.

Circa 1980, there was a small corps in NJ called Fantasia III that competed in Garden State and DCE which had, if I remember a Burger King sponsorship and they had a BK flag in the Main Guard, which caused another kerfluffle from competitors. Needless to say, they folded after that mainly because they lost sponsorship over rules changes, pressure, and complaints from other competitors if I remember correctly.

 

Then we had Suncoast and the Circle K fiasco, biting the hand that feeds you monetarily is never smart.

 

There's been a real resistance to these kinds of things for literally decades. The situation now is that the spice must flow, the corps are looking at seven figure budgets. There's no scaling down or looking back. 

 

FYI... I'm finally healthy enough to try and post again. Been reading for several months when I felt up to it. When Jeff and his Dad saw me at Williamsport DCA... I was pretty ill. Been a long road to recovery. If not for the discipline I learned in this activity- If I was really, really, lucky, I'd be on dialysis. Not lucky, prolly gone from a stroke.... It takes a heckuva lot to kill a Baritone Player.

Welcome back Big W! Great to hear you’re in better health and you’ll be posting again.

Edited May 13, 2023 by Sutasaurus

[BigW]

17 minutes ago, Sutasaurus said:

Welcome back Big W! Great to hear you’re in better health and you’ll be posting again.

Thanks! If not for the good wishes and prayers from so many... I'm deeply thankful. Hopefully the post provided some perspective and food for thought. I'm thinking more about it over dinner!

[IllianaLancerContra]

35 minutes ago, BigW said:

This was done 50 years ago with the "First Federal Blue Stars."

IIRC there was a kerfluffle back then from other competitors. Commercialism, crass, so on and so forth.

Circa 1980, there was a small corps in NJ called Fantasia III that competed in Garden State and DCE which had, if I remember a Burger King sponsorship and they had a BK flag in the Main Guard, which caused another kerfluffle from competitors. Needless to say, they folded after that mainly because they lost sponsorship over rules changes, pressure, and complaints from other competitors if I remember correctly.

 

Then we had Suncoast and the Circle K fiasco, biting the hand that feeds you monetarily is never smart.

 

There's been a real resistance to these kinds of things for literally decades. The situation now is that the spice must flow, the corps are looking at seven figure budgets. There's no scaling down or looking back. 

 

FYI... I'm finally healthy enough to try and post again. Been reading for several months when I felt up to it. When Jeff and his Dad saw me at Williamsport DCA... I was pretty ill. Been a long road to recovery. If not for the discipline I learned in this activity- If I was really, really, lucky, I'd be on dialysis. Not lucky, prolly gone from a stroke.... It takes a heckuva lot to kill a Baritone Player.

Glad to see you back.  
 

l may have not been the most clear, but corporate sponsors for Corps I am maybe ok with.  What I don’t want to see is DCI (sanctioning body) a privately owned for-profit company, which is what NASCAR is.  It more or less works for NASCAR, but I think that it would be a disaster if DCI went that route.  

[BigW]

1 hour ago, IllianaLancerContra said:

Glad to see you back.  
 

l may have not been the most clear, but corporate sponsors for Corps I am maybe ok with.  What I don’t want to see is DCI (sanctioning body) a privately owned for-profit company, which is what NASCAR is.  It more or less works for NASCAR, but I think that it would be a disaster if DCI went that route.  

Interesting!

 

While eating, I thought about more of this- Historically, the corps have been very autonomous. In terms of sponsorship and income, they pretty much appear to be of the thought, 'Thanks for your money! We'd like no strings attached, now go away until we need more.'

 

The problem is, with modern high level sponsorship with real money, it's not how things work.

Since Auto Racing's been brought up- and I've been a lifelong gearhead thanks to my Dad- Let's look at Red Bull and how it's operated. Why does Red Bull operate an F1 team? There have been a few articles on it, and in essence, what they pour in monetarily, they get back and more in terms of advertising revenue. When that car is in front, when it wins, when the drivers are making headlines, when crusty, crazy old Helmut Marko is saying crazy stuff that gets reported, it's free advertising for Red Bull that they don't have to do. According to the metrics, they get more advertising from their expenditure from the media attention and the TV footage of the cars in the lead.

 

Red Bull used to sponsor a NASCAR team. It left- why? The cars weren't getting the air time in front... the benefits were under the expenditures is my educated guess.

Would a DCI corps be willing to make a deal with something like Red Bull? Good question! The Red Bull (insert corps name) or would the corps be the Red Bulls? Who knows? I'm certain that for that money, the corps would have to be involved in various public appearances, an internet presence, media exposures... and expected to win. Would a corps be willing to give up a level of their autonomy, maybe all of it for the cash!? We'll see.

 

Just something to ponder. More than willing to discuss, I've found this thread very educational and thoughtful.