ZTWright Posted April 18, 2023 Share Posted April 18, 2023 1 hour ago, Tenoris4Jazz said: Only thing I can say here would be that SCV was one of the reasons DCI was formed in the first place. Gail and Jim Jones were two of the loudest voices for creating an organization to allow drum corps to go beyond the limitations of VFW and American Legion rules. Kind of like the Original Six in hockey or the Bears in the NFL. It's a bad look to see one of the foundations of your world go away because nobody seemed to care. Now that I think about it... if an owner screws up a team so badly that it's borderline not viable anymore (Dan Snyder anyone? 🙄) the other owners can force them out and make the team be sold. NP's are a different thing entirely, but the concept of "force them to give control to someone else" would very much be in play here if it were possible. There are 3 other founding corps that aren't around any longer and no corps or organization bailed them out to keep them alive. Caring is one thing, having another corps go belly up because everyone expected them to help their fellow corps out (again, when they did this to themselves) is another. 30 minutes ago, MikeN said: Depends on what you mean by bail out. I can recount a fair number of examples of corps banding together to keep a peer on the road during the tour so they didn't have to fold early. The lack of a strong central support organization hurts all but the strongest corps, and funny enough, they're the ones that structured it that way. Mike Helping a corps with a necessity on the road is one thing (also something that shouldn't have to be done, but we do have the occasional idiot running a corps). That is completely different than the corps having a multi million debt and people expecting other corps or organizations to bail them out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenoris4Jazz Posted April 18, 2023 Share Posted April 18, 2023 8 minutes ago, ZTWright said: There are 3 other founding corps that aren't around any longer and no corps or organization bailed them out to keep them alive. Caring is one thing, having another corps go belly up because everyone expected them to help their fellow corps out (again, when they did this to themselves) is another. Helping a corps with a necessity on the road is one thing (also something that shouldn't have to be done, but we do have the occasional idiot running a corps). That is completely different than the corps having a multi million debt and people expecting other corps or organizations to bail them out. Don't get me wrong... I'm not for handing them a dime. I just understand the idea of an organization with the historical significance of Vanguard closing up shop making people think "Can't something be done to prevent this?" Well, yeah, but the time for that is long gone. It's like watching what happens in nature in your back yard versus on TV. TV doesn't show you the brutal reality of the way things work for real. What's going on with VMAPA is pulling back the curtain on the reality of running a drum corps and how easily a few people can permanently mess things up, even with an organization with the historical standing of Vanguard. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LabMaster Posted April 18, 2023 Share Posted April 18, 2023 25 minutes ago, Tenoris4Jazz said: Don't get me wrong... I'm not for handing them a dime. I just understand the idea of an organization with the historical significance of Vanguard closing up shop making people think "Can't something be done to prevent this?" Well, yeah, but the time for that is long gone. It's like watching what happens in nature in your back yard versus on TV. TV doesn't show you the brutal reality of the way things work for real. What's going on with VMAPA is pulling back the curtain on the reality of running a drum corps and how easily a few people can permanently mess things up, even with an organization with the historical standing of Vanguard. Historical standing means nothing in the managing of an organization. DCI corps could help one another, if they wanted to. But they don’t always play nice with one another. Some of it is ego. Maybe much of it is ego where some corps orgs think they are better than another. There is an elitist attitude, a snobbery if you will in some orgs. Some of it derived from a long period of success, some from a period of success in a shorter time frame. The point being, if each corps truly wished the best for DCI org and DCI corps, they would be on the watch for proper management and health of other corps. They would collectively take action when action is warranted, rather than sit back and think “glad it’s not me”. They cloak of anonymity and and lack of visibility enables bad behaviors. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cixelsyd Posted April 18, 2023 Share Posted April 18, 2023 7 hours ago, LabMaster said: As has been said many many times here, DCI didn’t put any local circuits out of business. Sorry, but DCI literally assumed (consumed?) the operations of the three regional circuits in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In the case of DCM, it was several years of manipulations followed by two years of open hostility. 5 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cixelsyd Posted April 18, 2023 Share Posted April 18, 2023 6 hours ago, ZTWright said: Why would they? Why should they? You don't see McDonalds giving a handout to Wendy's. The same comments were made when the SCV news first broke, about why other corps weren't helping them. Again, why should they? Why is it their job to help them out? Why would it have been DCIs job to help out local circuits? A better analogy would be to ask why a zoo should help out endangered species. If animals are your business and you run out of animals... 6 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cixelsyd Posted April 18, 2023 Share Posted April 18, 2023 6 hours ago, Tenoris4Jazz said: This all goes back to the purpose of drum and bugle corps as defined from the 1930's to the 1960's versus the DCI era. So many dc units were sponsored by local parishes or churches and VFW/American Legion posts so as to give kids something to do during the summer to keep them out of trouble. They learned about music and being part of a team. The competition was a minor component. Flip the switch on making competition and "artistic expression" the major motivators and it started eroding the basic life educational aspect of drum corps' reason to exist. It's been said many times before, but there were once 150 to 200 drum corps performing during the summer season. With the current model, you can't sustain more than 15 to 20. Pro sports (and college sports for that matter) went from paying players $25k/year to $25 million a year, but they grew revenue proportionally to cover that. DCI has increased budgets from $500k to $5 million, but the revenue never made that leap. So competition was a "minor component" in the past? When do you envision the switch got flipped on that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenoris4Jazz Posted April 18, 2023 Share Posted April 18, 2023 1 minute ago, cixelsyd said: So competition was a "minor component" in the past? When do you envision the switch got flipped on that? There were years when the VFW or AL national convention was somewhere that more than a few units couldn't attend. I recall Miami and Hawaii in particular. I have also read histories on several drum corps where the sponsor was a church and the church fathers couldn't have cared less if the kids travelled around the country to compete. They marched in local parades and competed in local/regional events. Success was not measured in trophies or awards but the number of kids who DIDN'T go to jail and who DID graduate high school. When did it flip? I'm not old enough to know for sure, but judging from historical articles and recaps, I'd say the mid 1950's to early '60's... not coincidentally when Troopers and Cavies started dominating the national championships. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scheherazadesghost Posted April 18, 2023 Share Posted April 18, 2023 47 minutes ago, Tenoris4Jazz said: Success was not measured in trophies or awards but the number of kids who DIDN'T go to jail and who DID graduate high school. 🥺💔 There were plenty of us even when I marched. From all over. If that has diminished further since I marched then it's a real shame. Am supposing that higher tour fees make that likely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greg_orangecounty Posted April 19, 2023 Share Posted April 19, 2023 20 hours ago, Jeff Ream said: i bolded a key word there. with the organization now looking for their...4th? 5th? Executive Director since the incredible high of 2018, are there people in place able to handle that? I'm going to say YES because they have two Trojans on their Board; Amy Lipshy (President) and Lisa Gillmore (Mayor of Santa Clara). We get things done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slingerland Posted April 19, 2023 Share Posted April 19, 2023 3 hours ago, jjeffeory said: I know that as far as DCM goes, there were specific directors who helped kill that and push the Midwest towards DCI tours... I know The Cavaliers director at the time was done with DCM and pushing DCI-only full tours. I don't know why, but I heard it and saw it mentioned a bunch when it was happening. To be fair, would YOU want to deal with a world where Roman was in charge of everything? 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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