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

[Sutasaurus]

2 hours ago, greg_orangecounty said:

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. 

Not sure I’m buying this argument  greg…

‘How long has Amy been on board…so to speak? Same question goes for Lisa. 

Edited April 19, 2023 by Sutasaurus

[Jeff Ream]

13 hours ago, Terri Schehr said:

I could bring up DCM again but that would be beating a dead horse.   There were corps that absolutely depended on that local circuit for their survival.  I know no one cares about corps like Capital Sound or Americanos.. oh wait… some of us actually did.  Don’t get me started. 

and those of us on RAMD called out the potential consequences we see now back in 97 when Hop posted the manifesto that eventually became the G7 proposal

[Jeff Ream]

12 hours ago, LabMaster said:

As has been said many many times here, DCI didn’t put any local circuits out of business.  Local sponsorships did most of the damage and poor management did its part.  If “DCI“ had a part, it would be DCI the member corps, more than DCI the org.  There is a difference between the two.

well.....no. DCI kept pressuring the then D1 corps to do DCI only shows and threatened to withhold judges from working the regional circuits.

[Jeff Ream]

On 4/18/2023 at 12:17 PM, 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.

except the corps from the sponsors you mentioned started flaming out pre-DCI because even then the costs were more than the sponsors were willing to take on because it didn't line up with their charters. inner city churches needed every penny to be a church, and not a church with a drum corps. same for the veterans organizations.

 

now did DCI do things  to help smaller corps? nope. but while they deserve some blame, it's not all DCI's fault

Edited April 20, 2023 by Jeff Ream

[Jeff Ream]

10 hours ago, DFA1970 said:

It's nice to reminisce about the good old days of but those days long gone. CA has kinda done that circuit  type tours of shows up and down the state for open class corps. Some eventually will go to Indy but for some it;s  about a 6-10 show season.

and outside of Cali, other areas don't have enough corps to make that approach viable

[Jeff Ream]

9 hours ago, Richard Lesher said:

Exactly. 

Let's be clear, I was once in the inner Board of Directors circle. So I originally reached out that way. Ignored, brushed off. Others too were reaching out to help them. 

No one is obligated to help other corps. All the corps have their own challenges.

As much as this is horrible for the activity, I hope this reminds everyone everywhere this continues to be a reoccurring theme among our activity. Right now Vanguard is the channel everyone wants to turn to and watch, but they didn't Bill Cosby their marching members and staff, the didn't have a CEO recently embezzle from the organization. 

Speaking of which, SCV continues to "exist" despite itself. 

It's BINGO, located in the strongest economic region of the USA with sufficient enough population density to provide the numbers to come through the door to play Bingo, and they own the building they operate in. 

That is the only reason they are still here. 

*******

Here's what I hope............ I force SCV's Board to only be left with the right decision pathway. I hope that I am a part of that pathway. 

It is in the economic power of the Bingo Business Model for SCV to field an entire World Class Corps with a budget of $4,000,000, and not have to charge the marching members a dime. But all the elements of operations have to have their act together. 

They could add back the SCV Cadets, and need tour fees to supplement both corps, but it would still be  drastically less expenses than comparable Corps. 

*******

Now....... what I think they should do, to convince the DC community they have their act together is 

1) Show on hand the entire resources for a reasonable operating budget before the season starts. Proof is by showing the DCI board SCV's financial bank account statements, and well as the financial statements (Audited of course, for the love of god), and they don't have debt obligations countering their liquidity means. 

2) Show they have a line of credit sufficient to cover any emergencies that may occur that would happen outside of their budgeted resources currently on hand. 

3) Then as a gesture of good will, to the entire community, don't charge a tour fee greater than 50% of the cheapest top 12 tour fees. (ideally, if it could be $0 and all the members had to do was get themselves to SCV and back that would be great, but I don't think that is possible). 

If SCV could manage to raise enough funding that can cover Bingo Salaries there is technically no economic need to charge marching members anything. 

 

 

 

 

 

since finances determines class in DCI, every corps should have to produce their financials to be reviewed annually, not just when the #### hits the fan here and there.

[greg_orangecounty]

9 minutes ago, Sutasaurus said:

Not sure I’m buying this argument  greg…

‘How long has Amy been on board…so to speak? Same question goes for Lisa. 

As a mayor, I would imagine Lisa Gillmore's seat is ceremonial.  Amy Lipshy, I don't know how long she's been there.  I don't know either personally as they were there wayyy after me.  

[Jeff Ream]

8 hours 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.

sadly they leave jerry jones in place

[Jeff Ream]

5 hours ago, LabMaster said:

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.

thus the lack of centralized control instead of the inmates running the asylum shows itself again to be an issue

[Chief Guns]

46 minutes ago, Jeff Ream said:

sadly they leave jerry jones in place

As a Niners fan, fine by me. Lol.