DCI's Next Director

[Jeff Ream]

4 hours ago, kdaddy said:

Excellent point

 

And I agree on this as well. A "good decision" is what goes into the decision process, not necessarily how well the decision works out. That's why I stress that it's important that the pool of candidates be diverse - that's the decision process. Whoever rises to the top after that after a fair process should be hired. 

A little digging says at least for first round interviews quite a few people that would meet almost everyone’s criteria were talked to. Not sure where it went after that but at least they weren’t just looking from the inside old white boys club

[drummergirl]

8 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

....except for a few ladies in the 80's, how many female snare players there in DCI until recently? few. there's a zillion reasons why, but there were few. it's only recently that you have seen that start to change. heck even into the 90's you didn't see a lot of female bass players

Female bass drummer here. Graduated high school in 95 and wanted to march drum corps but thought I wasn’t good enough since I was female. I learned years later (after my age out year) that I was good enough to make a dci drumline after a conversation with my percussion instructor. My percussion instructor marched Suncoast Sound and our drill writer and visual caption head is now a DCI judge. 
 

I’ve spent time volunteering and doing tour ops with a corps or two over the years but found it to be a boys club. I was treated unfairly due to being female. I was supposed to be paid one year and never saw the money I was promised. I busted my butt working hard those summers. SMH 

[keystone3ply]

7 hours ago, TenHut said:

Carmel and Noblesville are great.

Stayed in Noblesville in 2022 to watch Crown rehearse & attend the Muncie show.  Also watched the Xmen rehearse as they were housed nearby.  I was amazed at the Rouff Music Center looking on Google maps & taking drive by tour; they have a huge parking lot.   Great area!    

[KVG_DC]

Grew up in Ft. Wayne.  The joke about Carmel in my time was...
 

Spoiler

What does a Carmel housewife say when making love?  

Beige....the ceiling must be beige.  

Even the kids from Carmel laughed at that one.

[IllianaLancerContra]

8 hours ago, TenHut said:

Carmel and Noblesville are great.

I escaped from Indiana in 1984 and am not moving back.  If DCI hires me as Executive Director (which would be a epically colossal mistake) I will take a cue from the SCV bingo director & run it from a thousand miles away.  

[TOC]

12 minutes ago, KVG_DC said:

Even the kids from Carmel laughed at that one.

Change positions.

[TOC]

14 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

except for a few ladies in the 80's, how many female snare players are there in DCI until recently? few. 

And some became center snares.  

[David Hill]

I have been following this thread and reading from you folks who know much more than I ever will.

Writing to ask for discussion on centralized versus federated governance, and what it will take for the historical management fever to break for the organization.

My final professional rodeo -- a third of my career -- was leading marketing/fund-raising within the YMCA system. Federated: centralized standards and policies; individual location governance. National consensus building is tough. Real tough. Eight Y/USA CEOs in my 16 years tough. There was/is no silver bullet.

From you folks who are in the know, what is it actually going to take for the next CEO to succeed for DCI and for themselves?

[IllianaLancerContra]

1 hour ago, David Hill said:

I have been following this thread and reading from you folks who know much more than I ever will.

Writing to ask for discussion on centralized versus federated governance, and what it will take for the historical management fever to break for the organization.

My final professional rodeo -- a third of my career -- was leading marketing/fund-raising within the YMCA system. Federated: centralized standards and policies; individual location governance. National consensus building is tough. Real tough. Eight Y/USA CEOs in my 16 years tough. There was/is no silver bullet.

From you folks who are in the know, what is it actually going to take for the next CEO to succeed for DCI and for themselves?

IDK if the Corps will grant it, but the next DCI Exec Dir needs the authority to act swiftly & make hard decisions the next time a hopacolyptic situation arises.  And the individual hired needs to be the type who can make these decisions.  

[Slingerland]

DCI, as a business, has more or less stuck around the same size for most of the last 15 or 18 years. Big enough to pay the bills, not bigger enougher to start paying the corps anything close to what they have to spend in order to provide the product. So the focus now has to be on someone who knows how to generate additional revenue sources and build stronger alliances. 

Full stop.

Looking through who’s on the Board right now, there are no big dogs (no offense to  Board members, since we know you do pay attention here). That means that the new CEO, if they have the drive to push big initiatives forward, shouldn’t face that much opposition, as long as they’ve got the numbers to back up the proposal. One hopes that the Board, having made their choice, respect them enough to let them push ahead, since same old same old ain’t cutting it anymore.