DCI's Next Director

[scheherazadesghost]

8 hours ago, drummergirl said:

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. 

Exactly my point. I happened to be in colorguard and had a clearer pipeline to DCI. Even then, my mentor was a rabblerouser too so he wasn't working in DCI. I continued with a great company who flew clinicians across the country to teach all kinds of bands, but the dude who got me that job was taking a cut of my pay for the referral for the first year. I caught wind of it and negotiated out of that cut directly with the owner of the company, but lost that initial referral relationship. Another part of the pipeline cut off, all cause I wanted to be paid what I was due.

I think in the era I marched there was only 1 female snare drummer and injuries prevented her from completing the season. Only a handful of women in the hornline. Admittedly, I'm often brought to tears when I see how much both captions have changed in this regard. In part, it's because I have strong sense of what women in those sections endured in my era and earlier.

8 hours ago, drummergirl said:

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 

The boys club is real in all captions. I was also treated poorly in the activity, both in DCI and as a colorguard staffer at HSs (until I started working for a female band director in Cali.) Even then, pay was low, and, even being in SCV's backyard, they wanted nothing to do with me and I couldn't make enough money in the field to join the new winterguard.

Both of us experienced the broken pipeline firsthand. I'm sad but not surprised that no one here is responding or initiating dialogue about that with you.

[IllianaLancerContra]

9 hours ago, drummergirl said:

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 

Curiosity question re money- BITD many staff were promised pay, but never got it; do you know if the male staff at your level got stiffed as well, or just you (and potentially other females)?  
 

I suppose that there is an ironic type of equality if both male & female staff aren’t paid despite Corps promises to the contrary.  
 

Anyway, I’m sorry that this happened to you.   As others have said, there is far more diversity in the ranks today, and it is working its way up through the instructor and management hierarchy.  We may not yet have the desired diversity pool with appropriate experience at the DCI ED level, but in 5-10 years we will. 
 

ps to Ms SGhost - I thought about posting this earlier & you shamed me into doing it.  😀

[Jeff Ream]

5 hours 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?

to get the directors to not put their corps first over the needs of all.

[Boss Anova]

   It’s regrettable what happened to drummergirl . It’s a boys club . Still.

   It seems to be changing though . Maybe the change is too slow , and won’t quibble with those that think that is the case . 
   I grew up in an era where females were either excluded entirely from the  Drum Corps , or were only allowed in one section of the Corps … Color Guard .  I’ve seen that pass, and now only one Drum Corps still excludes females from marching .  That too eventually will change . DCI judging  for years was mostly male . This season Finals Night had a female Percussion judge . Boston ‘s center snare this season was female . Otter battery’s increasingly now have females . Corps Directors not that long ago were mostly male, but more and more we see female Corps Directors 

  Is there remaining work to be done on more adding diversity ? Yes , I believe so . Can DCI incorporate more persons of color ? Yes as well, I believe . DCI has developed a Diversity Committee , and we do see progress in sone areas compared to not that long ago . My wife and I have 2 Daughters . We sincerely hope that in their lifetime there is no ceiling to what they can attain due to their gender , and that income payment will not be withheld nor limited because of that gender . 

 

    
 

  
 

[JAZZER]

On 9/18/2023 at 1:47 PM, radiosteele said:

Vicki MacFarlane of the Colts.....but I doubt she would take it. They're red hot now

I see what ya did there!!!!

[Jeff Ream]

2 hours ago, Boss Anova said:

   It’s regrettable what happened to drummergirl . It’s a boys club . Still.

   It seems to be changing though . Maybe the change is too slow , and won’t quibble with those that think that is the case . 
   I grew up in an era where females were either excluded entirely from the  Drum Corps , or were only allowed in one section of the Corps … Color Guard .  I’ve seen that pass, and now only one Drum Corps still excludes females from marching .  That too eventually will change . DCI judging  for years was mostly male . This season Finals Night had a female Percussion judge . Boston ‘s center snare this season was female . Otter battery’s increasingly now have females . Corps Directors not that long ago were mostly male, but more and more we see female Corps Directors 

  Is there remaining work to be done on more adding diversity ? Yes , I believe so . Can DCI incorporate more persons of color ? Yes as well, I believe . DCI has developed a Diversity Committee , and we do see progress in sone areas compared to not that long ago . My wife and I have 2 Daughters . We sincerely hope that in their lifetime there is no ceiling to what they can attain due to their gender , and that income payment will not be withheld nor limited because of that gender . 

 

    
 

  
 

i always thought how cool it was where in a DCA corps in the 90's we had a female tenor player and female bass player out there with us. you didn't see that looking around the circuit.

[jjeffeory]

22 hours ago, lawdn said:

I am from Ohio and it has always been bizarre for me to go back there. I feel so out of place now but I have cover as a white male native. 

Same here. It's "home" yet also foreign after living all over the USA, and especially the South and the West. Heck, the East has a different vibe as well.

[Mello Dude]

Whomever it is, I hope it's the best person they can find for the job.

[MikeD]

7 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

i always thought how cool it was where in a DCA corps in the 90's we had a female tenor player and female bass player out there with us. you didn't see that looking around the circuit.

One of the best bass drum lines I ever taught were four female clarinet players. They were good friends, and they were the bass drummers for a band I taught in the early 80's. Started them as freshmen, and by their senior years they could plat anything I threw at them. Amazing young women!

My daughter is a percussionist as well, and she was part of another great all-girl bass line in the last band I worked with, from 94-2018. They called themselves the Snails, as they would carry their basses backwards, on their backs, when moving around the field area. They figured out a way to "wear" their bass mallets on their heads, sticking up like antennae. That was 20+ years ago, and they are still great friends to this day.

 

[TenHut]

4 hours ago, Mello Dude said:

Whomever it is, I hope it's the best person they can find for the job.

That's it exactly. Doesn't matter what color or gender they are. Hire the best candidate for the job.