Santa Clara Vanguard 2024

[LabMaster]

3 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

honestly i think it's some of both given the sudden departure of the ops manager and the CEO

I believe you’re right. It wasn’t one thing like lots of bills and no revenue.  The lawsuit piece was sitting in the background, building.  Then as the onion began getting peeled back, the full extent of liabilities was exposed.  It came about in a hurry and Cadets did get out in front of it and took appropriate steps and communicated it as best they could.  SCV hasn’t really stepped up completely, and communicated fully, clearly and honestly.  They confoundingly continue to stumble along with issues that should be fixable.  What appears to be intentional avoidance of resolution does lead to conclusions of something more than lack of proper documentation and state compliance issues.

[Cainan]

27 minutes ago, corps8294 said:

So, SCV has their staff in place for the upcoming year, they are planning on fielding a corps, and they are planning on touring; yet, there is still a lot of financial matters that haven't been resolved? WTH and WTF? 
I agree with Jeff. If it gets far enough along and it looks like things aren't going to happen; every member that auditions and pays dues should have every penny refunded and the corps should seriously give strong consideration to putting on the dirt blanket. 

As crappy as it is to say (and I know this will be an unpopular opinion), at this point I'd say its a case of "buyer beware". Vanguard did not field last year due to financial difficulties. It is clear as day that those difficulties still exist but that the Vanguard management is merely moving the deck chairs on the Titanic at this point.... "Nothing to see here folks... it's all fine".

If I was gonna fork over several thousand dollars to an organisation for my kid, or I was that kid forking over my own money, I would make absolutely sure that my INVESTMENT is safe. You wouldn't go and give a loan to a person or business that you know has no ability to repay their debt so why should giving many thousands of dollars to a drum corps be any different? It's not as if this information is particularly hard to find.. it's here, it's on redditt, facebook, X or MANY other places. 

At this point I would suggest that anybody that goes all in with SCV 24 does so at their own risk. I publicly said on my podcast that I absolutely do not believe that Santa Clara Vanguard will be taking the field in 2024 until I actually SEE the Santa Clara Vanguard ON the field!

DCI needs to take leadership of this SCV situation and make the decision for them. Its clear as day they STILL dont have their act together. As of right now, that organisation has no business conducting drum corps business of ANY type.

I am also keenly aware that Cadets and Southwind have folded and it will be a cold day in hell before anybody at DCI has the cojones to ACTUALLY do anything about this!

Edited November 25, 2023 by Cainan

[Jeff Ream]

12 minutes ago, LabMaster said:

I believe you’re right. It wasn’t one thing like lots of bills and no revenue.  The lawsuit piece was sitting in the background, building.  Then as the onion began getting peeled back, the full extent of liabilities was exposed.  It came about in a hurry and Cadets did get out in front of it and took appropriate steps and communicated it as best they could.  SCV hasn’t really stepped up completely, and communicated fully, clearly and honestly.  They confoundingly continue to stumble along with issues that should be fixable.  What appears to be intentional avoidance of resolution does lead to conclusions of something more than lack of proper documentation and state compliance issues.

And DCI does and says zero

[IllianaLancerContra]

11 minutes ago, Cainan said:

As crappy as it is to say (and I know this will be an unpopular opinion), at this point I'd say its a case of "buyer beware". Vanguard did not field last year due to financial difficulties. It is clear as day that those difficulties still exist but that the Vanguard management is merely moving the deck chairs on the Titanic at this point.... "Nothing to see here folks... it's all fine".

If I was gonna fork over several thousand dollars to an organisation for my kid, or I was that kid forking over my own money, I would make absolutely sure that my INVESTMENT is safe. You wouldn't go and give a loan to a person or business that you know has no ability to repay their debt so why should giving many thousands of dollars to a drum corps be any different? It's not as if this information is particularly hard to find.. it's here, it's on redditt, facebook, X or MANY other places. 

At this point I would suggest that anybody that goes all in with SCV 24 does so at their own risk. I publicly said on my podcast that I absolutely do not believe that Santa Clara Vanguard will be taking the field in 2024 until I actually SEE the Santa Clara Vanguard ON the field!

DCI needs to take leadership of this SCV situation and make the decision for them. Its clear as day they STILL dont have their act together. As of right now, that organisation has no business conducting drum corps business of ANY type.

I am also keenly aware that Cadets and Southwind have folded and it will be a cold day in hell before anybody at DCI has the cojones to ACTUALLY do anything about this!

Well, DCI has a new executive director.   Let’s see if he has the cojones.  

[Richard Lesher]

What perplexes me is the astronomical personal liability at this point the Board Members are saddled with. 

1) SCV is not a member of DCI. Officially they will be competing as guests. 

2) As a charity and non profit they are delinquent with the State of California. 

3) They are clear as day in violation of Bingo Employee payments. It's probably complicating their audits, because some A-hole (yours truly) sent their CPA firm all the DOJ notices and laid a trail of bread crumbs to the Bingo violation calculations. 

     3a) When they shut off the corps and the member fees that were used to pay Bingo employees then complicated the issue by being delinquent and not being able to also use donations then the only remaining revenue was royalties (which went to zero when there was no tour), and merchandizing (which is always a relatively small number). 

4) All the above are true, and now the DOJ has passed the buck to the Tax Board to execute the next stage of the process. The latest DOJ notice conveys to me that the DOJ is done giving chances on their end. 

5) There is a very real chance now, and with 100% certainty based on the history of SCV's corrective actions they will be terminated as a non profit before they step on the busses for tour. It is one thing to be on the time table of the DOJ, and it is another thing to be on the time table of the Tax Board. 

***************

So there is all of the above, and more............ and individuals are willing to take on the professional and personal liability that is going to come crushing down on them in the event something wrong happens on tour. 

Is the board's lability insurance going to cover them?  I've bent over backwards preventing anyone from using plausible deniability. How can anyone on the board plead ignorance and trust in their employees? 

I'm sure if I went barreling down the freeway at 150 miles an hour my insurance provider is going to abandon me if I cause injury and damages to others. 

**************

Does the Board of Directors even HAVE liability insurance?

Do they? Who told them they do?

Have they seen the policies? Have they directly spoken to the insurance agent and validated the insurance provider?

Maybe the insurance provider already figure out what is going on and simply used the DOJ delinquency status as their threshold to base decisions on. Why make it complicated. Anything other than correct compliance has to be more risky than not. 

Would the same SCV leadership that is saying they are compliant to the world also let the Board know they are not covered individually? 

*****************

When my condo association was embezzled from by the property manager the first thing he did was stop registering the HOA with the state. That way, other HOA's he stole from who were tracking him down couldn't find the new victims he moved onto. 

[Boss Anova]

1 hour ago, Richard Lesher said:

 

1) SCV is not a member of DCI. 

 

3) They are clear as day in violation of Bingo Employee payments. 

    

4) All the above are true, 

‘Appreciate your information re. updates with SCV and its filings and status with the State of California .

 You post that “ SCV is not a member of DCI “.  Playing the Devils Advocate here for a moment on this point , if SCV is not a current member of DCI , wouldn’t it be both prudent and fiduciary responsible for DCI  to not post a “ non member of DCI on their official website of the DCI organization ? For example , if any person goes to the DCI website , the website explains “ who we are “ and also has a “ Corps  section “, and unless SCV lost their membership status before the holiday , and the website has not been updated in the interim , then DCI on their official website of the organization currently lists SCV as a “ member of DCI . “ . I understand from an earlier DCI press release that SCV decision to withdraw from competition in 2023 will result in the forfeiture of performance order early season benefits that accrue to Corps that did compete in 2023 , and a few other things , but I am not aware that one of their forfeitures for their decision to not compete in 2023 was their loss of membership status in DCI . Would you care to clarify what you mean when you post that “ SCV is not a member of DCI “ ? 
  Also , do you have any documentation we can look at that shows in filings , and such that “ it’s clear as day  that they are in violation of Bingo Employee payments “. ?   Where do we find that , and how much do they owe their Bingo employees that has the Corps in some sort of violation ?  Thank you .

 

[Jeff Ream]

2 hours ago, Richard Lesher said:

What perplexes me is the astronomical personal liability at this point the Board Members are saddled with. 

1) SCV is not a member of DCI. Officially they will be competing as guests. 

2) As a charity and non profit they are delinquent with the State of California. 

3) They are clear as day in violation of Bingo Employee payments. It's probably complicating their audits, because some A-hole (yours truly) sent their CPA firm all the DOJ notices and laid a trail of bread crumbs to the Bingo violation calculations. 

     3a) When they shut off the corps and the member fees that were used to pay Bingo employees then complicated the issue by being delinquent and not being able to also use donations then the only remaining revenue was royalties (which went to zero when there was no tour), and merchandizing (which is always a relatively small number). 

4) All the above are true, and now the DOJ has passed the buck to the Tax Board to execute the next stage of the process. The latest DOJ notice conveys to me that the DOJ is done giving chances on their end. 

5) There is a very real chance now, and with 100% certainty based on the history of SCV's corrective actions they will be terminated as a non profit before they step on the busses for tour. It is one thing to be on the time table of the DOJ, and it is another thing to be on the time table of the Tax Board. 

***************

So there is all of the above, and more............ and individuals are willing to take on the professional and personal liability that is going to come crushing down on them in the event something wrong happens on tour. 

Is the board's lability insurance going to cover them?  I've bent over backwards preventing anyone from using plausible deniability. How can anyone on the board plead ignorance and trust in their employees? 

I'm sure if I went barreling down the freeway at 150 miles an hour my insurance provider is going to abandon me if I cause injury and damages to others. 

**************

Does the Board of Directors even HAVE liability insurance?

Do they? Who told them they do?

Have they seen the policies? Have they directly spoken to the insurance agent and validated the insurance provider?

Maybe the insurance provider already figure out what is going on and simply used the DOJ delinquency status as their threshold to base decisions on. Why make it complicated. Anything other than correct compliance has to be more risky than not. 

Would the same SCV leadership that is saying they are compliant to the world also let the Board know they are not covered individually? 

*****************

When my condo association was embezzled from by the property manager the first thing he did was stop registering the HOA with the state. That way, other HOA's he stole from who were tracking him down couldn't find the new victims he moved onto. 

who's left on the board given some recent resignations? How long have they been on the board? Anyone there way longer than they should be that seems to have way too much influence?

[Boss Anova]

9 hours ago, Richard Lesher said:

I am always entertained at the level of "transparency" the drum corps community considers sufficiently transparent. 

A statement from the CEO saying they are compliant is not the same threshold of transparency the CA DOJ considers transparency compliance.

 

 Yes . DCI Drum Corps have lots of work to do to become far more transparent than they currently are … and on a number of fronts .  
  As for your 2nd paragraph you make a good hypothetical point with this regarding what would be considered a real world legal compliance and at a much higher legal threshold of transparency too , than that  from a simple “ statement of compliance “ from a CEO at SCV ( should that have been made ) 

 For real world transparency , and to be precise  ( please correct me here  if I am mistaken on this  )  the current new CEO at SCV has not made any statement that SCV “is in compliance “ with their Calif authorities , is that correct  ?  . My understanding is that SCV has put out PR  press releases that can be looked at skeptically given a whole host of missteps they clearly have made . I have read they are reportedly working with a team of people from both within and outside the Corps ( including DCI and DCI ‘s BOD ) that gives the optimistic ( or overly rosy assessment if one prefers ) of working TOWARD compliance , but unless Im mistaken , SCV has not put out any recent statement that the have attained a “compliance level  “ . Yours was thus  a mere hypothetical example with your post here above  , ( I think anyway ), . I just wanted to be clear you were not attempting to  make the point that the new CEO at SCV had provided any misleading statement or press release  that SCV has currently reached the Compliance Level with the State of California taxing  and reporting authorities for Non Profits . 

 

 

 

Edited November 25, 2023 by Boss Anova

[totaleefree]

8 hours ago, Cainan said:

 

I am also keenly aware that Cadets and Southwind have folded 

I am not aware of Cadets folding, they still have a functioning board and I have not heard that they have sold all their assets.  I may have missed some announcements but I don't think they have folded

Edited November 25, 2023 by totaleefree

[LabMaster]

4 hours ago, totaleefree said:

I am not aware of Cadets folding, they still have a functioning board and I have not heard that they have sold all their assets.  I may have missed some announcements but I don't think they have folded

They’ve sold assets and returned leased equipment. There is nothing left.  They have a few hundred thousand dollars owed in outstanding bills and increasing legal debt.  Not to mention what will be needed to settle legal outcomes.  There are no revenue sources.  The proverbial handwriting is on the wall.