GBugler Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 11 hours ago, cixelsyd said: If you take a moment to look beyond just the "major corps", you would notice that we have lost quite a few in the past 5 years: Oregon Crusaders Pioneer Encorps Incognito Shadow Watchmen Louisiana Stars Vanguard Cadets Legends Southwind I do not think it is hyperbole to ask questions about sustainability, with that as our recent context. At least four of the corps on this list don't count towards the "sustainability" argument. One was eliminated by utter incompetence from organizational management, and the other three were guilty of allowing horrendous member abuse, with one of those being perma-banned. After the airing of their dirty laundry, Crusaders and Shadow went away because no parent would allow their kid to march there. Being strictly technical, they don't count as casualties of sustainability. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Ream Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 10 hours ago, Jeff Ream said: yes they stated all age will be on the DCi sheets, which IMO is a plus. percussion judge back on the field and field visual long overdue to return is back. that'll clean some stuff up i also saw an all age director mention a tolerance will be built in for the fact they are weekend only. thats going to take education to those that judged DCI only, because when all age corps have appeared at shows in the past the scores have varied wildly. i know a few former DCA judges also aren't going to continue on with DCI as they won't be guaranteed just DCA shows which are usually in their local region and don't want to cross the country on planes. seeing recaps all summer will be interesting to see what DCA only judges continue on. I know several did work both places, but several didn't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Ream Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 1 hour ago, Terri Schehr said: I got the email, too. It makes more sense. I heard that before the merger, DCA corps had to bring the DCA. Sheets to the DCI shows with them to give to the judges. SMH 🤦♀️ I think standardization is far more practical. I wouldn’t expect Bucs to score higher than the DCI champion anymore. 🤷♀️ well as i said above i saw an all age director say on facebook a tolerance will be built in, similar to WGI which has the same sheets across all classes, at least for percussion 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cixelsyd Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 2 hours ago, GBugler said: At least four of the corps on this list don't count towards the "sustainability" argument. One was eliminated by utter incompetence from organizational management, and the other three were guilty of allowing horrendous member abuse, with one of those being perma-banned. After the airing of their dirty laundry, Crusaders and Shadow went away because no parent would allow their kid to march there. Being strictly technical, they don't count as casualties of sustainability. What? First, no corps has ever been permanently banned from DCI. For any reason. Second, it sounds like you just said that member safety is not required for this activity to be sustainable. Would you like to rethink that? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craiga Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 48 minutes ago, cixelsyd said: What? First, no corps has ever been permanently banned from DCI. For any reason. Second, it sounds like you just said that member safety is not required for this activity to be sustainable. Would you like to rethink that? That's not how I understood his post. I think he was saying the a bunch of those corps went away either because they were grossly mismanaged or guilty of terrible treatment of their members, which I agree with. Incompetence or inappropriate member safety is not the same as sustainability. The same can be said for alot of corps going back in history as well. If you are not raising funds properly or taking appropriate care to safeguard your members, then as an organization, you SHOULD fold. Does anyone really think that the Cadets folded because they spent too much on props? On uniforms (which they didn't have to pay for for)? The drums(which they also didn't have to pay for)? No, it was lack of fundraising and 40 years worth of alleged sexual abuse catching up to them. Nothing to do with the much bandied-about sustainability mantra. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewToPosting Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 For a goof, I went to dci.org and looked at their Strategic Plan (which was last revised in 2018, per the website). It's fluff. Well-meaning fluff, but it's not really a strategy. "Increase accessibility" - FAIL. They talk about serving participating units, but nothing about growing the number of participating units. Wouldn't that be an easy strategy, upon which tactics could be built? Strategy: "Increase the number of participating units" <--opens a WHOLE conversation about tactics that could accomplish that. There is NOTHING in their strategic plan about growth. I'm not a horn person, but to me, that's akin to NOT crescendoing through the whole note, when you don't put active energy into it, it wanes and twists on the vine. No wonder. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scheherazadesghost Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 Big nope for me on that one. Member safety and incompetence not related to sustainability? 🤯 Members are, like, the most precious, crucial resource in the activity. Poor member safety cuts sustainability down to the root in the form of (1) harm where there should be none, (2) reducing the pool of alum who will want to return and (3) affirms that poor treatment of anyone in the organization as okay. Incompetence, at the very least, scares competent people away and can destroy organizational synchrony and memory. 27 minutes ago, NewToPosting said: For a goof, I went to dci.org and looked at their Strategic Plan (which was last revised in 2018, per the website). It's fluff. Well-meaning fluff, but it's not really a strategy. "Increase accessibility" - FAIL. They talk about serving participating units, but nothing about growing the number of participating units. Wouldn't that be an easy strategy, upon which tactics could be built? Strategy: "Increase the number of participating units" <--opens a WHOLE conversation about tactics that could accomplish that. There is NOTHING in their strategic plan about growth. I'm not a horn person, but to me, that's akin to NOT crescendoing through the whole note, when you don't put active energy into it, it wanes and twists on the vine. No wonder. I dare anyone here to point me in the direction of a drum corps' strategic plan that isn't mostly fluff. I'll even eat my hat. And I'll sing that org's praises. 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IllianaLancerContra Posted January 11 Author Share Posted January 11 56 minutes ago, craiga said: That's not how I understood his post. I think he was saying the a bunch of those corps went away either because they were grossly mismanaged or guilty of terrible treatment of their members, which I agree with. Incompetence or inappropriate member safety is not the same as sustainability. The same can be said for alot of corps going back in history as well. If you are not raising funds properly or taking appropriate care to safeguard your members, then as an organization, you SHOULD fold. Does anyone really think that the Cadets folded because they spent too much on props? On uniforms (which they didn't have to pay for for)? The drums(which they also didn't have to pay for)? No, it was lack of fundraising and 40 years worth of alleged sexual abuse catching up to them. Nothing to do with the much bandied-about sustainability mantra. Eradicating sexual abuse is critical to sustainability. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GBugler Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 1 hour ago, cixelsyd said: What? First, no corps has ever been permanently banned from DCI. For any reason. Second, it sounds like you just said that member safety is not required for this activity to be sustainable. Would you like to rethink that? If you believe that Pioneer will ever return to the field after being banned from DCI membership due to the Blenski's complete lack of action to safeguard members or to report abusers, then you aren't being honest about what my statement means. They're never coming back. It's a perma-ban by default. You think that Roman Jr. will do ANYTHING different than dear old dad? Excuse me while I try not to guffaw. Unless and until Pioneer is owned and operated by someone other than the Blenski family or any of the old guard there, they are defunct. In case you hadn't noticed, not many dead corps are springing back to life. Neither are there many new corps starting up and being successful. Because, you know, sustainability. Also, I NEVER said, nor did I ever insinuate that member safety is not required for the activity's sustainability. Where the hell you got that from my post, I have no idea. Speaking of rethinking...You need to rethink why you included four corps in your list of losses due to "sustainability," when the overall sustainability of drum corps had zero to do with their demise. It's completely a false equivalence and that's what I was pointing out. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scheherazadesghost Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 13 minutes ago, GBugler said: Also, I NEVER said, nor did I ever insinuate that member safety is not required for the activity's sustainability. Where the hell you got that from my post, I have no idea. It was this part below... and three of us here interpreted it that way. 4 hours ago, GBugler said: Being strictly technical, they don't count as casualties of sustainability. We disagree. 13 minutes ago, GBugler said: Speaking of rethinking...You need to rethink why you included four corps in your list of losses due to "sustainability," when the overall sustainability of drum corps had zero to do with their demise. It's completely a false equivalence and that's what I was pointing out. There are currently two lawsuits facing DCI and member corps right now regarding member safety. I don't think I need to list out the number of additional corps that have had reports against them in the last 10, 5, no, 2 years. Member safety is quite obviously an activity-wide sustainability issue. And that's because the activity was founded and built on limited accountability for member safety. (Even our beloved GH at SCV was the director during the time of a reported incident with a staffer of one of my fellow alum, shared on this very forum!) Most folks in charge right now endured that system and are ill equipped to improve it effectively and sustainably, unless they've done additional, outside work on safeguarding. Or am I further misinterpreting what you're trying to say? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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