i have a question

[kusankusho]

Number one that I like is "I'm having brain surgery". And I say this one because we have had two occurances in 3 years. Pretty high ratio I think for a group our size.

Maybe you should move your practice facility a little further away from the nuclear reactor. :lolhit:

[MiniSopGuy]

It's a bit easier when you live in a large city with millions of people to draw your potential 128 from. But when you're in a smaller town of say 200,000 or less, you will have to bring in members from all over. And adjust your corps schedule, rehearsal site, and goals accordingly.

I must say this made me laugh a little bit. While we have te large city to draw from, a large city means more opporunities to have a busy life and some things, like drum corps you loved as a young adult, gets put on the shelf as "life happens". I think this is the biggest factor in growing a corps. We also have quite a few jr corps in the area. We dont actively recruit those of jr corps age, but we always end up with a few. Just having a few gets the DCI people angry with us which is exactly why we dont. Yeah a West Coast thing.

I wish that were entirely true.........but even in SoCal that's not been entirely true for SoCal Dream..........We've been a pretty stable size for the last 3 years.........Even making finals may not change that (although we can always hope)......some folks may not come until we get closer to beating Renegades.

Sometimes you need all the facts before making assumptions. First off, the membership email comes to me and I have received many many emails inquiring about membership for next year. Most coming the first week after finals! So I think that makes a difference. That is really exciting to me and should fire up everyone else in our program too. Secondly, I dont really believe our numbers have anything to do with the Renegades. That is nothing more than an easy excuse to make. I feel our program is just as high quality as theirs and getting closer to them will have no effect on recruiting. Recruiting and growing our program will get us closer to them. It is the old adage that a small=low score, big=high score. I know that will stir comments, but in my experience, it is fact.

If you are in SoCal, come check out SoCal Dream December 3rd. Dream is growing!

[SaraNYC]

We also have quite a few jr corps in the area. We dont actively recruit those of jr corps age, but we always end up with a few. Just having a few gets the DCI people angry with us which is exactly why we dont. Yeah a West Coast thing.

Which is really sad because spending a season or two in an all age corps can really help prepare a young adult for a season or two of DCI before they are too old. It costs so much to march DCI these days, if a kid can do a weekend only corps to get some experience and save some money before moving over to DCI, how can that be a bad thing?

Happens all the time on the East Coast. Heck, I saw kids marching with DCA corps at finals that had spent the summer in DCI and just picked up with their respective DCA corps for the last couple weeks of the season. And then they age out of DCI and hopefully stay in DCA.

Really enjoyed the post-finals concert BTW, you guys sounded great!!

[bigmyq]

I'll take a stab at this. I've been at this for 4 years trying to build and grow the program. We were moving slowly upward: 11 on the field the first year, 19 second year 21 third year. But after a decent number of folks through the winter, we had several folks that either moved away, had other more pressing commitments or had physical issues that prevented them from marching. I have started a top ten list of reasons that we have identified as why people can't march. Number one that I like is "I'm having brain surgery". And I say this one because we have had two occurances in 3 years. Pretty high ratio I think for a group our size.

One of our biggest problems is simply people knowing that we exist. For the No. VA my experience has been that the general knowledge of younger folks of even DCI corps is very limited. So, when set up a recruitment table at an indoor guard event or marching band show, we first have to describe what drum corps is and then what we do. We also live in a very transient area with young to middle age adults who are very career focused. This type of high commitment activity does not fit in their lifestyle. And with the amount of time folks spend getting around and commuting here, there is a reluctance by some to drive that hour on weekends across the area to practice.

As far as outreach, we have done quite a bit more this year than last and will continue to do more recruitment booths, calls on high schools and local performance appearances. Related to that, when folks ask where they can see us perform, except for parades and a few standstills our field shows are generally in far away places. We hosted our own show this year, but because of some site issues ended up in MD far from our core recruiting area. Next year we will be bringing the show close to home which should provide more local exposure.

So, the bottom line, "Can we ever grow?" I've been spending a lot hours of my life along with Tom, Russ and others to make this happen and we sincerely hope it will. I don't want to continue to forever be that group with the smallest hornline in drum corps. My personal experience like many others in the corps has been as a member of large organizations from high school on up.

I would encourage anyone else who is trying to do this to keep plugging away. And if you live around here, give me a call and I'll pick you up on the way to rehearsal.

I don't really have much to add, but this is a great post. You clearly have a very thorough understanding of what many other small corps face as well. Thanks.

The other more frustrating issue is what I call the bandwagon approach. Folks want to know how many you have and how big the organization is. They often say, "well if you were bigger I would participate, but I don't want to be a part of a 10 person hornline." The frustrating part of that is that if only a few of those folks would come and stay we would quickly have 20+ brass. They want to see a Buccaneers type program before they join. Nobody seems to want to be a part of the building organization.

Been there done that. For me, I see this every year I've marched and at times its really hard to swallow, but personal choice isn't going away.

Personally, I prefer marching with a small corps. No disrespeck to our brothers and sisters to the south....

Edited September 15, 2006 by bigmyq

[JimF-LowBari]

Maybe you should move your practice facility a little further away from the nuclear reactor. :lolhit:

Or the US Congress ^0^

I am Sparticus.. oops.. I live near the Nuclear Reactor. (about 5-10 miles)

[CVQuesty]

I'm so glad to see you guys are recruiting and trying to become more visible. When I lived in Woodbridge (yes, Woodbridge) I didn't even know you guys existed, or you can bet your sweet bippy I'd have been there. But as all things must end, the bubble burst, and I hi-tailed it out of the DC area. How I would have loved to have been involved during my two years there.

Good luck in your efforts to draw more membership. That area is just teeming with plenty of old band geeks that have gone on to IT work in Herndon, Fairfax, Woodbridge, Manassass, Arlington, etc. that would just LOVE to march... Finding them, though, is the challenge.

[Jeff Ream]

some corps don't want to grow. quite honestly, i believe the Govies would lose that "it" that makes them so special if they grew

[SunContra1]

I gotta say, as a small corps in the north east, and being with sun since they came back in 2002, it's really fricken hard to recruit and keep members. i can honestly say from 200to 2006 season, we have had 7 members consistent, and after 2002 the core of the corps has grown, but has also grown from recruiting teenagers, who don't exactly have the money or the time to march dci, for example, a couple of our pit girls swamped weekends in college to make sure our pit was full, but they all showd up for finals which was amazing, and we have had a few kids march what would have been their age out year in dca, and there is also the problem of the big name thing, with Cabs Bush Hurcs and even sky recruiting from the same area, and alumni corps (so many corps in the north east it great, and horrible) once they hear the corps is not large, they like to go into an established group. and that brings up another issue of people not wating to join a corps to help them build. i have had to talk to a few of our rookies at finals about that. they did not like that sun came in the place that we did, so they wanted to quit and join other corps, or jump into a junior corps, even though they might not be financially ready, or they just got cocky " i did a summer of drum corps, i am better then my fellow kids in highschool" mentality,

I could go on and on, and probably a lot of us from small corps could go on and on about the reasons why we are not the same size as other groups, but hey, it's just plain difficult, and somebody has to be small guy sometimes,

But to be positive about it, the best thing to do in my opinion, but also the hardest, is bringing people to join the core of the corps, the members that come back year after year, that is really the best way to keep consistent numbers year to year.

[Smoothy]

We've done 79 seasons with a small corps. It's not a choice, it's a population thing. There aren't many people in southern Minnesota and even less who know what drum corps is. We have to battle such stellar summer activities as tractor pulls, street dances, and canoe trips. Keeping the people we have has been good for us in the last five years or so, but we still lose marchers to jobs and babies every year.

Recruiting is difficult because of the general public's ignorance to what constitutes a drum corps member: many believe they are not good enough to do what we do even though we've never cut a member that showed up (we have dropped members who disappear).

What we have done is embraced our small size. In March, we set our numbers according to who has been showing up for winter rehearsals (no holes). We only own a limited amount of instruments (I know for a fact that we own 24 horns), we travel locally in two school buses (painted green with our signature racing stripe), and we plan our budget according to the numbers we have. Our philosophy has been that the people who have lost their taste for small drum corps are fools: We are worthwhile, entertaining, and competitive every year.

[Sayre Kulp]

And I'm so glad that after 76 seasons, you guys FINALLY came to DCA! Give us North Eastern folk a chance to enjoy watching you do what you do so well.

As for what Josh was saying, I personally PREFER to march with a smaller corps. You really get to know everybody and enjoy your fellow members. It's more of a family thing. Would I like us to be a little bit bigger? You bet! But first we need to find members who can understand committment. If every person who came to rehearsals this year stayed and marched (even though we were small) we would have had about 40 horns instead of 25 and about 30 guard as opposed to the dozen or so that we ended up with. I wonder if these people who come out and then bail realize that if they would've stuck it out, we'd have almost certainly made finals. Given that, I think it would have been even easier to recruit even more.

So here is my plea... to all you folks out there looking to march a drum corps. There are other corps that are not as big. They NEED you! Do you want to be the nameless face in the crowd? Or one of the people who helps take the little corps to championship contender status? Come to the little local corps and play. You WILL have fun. You WILL learn something. And you WILL make a difference. 4 or 5 super corps with a whole lot of others struggling to have enough people and fill their holes is no good for anybody. 25 or so corps that could all win on any given night would make this activity so much more exciting. Bucs came back from being non-finalists. So it CAN BE DONE!!! Step up folks, and let's make it happen! It doesn't even matter who! Be Sun, be Sky, be Shenandoah Sound, be White Sabres!!!

JUST DO IT.