December Rules Congress and Seminars

DCA will hold its bi-annual rules congress on December 13th & 14th at the George Eastman House Museum on East Ave. in Rochester, NY. A meeting for voting member corps will begin Saturday morning at 9:00AM, followed by the first general session at 10:00AM. All competing all-aged drum corps are welcome to attend. Hotel arrangements are available at the Strathallen Hotel, Rochester’s most exclusive hotel that is located just a few blocks from the Eastman House right in the Museum District. Anyone requiring housing or wishing to attend, need only contact Glen Johnson, DCA Secretary at secretary@dcacorps.org.

Following the first general session while staff members caucus on rules changes, seminars will be held for corps directors and managers. One will be a presentation by a professional non-profit advisory group. A second will be a round table with one-on-one discussions between some of the most successful corps directors in the business. This is a wonderful opportunity for a less experienced director to ask questions and receive great input on what works in every area. Recruiting, show design, staff recruitment and fundraising are sure to be major topics. Finally, DCA Officers – headed by Business Manager, Dick Eschenmann and President Gil Silva – will meet with directors of new corps wishing to compete in 2009. They will receive first hand, precise information on exactly what is expected of them, what is involved in the evaluation process, how to get music performance rights, what insurance is required, information on potential shows and a lot of great advice on how to make their transition to a competing corps as smooth, efficient and successful a process as possible. Any corps director wishing to be evaluated for competitive approval in 2009 is STRONGLY urged to attend or at the very least send a representative. There will be a $100 fee payable that day for all corps attending. The 24 corps who competed in the 2008 DCA Preliminary Competition, have already paid this fee.

There will be a reception for all in attendance Saturday evening at the Museum hosted by President Silva and DCA Rochester Chairman Allen Buell. Allen is an employee of the museum and urges everyone to take a little extra time and tour the facility – one of the premier tourist spots in Western New York. Sunday’s session will be the general DCA meeting where the final vote on changes takes place. This meeting is only required for voting members. However, everyone is invited to attend. There is no limit on the number of staff members a corps may bring to participate in the caucus meetings. We do ask each corps to advise Secretary Glen Johnson how many will be attending from your corps and which captions they represent. This will allow better preparation and proper meeting room selection. We hope to see everyone in Rochester December 13th.