Return to Website

Norwood Park Imperials Alumni Forum

Alumni are welcome to post messages to each other, comment on experiences, or just tell everyone what you've been doing. The Topics with most the recent comments will always be at the top of the list.

If you click on the Message Topic (first column in the table below) then you will see all of the messages for that Topic. You can then add your own comment by clicking the REPLY button for any message.  If you click the QUOTE button on a message, that message will be copied into your reply so that it's clear what your reply is about.

You can start a New Topic as well. Just click the START A NEW POST link below.

All we ask is that you keep it neat, clean, polite, and reasonably intelligent.

Norwood Park Imperials Alumni Forum
Start a New Topic 
Author
Comment
DCI staffing

Wow. I noticed that Santa Clara's drum line was undefeated so far this year, so I went to their website to see who the instructor was. Yikes .... not ONE but SIXTEEN! (Gosh, that is more instructors than were in the drum line itself when I marched.)

Now, I realize that corps are much bigger now .. but this is crazy. No wonder it costs so much to run a drum corps now.

I looked up the staff for four of the top DCI corps .. amazing. Totals between 43 and 61!!

Have a look:

Staff and Instructors: some top DCI corps: Blue Devils - S/C Vanguard - Cadets - Cavaliers

Admin staff 3 7 7 9

Program Design 5 5 6 10

Brass staff 9 11 7 12

Percussion staff 9 16 15 14

Visual staff 13 9 10 9

Guard staff 4 7 8 10

Total 43 53 53 61

Re: DCI staffing

A guy who was on the colts staff told me an interesting fact about corps staffing... "Nowadays most if not all corps have multiple staffs: A winter staff, an all days staff and a tour staff. Some folks are on all of them, some of them or only one of them. The staff also rotates in and out during the summer to go home to pay bills, spend time with their wives/husbands and kids, etc. When I taught Colts in '08, I was around all winter, spring and summer. Since I'm single it was a lot easier but it still took careful planning to get my mortgage paid, utilities, etc. In addition, I had to make sure that the management didn't screw up and forget to buy my plane ticket home after nationals. They did screw up and it's a good thing I kept checking. After asking around I've discovered that almost nobody does the whole thing (winter, spring and summer). I enjoyed my time there and the kids were great. It was a lot of work for almost no money (I got $1,000) but it was a great experience. I figure that I broke even. Good enough."