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Just reporting the news. I don't personally know them or have any insight into their operation other than hearing they were one of the first orgs in the entire state to qualify for a waiver under the announced criteria of showing at least a 15% loss in revenue since the smoking ban came into effect. In fact, I've never heard of them until the news about their waiver approval hit the press. Shortly thereafter came the rush of allegations of impropriety with the way they run the business. By all outward appearances, it seems mighty fishy. I honestly don't know how ethical they are, but as familiar as you appear to be with the Drum and Bugle Corps charities "industry", I am with the anti-smoker crusades and their associated "charities" and I have no doubt about the anti-smokers' ethics.

I've read through a few of your posts on the usenet group you've provided, but haven't seen any new revelations other than links to news articles and opinions. From what I see, 6 million a year in revenues before prize money distribution isn't some behemoth corporation. Most of the improprieties identified in the press consist of paying people to run the games and using some of the revenues for renovations when they weren't allowed to, not exactly the caliber of an organized crime syndicate which I hear some of the detractors inferring. The World Health Organization, American Cancer Society, and a whole slew of non-profit health "charities" organized under IRS 501(c)(3) appear to do a lot worse than that with regards to lobbying and hosting lavish conferences.

If you know something more about the Brigadiers that you haven't said, don't hold back.

Wow - How to distill all I know to a few words to an outside audience...

Anti-smoking ban people are concerned that a group who obtained a waiver appears to now be getting attacked. The assumption is that it's the waiver which brought the Brigs under increased scrutiny.

This is not the case.

Bingo operations which use drum & bugle corps as a front have been under scrutiny for lack of adherence to the non-profit charitable regulations which permit such "business interests" have been under increased scrutiny for a few years now. For those of us in drum & bugle corps who care more about drum & bugle corps than the few people abusing power and more interested in greed, the abuses have been widespread for decades now.

The Brigs' apologists claim they are being unfairly targeted by competing gaming operations who are envious of their "success", a few reporters with axes to grind, and a corrupted and power-hungry regulatory commission. For the sake of argument... Even granting all those allegations, I think it's a prime example of karma and chickens coming home to roost.

The legal purpose underlying the Brigs' bingo operation is to fundraise for a drum & bugle corps. I argue that operations like the Brigadiers, and many of the persons involved, have benefitted from the corruption and destruction of the drum & bugle corps activity. There are Brigadiers from former decades who are none too happy about what the current owners of "the assets" are doing to their name, and in drum & bugle corps, one's alumni, history and traditions are key values.

You are correct in mentioning other abuses of non-profit status. However, cancer is still being fought, and promoting health (for two examples) are still thought to be positive values. In contrast, we drum & bugle corps types are being told our activity is dead and will die out when we do, and the only way to "save" it is through its becoming a form of marching band - something which could have been done 30 years ago when we still had 100s of drum & bugle corps from coast to coast, a veteran's family could still find local kids to sound taps at funerals, and all the community values charitable organizations have these special privileges for.

The people involved with the Brigadiers are involved in international consulting, instrument company 'consulting' (and political preferences), and other forms of preferential treatment for "their" people who support these sorts of corporate abuses. The costs are to drum & bugle corps, music education programs (which I believe are being eliminated in part in places to eliminate some of the abuses I have seen in various parts of the country), who gets certain teaching jobs - and who doesn't, and other forms of cronyism.

And then, there are the rumors and tales of skimming and under-the-table monies... Setting people up, death threats, filing false police reports against critics, bullying/mobbing, fraud in order to get information, computer viruses, the exploitation and corruption of children...

A corps director who was forced out politically two years ago administered four corps - three of them nationally touring corps, and one of them was viewed as the popular favorite and "the most drum corps" left in DCI - on $600K per year.

The Brigs' budget is supporting far more than its corps. And while the Brigs' haven't done a whole heck of a lot to support its more traditional alumni group, they - and these connected individuals - helped a very great deal with a Florida corps. And now that NY scrutiny has heated up (this was before the smoking issue arose), guess where there's this spankin' new bingo hall?

This has resulted in a Rochester junior corps going inactive this season.

So due to all this, it's my hope that the Gaming Commission does the right thing by drum & bugle corps - and pulls the plug on this fraud, and the people who are benefitting therefrom.

BTW, there's yet another individual in California - no "direct" ties which can be "proven", of course. Their city bingo game license was pulled last April because of a lack of accounting records and audits requested over a year's time - I found the news reports of the Brigs' delay because of alleged "counsel" issues amusing and familiar. Anyhoo, this guy out in California (who is from Salamanca and appears to still have family there), was running this bingo operation since the late 1970's - and since 1985, there wasn't even a corps being fielded. For this charitable service, he's declared $60K/year all this time. I don't have independent verification as yet, but I hear he's being sued civilly and criminally. It would be a sad thing for the State of NY to approve the operations of such a group of individuals before all this breaks.

The only ethics these people show is what they are required to demonstrate when their feet is held to the fire. Otherwise, they do and operate as they wish, and rely upon corrupt methodology to silence their targets. And the reason I can be fairly open in what I say is that they know that I can very well prove that I have a quite reasonable belief in the truth of what I say.

And any person familiar with such corporate self-interested "politics" can see very well how rotten things must be from such.

There's a whole lot more, of course. But this should give you a fairly good idea. Some of the human costs - and the arrogant indifference thereto - has been beyond disgustingly shameful, and is NOT drum & bugle corps. These are people who laugh at notions like values, honor, patriotism, truth and decency, personal freedoms and respect for the individual. Considering that smokers already have a hard time dealing with the sorts of perceptions which help lead to anti-smoking bans, associating with people like these, long-term, is not at all in anyone's interest - except the corrupted.

-- Catherine

-- Catherine