We thank you for your continued support of the Santa Clara Vanguard. Your passion and love for this organization mean so much to everyone involved in working toward Vanguard’s future. We understand that everyone in our community would like to have a definitive answer about Vanguard’s return to the Drum Corps International (DCI) tour. We also appreciate the urgency involved. At the same time, this is a multi-faceted decision that affects the DCI community as well as Vanguard. We truly appreciate your patience as we continue to work toward our return. Here is where things stand….

Vanguard Music and Performing Arts (VMAPA) is in a much healthier place than where we were at the end of the 2022 tour. The organization has achieved its short-term fiscal goals of returning to current status with all vendors and is steadily working toward restoring our capital and endowment fund. This strategy has aided in the ability of the organization to not only consider a return for 2024 but to do so with an eye on ensuring our business model is sustainable into the future. Our accountants are also working closely with the Operations Team to complete our audits and meet our extended deadlines. This progress comes as the result of many hours of collaboration from dedicated and passionate members of both VMAPA Leadership and the Board of Directors to challenge assumptions, rework the operating and tour budgets and outline the best leadership structure for both the short- and long-term.

Throughout this process, the VMAPA Board and Operations Leadership have remained in contact with DCI’s CEO, Dan Acheson, about our progress. Dan reviewed our revised operating budget and leadership plan during our most recent meeting. As a next step, he has helped organize discussions with a few seasoned drum corps leaders who were selected due to their depth of experience in building and running organizations. We are grateful for the opportunity to gain valuable insights from them. Their feedback and collaboration are helping to inform decisions about a possible return to competition in 2024, which we are still in the process of making.

Additionally, we are actively pursuing experienced candidates for key leadership positions. This includes a dedicated full-time leader overseeing Operations as well as an experienced senior leader overseeing the VMAPA organization. We look forward to sharing the news with you as these positions are filled.

We remain grateful to the entire marching arts community as well as the Vanguard family for your interest in seeing the successful return of Vanguard to the DCI tour. We’ve made a great deal of progress. At the same time, there is a lot of work still ahead of us. We will continue to push forward in the coming weeks with the hope of presenting you with additional updates soon.

VMAPA Board of Directors

• August Alumni Association Meeting

  • Join us on August 16th at 5:30 pm PST for updates from the Alumni Association Officers. You can find the link here and on scvanguard.org under the Calendar tab. 

• Alumni Support Network

  • As the season comes to a close, it is safe to say that the Alumni Support Network (headed by Brett Wilcox, SCV 18-20) has been a success! Thank you to everyone who has donated to provide meals and gifts for Vanguard’s former members marching elsewhere this summer. 

• Vanguard Star

  • Did you know we have an alumni specific newsletter? We do! Subscribe to read more about alumni affairs, history, etc! Click here and choose “alumni news”

Upload Your Vanguard Historical Material
From Mike Eng and Shannon Stamm McGhee

We’re well underway with the Decades Project, creating additional documentary videos telling the stories of years ending in 3. If you have any photos, documents, or recordings to contribute, please upload what you have to the Vanguard History site.

HOF Update
From Marilyn Gill

The Timeless Excellence event turned out better than we had anticipated thanks to the efforts of so many volunteers. It was an evening filled with hugs, happy tears and lots of Santa Clara Vanguard memories. There was no way to miss the venue as Kale Duprey had Amana parked proudly along Story Road in San Jose with tours provided before dinner. Ron Abadam and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra could be heard playing as you parked your car; and as you entered the facility, you were greeted with a smile and hug from Susan Macias and Stephenie Hebert.

Bob Amaya transformed the assembly room into a Vanguard historical experience. Meticulously displayed throughout the room were decades of SCV history. Each display shared a chapter of the corps’ rich history in a way that struck an emotional chord especially in light of our situation today.

There was even a “surprise guest”, as long time friend and fan of SCV, Brandt Crocker, came as Veronica Flores’ guest. Brandt happily shared a few words as well as “officially” announced (as only he can) that dinner was served! It had been decades since I tasted Gail Royer’s spaghetti sauce, but the spaghetti sauce prepared by Maya Bonte Vannatta and Jo Blatcher far surpassed my memories of the master’s revered sauce! It was absolutely delicious!

The best part of the evening was watching the 2023 inductees’ video presentations. A special thank you to our editors: Eddie Montoya, Stephen Macias and Charlie Iwanaga for the hours of work they invested in bringing each inductees’ story to life. Eddie created the videos for Veronica Flores, Chris and Harry Morrow; Stephen was responsible for Gary Moyer’s video, and Charlie created Tim Salzman’s video. Speaking of Charlie… Charlie was our ‘Volunteer Extraordinaire’. He not only helped plan the event and created Tim’s video, but he also worked on the Decorations Team; purchased and placed all the balloons, played in the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, was the event emcee, handled the music during dinner, helped clean up after the event and even drove the janitor home to Gilroy! Hopefully, he found some time to visit, reminisce and enjoy himself at the event.

For those of you that are curious as to whether or not we broke even, the answer is No. But thanks to donations from Bob Amaya Broekhuis, Sheri McGinnis Aquilina, Diane Corbett Esparza, Linda Garbarino, Charlie Iwanaga, Stephen Macias, Erni Modesitt Porter, Maya Bonte Vannatta and myself, we were able to cover all our expenses and gave a $250.00 donation to ConXión, To Community for use of their facility.

In addition to the many things that Eddie Montoya does for the Hall of Fame, he has also created a video capturing the highlights of the Timeless Excellence event and the 2023 Hall of Fame inductees’ presentations. (To watch, please click on the link below) I hope after watching the video, everyone will make a note on their calendar to attend next year’s event as the only thing that could make it better is YOU!

• VMAPA Alumni Association Committee Meeting August, 16th @ 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm PST. You can find the link here and on scvanguard.org under the Calendar tab. 
• VMAPA Alumni Association Rebuilding Committee Meeting August, 9th @ 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm PST. You can join the zoom meeting here. 
• VMAPA Alumni Association Rebuilding Committee Meeting August, 23rd @ 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm PST. You can join the zoom meeting here.