With the New Year now well and truly here preparations for the first DCE UK Power Regional have now begun in earnest. Besides 8 British corps, 3 corps from The Netherlands and one corps from France have confirmed their participation in the show.

In this new 'DCI announcmenrs' series, you'll find an update of announcements made by DCI corps (based on dci.org). In this episode: Spirit from JSU and Seattle Cascades.

***image2***After 17 years as corps director and 35 consecutive years with the Cavaliers, Jeff Fiedler has announced his retirement from his position prior to the start of the 2008 season. Fiedler, 48, is a past chairman of the Drum Corps International board of directors and has been serving as DCI's interim chairman since last fall.

Two-time IMSB Parade Champion, Mosson Marching band is going to collaborate with InCorps in 2008. InCorps' newest show designer Robin Bogert will design and write the new drilldesigns for their 2008 production 'Pirates of the Caribbean'.

Phantom Regiment has announced a new partnership with DEG/Dynasty USA Music Products. Under this three-year agreement, Phantom Regiment will utilize DEG/Dynasty USA percussion equipment in all field and stage performances. In addition, Phantom Regiment will appear at clinics and special performances on behalf of DEG/Dynasty USA.

Legion Star have announced that they will be exhibiting at the Colchester Classic show on February 10th taking the number of Exhibiting Drumlines to four. The show will be a great day for all tastes, even for people who don't like winterguard.

2008 will see a significant increase in the number of national organisations running DCE Certified shows. With DCN and DCUK now on board as Certified Partners, it means that all of their shows, including their national finals, will be Certified. Other national organisations are also considering making some or all of their shows DCE Certified.

With the start of 2008, Drum Corps International closes the history books on its 35th anniversary season. For DCI, its member corps and fans, this past year was filled with exciting events, new initiatives and newsworthy happenings.

The DCE website received over 400,000 visits in 2007, a new record for the website and an increase of 25,000 compared to the previous year. The most popular day was October 1st, with 3,949 visits.

In 2007 we saw The Senators winning the DCE European title as first ever UK corps, The Blue Devils becoming the DCI World Champions, and the DCE Competition Manual used by all national drum corps organisations. We listed some highlights of the year in this article.

InCorps keeps on growing. The collective of designers, instructors and clinicians announced that Robin Bogert is joining the InCorps team as show designer and visual-marching clinician and instructor.

***image1***A lot of new movie clips have been added to the Cinema section. You will find new clips of Blue Devils, Southwind, Jubal, Senators, Santa Clara Vanguard, and Bluecoats.

Drum Corps Europe has published a new version of its DCE Competition Manual. In the new version 6.3 mostly minor changes have been added. The only practical change is the new size of the staging area.

Drum Corps International has created a new division, 'OnQ Performance Education', to give students and teachers the opportunity to tap into the expertise and talent that makes Drum Corps International the pinnacle of marching music.

Winter Guard International has agreed to keep its headquarters and its world championships in Dayton through 2014. WGI's color guard and percussion competitions have a $10 million economic impact annually on the region.

The Concord Ceremonial Fanfare Team has just closed their 2007 season with one of their biggest 'gigs' to date. They recently played for the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce Business awards ceremony before 1200 guests from the city's business and commerce community.

The German online drum corps community Drum Corps Café published an exclusive interview with Paul Rennick, Caption Head and Arranger for the drumline of Phantom Regiment Drum & Bugle Corps. The interview is available in English.

Drum Corps Europe is pleased to announce the participating corps of the DCE Championships 2008. Please mark Saturday 27th September in your diaries, as it promises to be yet another sizzling European Championship!

Following the successful tour of 2007, invitation now goes out to all interested bands corps to contact Event Director and BYBA President Bob Girvan to book your place in the 2008 road show.

The Cadets have released details to their 2008 program that will take fans on an amazing, beautiful and powerful journey into the pursuit of happiness. The working title of the new show is 'In Persuit of Happiness'.

Current and prospective leaders representing the whole activity are coming together on Saturday January 26th in Leicester to join in a Conference titled 'Marching Towards the Olympics'. Organised by the Federation, the agenda already boasts keynote speeches from Youth Music's No.2 David Sulkin, and Michael McKeever the head teacher of Trinity School in Nottingham.

***image1***Cristian Barbarino will be the new drum major for Millennium Drum & Bugle Corps from Verdello - Italy. Daria Raimondi stepped down as the drum major after conducting the corps for five years.

The staff of Unik Star Percussion Ensemble from Hellemmes - France has announced the title of their new show 2008: 'Dark Illusion'. This new program, inspired on horror, is composed of dark ballads and the famous music from 'The Exoscist'. The show will be presented at the Color Guard Netherlands and WGI Regional competitions in The Netherlands.

The number of North American junior corps that made it to the field in 2007 stands at 53, an overall decline of six corps from the 2006 total. Of that 53, just 48 actually competed on the field, marking the first time in the DCI era that fewer than 50 junior corps made it to field competition.

'Young Musicians Guide to Rock' is the name of the 2008 production that Black Knights Senior Corps are proud to announce. A show that will be 'in ya face' from the very start incorporating some of the very best rock music there is. The show will be another original exciting BK production.

Two of Europe's leading National Drum Corps organisations are pleased to announce that they have agreed to embrace the recently announced Drum Corps Europe Certified Partnership scheme.

Drum Corps Europe has appointed Tony Mackenzie-Jones as the DCE Adjudication Manager. Tony will coordinate all judging matters as part of the DCE management team.

Southern Aurora and Legion Star from Brighton and Crawley in Sussex are pleased to announce that they will be performing 'The Southern Express' as their 2008 Summer Season production.

Drum Corps Europe is introducing a new level of strategic partner, known as 'Certified Partners'. National organisations that use the DCE Competition Manual for all their contests, and also use the DCE judging team may call themselves 'DCE Certified Partners'.

This year, Drum Corps International will present ten major regional events across the country, in addition to the 2008 DCI World Championships to be hosted for the first time in Indianapolis - Indiana this August.

Registration for the DCE Championships 2008 has ended. Yesterday was the last opportunity to register directly. Like previous years, DCE has received more registrations than available spots.

Director George Hopkins doesn't regret the use of vocals during Cadets' show of 2007. In his 'Hopsblog' he explains why the question to use voice or not isn't relevant when putting together a show.

Building the Green Machine is the biography of corps founder Don Warren and a comprehensive history of the magnificent Cavaliers. Author Colt Foutz, a former reporter and columnist at the Naperville Sun, spent two years interviewing Warren to get the 'inside scoop' of this remarkable organisation.

The next DCUK Directors College event will take on Saturday 19th January. Registration for the college. This event is open to any corps regardless of whether they are currently in membership of DCUK.

The BYBA Individuals & Ensembles competition last weekend featured the largest number of entering bands so far in over ten years, beating last year's figures by almost ten percent. The day was filled with some remarkable performances.

DCE are pleased to announce that the Pacemakers Drum and Bugle Corps have accepted an invitation to host the first DCE UK Power Regional, to be held in Londen on 21st June, 2008.

The introduction of the new European indoor percussion organisation 'Indoor Percussion Europe' at the end of October has caused a lot of commotion. Plenty of questions are being raised about this new initiative. Drumcorps.org.uk put them to Erwin van Gemert, one of the initiators and the IPE spokesperson.

After the success of '1492: Mundus Novus', which resulted in becoming a Drum Corps Europe Open Class finalist this year, Millennium Drum & Bugle Corps from Verdello - Italy have announced their new show program entitled 'Inferno di Dante' ('Dante's Inferno').

The Top Secret Drum Corps (Switzerland), Percussion Ensemble DrumSpirit (Belgium) and Edelweiss (France) will perform at the IPE Championships. Together with WGI indoor percussion units Matrix and Father Ryan (USA) they are the first units that have registered for the competition run by Indoor Percussion Europe.

Spirit of Coventry has presented their first show production: 'A Night at the West End'. Music pieces include several pieces from hit musicals. The corps was founded earlier this year.

The Senators Drum and Bugle Corps from Eastleigh - Hampshire are pleased to announce that the Corps will be performing 'The Seven Deadly Sins' as their 2008 Summer Season production.

The members of Beatrix Drum & Bugle Corps from Hilversum - The Netherlands have agreed on a US tour in the summer of 2008. The plane tickets have been booked, which was the one remaining obstacle for the organisation of the tour.

***image1***New movie clips have been added to the Cinema section. You will find new clips of Juliana, Jubal, Cavaliers drumline and Star of Indiana drumline.

It is now possible to register for the DCE Power Regional to be held in London next year on 21st June. A special section has been added to the DCE website containing detailed information on the Power Regional.

Drum Corps International (DCI) today announced it will suspend the national television broadcast of its World Championship event on ESPN2, effective with the 2008 season. The DCI World Championship program has aired on the ESPN2 cable sports network for the past three years and was viewed by an audience of more than one million annually.