On Sunday 7th October, over 2,500 gathered at Butts Park Arena, Coventry, England for the UK's premier National Championships staged by the British Youth Band Association, and boy, what a Championships it promised to be in all Divisions. A report by Tony Mackenzie-Jones.

DCE corps 'avatars' are now available on the DCE community site drumcorpstalk.com. Forum members can insert an avatar of their own corps or favourite corps next to their name.

Three experts from the Flemish music organisation Vlamo share their knowledge with sixty band leaders of the Field Band Foundation. From Sunday 9th December to Saturday 15th December 2007, a 'Teach the Teacher' workshop will take place in the surroundings of the BAT Community Centre in Durban - South Africa.

The release of 2007 World Championship DVDs is officially scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday, 15th November. This year's set includes six DVDs in three volumes spanning performances of all competing Division I units and the top performances of the corps of Divisions II and III.

On Saturday 10th November the Marching & Performing Arts UK Annual General Meeting took place in Walsall and this was followed by an open meeting for drum corps which included elections to the DCUK Board for 2008.

The Stafford Lancers have announced their 2008 show: 'Evita'. Filled with straight jazz, Latin tangos, modern pop, stylish waltzes, orchestral operas, chorale ensembles and everything in between, 'Evita' is a musical score packed with passion and energy, emotion and movement.

The DCE Power Regional to take place on Saturday 21st June 2008 will be held in the prestigious Crystal Palace Athletics Stadium in London. This has been announced by Drum Corps Europe.

Xpression, Unik Star's winterguard unit from Hellemmes France, has announced the theme of the show for the 2008 winterguard season: 'Behind the Magic Door'. Xpression will perform this show at the CGN and WGI competitions in The Netherlands.

The Senators Drum & Bugle Corps have announced a theatre concept for this winter: 'Raw Rhythm' - a series of stage performances in November, January and February.

GeekChic as opened a new webshop featuring clothing and merchandising for bands, corps and color guard. The shop is available in English, Dutch and German and items are normally dispatched within two work days all over Europe.

Preparations are now well underway for first ever DCE Power Regional to be staged in the UK. In association with BYBA and DCUK, the event will take place on Saturday June 21st 2008 in a London stadium, details of which will be announced next weekend.

Whilst Black Knights would not have refused an over age member in 2007 the corps was not actively seeking overage members, however at a recent staff meeting the Black Knights Drum and Bugle Corps decided to embrace the trend in drum corps by moving overage for the foreseeable future.

Today, the registration period for the DCE European Championships 2008 has begun. Corps will be able to register during the whole of November. The participants list will be published mid-December.

Color Guard Nederland is surprised about the formation of indoor percussion Europe. A decision that will not have any consequences for the 2008 CGN contest season. CGN has been talking with the organiser of IPE about bringing two American indoor percussion groups to the CGN Championships 2008 in Eindhoven.

After three years of running without a corps director Black Knights are pleased to announce that the directorship of the corps was offered to, and accepted by, Ken Mansfield. Ken has been part of the marching band and drum corps scene since he joined Thurrock drum and trumpet corps in October 1973.

Indoor Percussion Europe is a new European based organisation, started by a group of percussion instructors, arrangers, judges and educators who are concerned about the level of percussion training and performance, primarily in Belgium, France, the UK and The Netherlands. The first IPE will be the IPE Championships on 29th March 2008, featuring two US indoor percussion performances.

The team of the German Drum Corps community Drum Corps Café has announced that the website has reached 100,000 hits since it was launched in July 2007 - nearly 1,000 hits per day.

Fresh on the back of their Junior Division Championship Winning performance, the Marxmen have had unprecedented success in bringing the media up to speed with what the young people within this great activity of ours can really achieve. The recent BBC News 24 airing has also now lead to some localized publicity for the band in addition.

The Percussion Class will not be returning to the Drum Corps Europe Championships in 2008. DCE has decided to drop this class as the development of percussion groups is increasingly moving indoors.

For 2008 and the foreseeable future the Kidsgrove Scouts senior corps will remain an open age unit. The 2008 program is very exciting and promises to be a real hit with all aspects of the audience.

"I was invited by the Field Band Foundation to come and stay in South Africa from September 24 through 30 september 2007 and attend the National Championships. Having the opportunity to assist preparing for the National Championships for Field Bands in Johannesburg and giving input in judging Visual has been a unique experience for me." A report by Geert Vanmaeckelberghe. Translation: Hans Kloppert.

The Centurion Show Band is pleased to announce that in 2008 they will be undertaking a full competitive season, attending a large proportion of BYBA shows. The band held their first rehearsal back on Sunday 21st October which was also an open rehearsal for anyone interested in taking up membership, which resulted in 7 new members of the wind and tuned percussion section being recruited.

The staff of Showband USA from Hellemmes - France have decided to change the name of the group. The name that will be used as of now is Unik Star Percussion Ensemble.

The record breaking West End musical Wicked, will be holding its second Halloween 'Wicked Day' on Sunday 28th October between 11am and 4pm at London's newest shopping venue, Cardinal Place, right in the heart of Victoria. Distant Thunder from Bedford will join in the fun by performing their renditions of some of the songs from the show.

The Southern Aurora winter drumline has presented their new show 'Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hide'. Experience the highs and lows, fast and slows when you commit to being your own test subject as the SA drumline explores the physical explosions and changes experienced by the scientist himself.

The online collection of DCUK video clips, 'DCUK Theatre' has been updated with clips of the 2007 British Drum Corps Championships. The clips can be watched free of charge.

Architects of the currently-under-construction Lucas Oil Stadium, the future home of the Drum Corps International World Championships starting in 2008, report that the stadium is approximately 65 percent complete. The DCI World Championships are scheduled to be the very first set of events to be held in the $700 million stadium starting 7th August.

Although somewhat later than planned, photos can now be ordered from drumcorpsmedia.com. Not only are standard prints available but also photos on various gadgets such as photo stickers, T-shirts, mouse mats, mugs and jigsaw puzzles.

Due to financial difficulties, Southwind will not field a competitive drum corps for the 2008 DCI season. The organisation will take a year to raise money, build on business and community relationships, and move forward with plans to field a competitive corps for the 2009 season.

Southern Aurora have announced new additions to their show design and staff team for 2008, all previous members of Auroras staff. The new designers and staff members are Danny Palmer, Greg Ovenden, and Paul Riddell.

Author and self-proclaimed 'band geek' Courtney Brandt believes there is no fictional voice to represent high school band students. With the release of 'The Line', Brandt is hoping to change that.

Saturday 6th October 6 marked the second annual 'Dutch in DCI' banquet held in Huizen, the Netherlands. Drum corps fans and members who marched in Drum Corps International corps from the mid-1980s to 2007 gathered to share stories and memories.

***image1***New movie clips have been added to the Cinema section. You will find new clips of the DCE Championships (Northern Star, Millennium, Beatrix, Jubal, Kidsgrove Scouts, Senators).

Drum Corps Planet has opened their photo archive to public viewing. DCP's photographers have been busy capturing images from several events this past summer, which DCP is going to share with drum corps fans.

The DVDs, CDs and patches of the DCE Championships 2007 can be ordered now the DCE webshop. The patches are immediately available, with a longer delivery time for the DVDs and CDs.

An amazing day's entertainment saw the culmination of the British Youth Band Association's summer season Sunday at the Butts Park Arena where record breaking crowds witnessed the results of a season longs hard work from each and every participating member.

The DCE Championships 2007, that took place in Rotterdam last week, was the biggest ever edition in terms of visitor numbers. There were 2400 visitors to the event.

September 2007 was another record month for the DCE website. Drumcorps.org.uk (together with the other language versions) was visited more than 56,000 times in September. This is 4,000 more visits than in the same month last year. The live webcast during the DCE Championships was a hit with more than 1000 viewers.

The European drum corps activity seems to be able to count on more and more attention from drum corps fans in the USA. The announcement of the DCE European Championships 2007 on the Drum Corps International website was one of the five most-read articles of last week.

The Drum Corps International Executive Committee, comprised of five Division I corps directors and four at-large (unaffiliated) members, were unanimous in their approval of a proposal brought forward by the directors of Divisions II & III following a meeting in Chicago last weekend. The special vote was convened specifically to address the proposition, thereby combining the two divisions into a newly created 'Open Class'.

The 2007 British Drum Corps Championships DVD will available to purchase at the British Youth Band Association National Championships on Sunday 7th October in Coventry.

The DVDs, CDs and patches of the DCE Championships 2007 can be ordered from the DCE web shop as from Tuesday 9th October.

The biggest drum corps community in Germany, Drum Corps Café, published an interview with Noel Alvarez. He marched snare with the Boston Crusaders, Phantom Regiment and The Blue Devils, and is the current DCI Snare Individual Champion.

BYBA are please to announce the 2007 edition of the Marching Boot Camp will take place on Saturday 3rd November, at Trinity Upper School in Nottingham. The format has been developed and the event will now be open to all marching members for Wind and Percussion.

Several galleries with pictures of the DCE Championships 2007 have been published on the internet. We collected the web addresses and made a list of them.