Alumni Council ORGANIZES VOLUNTEER WEEKEND AT CHAMPION EVENT CENTER
Our Alumni Council Chairperson, Bluecoats Historian, and baritone alumnus Jay Wise recounts below his experience at the first-ever Alumni Council Volunteer Weekend at the Champion Event Center.
Bluecoats would like to thank the dozens of alumni, board members, and community members who joined us to volunteer this weekend.
Most of the volunteers for the first-ever Alumni Council Volunteer Weekend.
As I write this my 52-year old body is telling me I overdid things this weekend. Sports tournament? Nope. Splitting wood for the winter? Not yet. Marathon? Are you kidding? I logged 16 hours working inside a building, doing a little here, a little there and really a little everywhere. Some of those little things were a little bit physical, hence the aches. But it feels good.
The Champion Event Center is the official “home” of the Bluecoats, and while very few of the members of the corps ever set foot inside the facility, it is a principal revenue stream for the organization. Three nights of bingo each week and many weekend rentals of either of the two halls each month serve to supplement the operational dollars needed to make the Bluecoats Experience happen.
While the staff that produces the drum corps show that hits football fields across the country each summer is large, the Champion Event Center operates on a minimal crew. The upkeep on any property is time-consuming, the hall no exception, and time has marched on leaving the facility in need of some sprucing up, beyond what was possible by the on-site staff.
So this weekend the Alumni Council coordinated the efforts of about a dozen who gathered to join Chief Executive Officer Mike Scott in a weekend of projects to give a new shine to the decades-old building purchased by the organization just eight years ago. We scraped, taped and painted bathrooms, foyer entrances, bingo counters, hall and bingo board trim, power-washed the entire front facade of the building, cleaned air duct vents, and, amazingly, removed monstrously heavy 5’ by 15’ partition doors and supporting rails that divided the large hall into two smaller halls.
The crew was all voluntary and a mixture of Bluecoats stakeholders: three Board of Directors, three Bluecoats Hall of Fame members, two community volunteers, two former Bluecoats of the Year, alumni from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s and two spouses and a daughter of alumni. Why give up part of a weekend (or the entire weekend as some of us did)? It was a labor of love. The hall reflects the organization and any Bingo patron who walks in or any event attendee is likely to only experience Bluecoats in this hall. They will judge the Bluecoats no less than those on the field during summer contests.
Sure, the corps could hire contractors to do the work, but for those of us who live close by and have the ability, why divert such funds when they could be used to enhance the experience and produce next next incredible and widely-loved show? Tomorrow’s aches and pains will fade, and so, eventually, will our paint job. When it does, or when the next set of spruce-up projects come up, I’ll be ready again. Why? The work simply does not change. It’s drum corps, repetition is the fiber of our being.
Now for a little ice, for the body and the beverage.
Jay Wise
Alumni Council Chair
1986-1988 Baritone
