Hello all, my name is Michael Alexander. I'm the corps director of the Lexington Legends as well as the band director of the Ram Band. I'm here to announce what I think is actually a pretty cool event - the Young Players Challenge (suggestions for a better name welcome!).

We all have gone through the stress of trying to fill up our schedule when we have neither experience nor influence. It's tough. Even my groups get turned away sometimes. So I decided to revive an idea that I have used once before and only stopped because it was not financially sustainable - a competition (in this case, a series of competitions) that will cater solely to newer players.

Believe it or not, over the seasons I have actually created two B accounts. One to troll cire, one to see how quickly I could make a group competitive. I got bored with both and stopped using them, but I figured I could make them useful. I created two new accounts today so that I could have four, one for each week before Finals.

Here's how it works - every Wednesday week one through four my Booster Club accounts will host a competition. The competition will only accept applications from low influence or new players (basically, I will reject you if I suspect you could be a DI group).

Note - these accounts will not collect influence or any more money than necessary in order to hold a 30 group show, nor will they rehearse or attend shows. They are not competitive groups. I only did it this way so that I could host extra shows. If it makes you more comfortable I will even keep track of their influence/cash gains and update you on it.

We hope to see you at our competitions on Wednesday evenings! Save the dates!

Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
Wednesday, November 11, 2015

I like this a lot!

Thanks! I loved the idea the first time I did it but couldn't think of a way to do it back to back seasons as I lost so much money. Can't believe it took me this long to figure it out!