Member FAQs – Page 8

FFCC Announces 2017 Hall of Fame Inductees

The Florida Federation of Colorguards Circuit is proud to announce the election of Stephen Porter and Carrie Short to the FFCC Hall of Fame. They join 24 distinguished fellow honorees and will be inducted in a ceremony at the 2017 FFCC Championships on April 2.

The Hall of Fame is the highest honor presented to individuals who have influenced FFCC history through their achievements in performance, in struction, adjudication or administration. Each year, outstanding individuals who have made significant contributions to the activity are nominated by the membership at large and inducted.

Stephen Porter –

Stephen is truly a product of the FFCC. He began his winterguard career as a band student at Largo High School, under the instruction of Michael James, Tom Slaughter & Willie Agustin. As a music education student at UCF, he marched with Beyond Winterguard under the direction of Jon & Cathy Kersten, the Knights under Michael James, and a later stint with NEI in 2004 under Jill Moser and Robbie DuFresne. While his performance career was shorter than he’d hoped, he has made up for that as an instructor. He began teaching Colonial High School and working with the Knights winterguard in the early 2000s, and Lyman High School in 2002. In addition to his Music Education degree, he returned to school and received an associate’s degree in dance, and became the full time dance teacher at Lyman in 2002, building a program that started from virtually nothing to what today stands at over 200 dance technique students, a fifty-member dance team, a fifty-member colorguard, and three winterguards.

Stephen’s accolades as a designer and director are well-known. His first FFCC team to attend the WGI World Championships, Colonial High School, came home with the Scholastic A Gold Medal in 2008. In 2009, Lyman High School earned the bronze in Scholastic A. In 2011, his independent team, Orlando Visual, which began the season in Independent A class but was promoted over dinner at their first regional, took the silver medal in Independent Open. In 2014, Lyman earned the Gold Medal in Scholastic A. In addition, he’s been the designer or director for over 10 WGI finalist teams, and countless FFCC medalists. He has worked with a plethora of FFCC teams besides his own, including Apopka HS, Colonial HS, Lake Howell HS, Storm Winterguard, Gainesville Independent, Knights Winterguard, Dr. Phillips HS, Winter Park HS, Timber Creek HS, East Ridge HS, Fleming Island HS, Sebastian River HS, and more.

Carrie Short –

Carrie became a performer in the FFCC in 1997 in the Company Color Guard. Later starting her teaching career with East Lake High School and ultimately ending up at Seminole High School.

Carrie has held positions as Color Guard technician, designer, and director with the Seminole for the past 20 years. She is a fiercely motivated educator who demands as much quality as she gives. She has had success at every level of FFCC and WGI competition winning Circuit Championships in every Scholastic National Class and making Scholastic World Finals in A, Open, and World Classes. The Seminole Open guard was the WGI Bronze Medalist in 2007 and has finished as high as 5th place in Scholastic World Class Championships. Carrie’s teaching experience has helped Seminole Middle School win 10 FFCC Cadet Class Championships and she has started an elementary guard program called Little Hawks for the Seminole community.

Carrie is tireless in her pursuit of excellence from every student she teaches…whether in the winter guard arena or the classroom. She is the founding director of the iHawk Personalized Learning Academy at Seminole High School. Carrie is also the AP Economics teacher at Seminole. She holds students to high standards. Her expectations for quality are equaled by her popularity as a teacher.

Posted by Andy Snow

Tech Tips – Listening to your Judge Commentary

By Tom Slaughter, FFCC Chief Judge

All of us on the FFCC Board are excited at how the delivering of judge commentary to directors and staff members has been made even more efficient as we move into the 2017 season. Here are some things to do and a few things to not do as you are looking to access commentary after your performances this season.

*Before you go to a show, make sure your member profile is up to date with correct email addresses for both individuals who have director access to the ensemble, as well as the staff page. These are the email addresses that commentary links will be sent to once your files are uploaded. Directors can log in and update your contact information and your staff contact information in your member profile at any time.

*Make sure all individuals who want to listen to commentary on their cell phones have downloaded the Dropbox App onto their device. You do not have to set up a Dropbox account, but you must have the app on your device.

*When commentary on your team has been uploaded, all of the addresses in the profile will be emailed a link that allows you to access this commentary. When you receive the email, simply click the link contained within it.

*Clicking the link in the email will automatically open the Dropbox app and your commentary will be available to you. Listen to the commentary within the Dropbox app (using the Dropbox player).

*DO NOT TRY TO LISTEN TO THE COMMENTARY ON A CELL PHONE THROUGH YOUR MEMBER PROFILE ON THE FFCC WEBSITE. Clicking the emailed link, and then allowing your device to open the Dropbox app to play the files is the most successful way to listen to your commentary.

*Did someone on your staff not get an email link because they weren’t set up in the profile? Then whoever did receive the link can simply forward it from their email to the staff member’s email.

*All ensembles should make every attempt to listen to their judge commentary before critique. Critique dialogue is much more useful and productive if the judge feedback on the performance is already known.

IN SUMMARY:

Use links you receive in email to listen to commentary
Make sure the Dropbox App is on your device

Tom Slaughter

FFCC Vice President/Chief Judge

Posted by Michael Higbe

FFCC Event Registration now open to all!

FFCC has updated and opened its registration form for teams wanting to experience the FFCC. Teams that have not paid membership but still want to experience the quality, positive, educational performance opportunities that the FFCC offers can use this FORM for Non-members to select and register for events. Some events have reached capacity and are only available in the “Wait List” status. If your team does not clear the wait list you will not be charged. All fees must be paid before teams will be scheduled. All fees are non-refundable within fourteen days of the event. Don’t wait register today!

Posted by Michael Higbe

Try the FFCC Experience

Many color guards participate in the Florida Bandmasters Association Solo and Ensemble events throughout the state in February. For those that go on to the state assessment, there is a gap in time with no performances or input to improve your ensemble. The FFCC can help fill that space with educational learning opportunities.

The FFCC, in addition to all of the national competitive classes, has an entire performance category for evaluation only. This class offers five caption specific judges to make recorded commentary on your ensemble’s performance. This will give you an invaluable tool for teaching and crafting your production for the District and State FBA evaluation. We also offer director critique so that you can talk to each judge about your specific teaching goals and challenges which is something the tight FBA schedule cannot.

Nothing improves your ensemble like practical performance experience. The FFCC has a full schedule of events in north, central, and southwest Florida before and after most FBA District evaluations. This gives you an opportunity to allow your students to work out their nerves in a positive, educational, and supportive environment before their FBA performance and will offers you the option to allow them to continue to hone their skills before the State assessment.

We know you and your students work hard at crafting your production each year and one performance seems to be such a limited opportunity to show their efforts. Consider the FFCC Experience by registering as a non-member for the FFCC Event most convenient to you. You can find the full list of events on the FFCC Homepage. If you want to register for an event you can use this FORM.

Posted by Michael Higbe

Show Registration is OPEN!

FFCC held its Initial Membership Meeting Sunday September 11, in Apopka, FL with over 126 teams represented. In addition to a show host meeting, team representatives received information on web site improvements, education initiatives, and new contest sites for the 2017 season. The thrust of the meeting, however, was membership enrollment and contest registration. With Wifi connection and multiple computer stations directors were able to pay fees and select their competitive schedule for the 2017 season with minimal wait. This meeting date is the only day where there is open enrollment at all shows. After the meeting the FFCC contests are “capped” between forty and fifty teams, depending on the fire code rating for the venue. At this point one show has a wait list and two more are close to capacity. If you haven’t enrolled and registered for your shows, you should do so in the very near future. You can find a step by step process for enrollment HERE, in this guide created by Cichele Fields. For those teams who have competed with the FFCC before or that have already completed the enrollment process your next steps for REGISTERING for contests can be found HERE in this Step by Step guide. As always, use the if you need help or have questions.

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