Madison, WI – February 28th The great blizzard of February 2007 is one way the Madison Scouts recent winter camp will be remembered. At 6pm on Friday night, February 23rd, it was just a cold winter night in Madison... two hours later there was over a foot of snow hitting the entire Midwest. Needless to say, the camp was a major success with all members, staff, volunteers and board members getting to and from the rehearsal safely. Of course major delays, flight cancellations and general travel frustration took a shot at breaking up the weekend, but everyone pulled together, achieved the goals for the weekend and had a tremendous camp.The brass and percussion sections adhered to a strong musical focus for the weekend getting through the first 2/3's of the show material. In addition, time was spent working on the marching basics program and the non-show material including the corps song, parade tune, streetbeat and the concert tune, Ice Castles. With a full percussion section in attendance and up to 60 brass players throughout the weekend, members took part in focused sectional and ensemble sessions with the staff and designers of the program. Time was also spent working with the corps’ fitness coordinator (owner of a local martial arts studio) on physical and mental conditioning and preparing for the summer tour.With a dedicated team of volunteers in place, a number of projects were successfully accomplished over the weekend as well. From getting the members to and from camp safely, selling souvenirs, feeding the corps all weekend and measuring members for their uniforms, the team made sure that the adverse weather wasn’t going to prevent them from getting the job done. In addition, in order to improve the communication and participation with our members and MDBCA, volunteers also took head-shots of all the current members to be uploaded in the CorpsData database and to help alumni connect to our current brothers through the MAD-Drive effort.Another important activity took place on Saturday night when the corps members, staff and volunteers took part in a Madison Scouts Historical Perspective session with Bill Howard. Stated Executive Director, Jeff Spanos “in order to better understand our history and connection with our past, we’ve started a new series of history lessons to give our members a sense of where they come from and what makes the Madison Scouts’ experience a unique and special one.”Overall, the members, staff and volunteers bonded through it all: 6 foot snow drifts, icy parking lots, and backed-up airports. The corps had a great time interacting with each other as they laid the foundation for a special and memorable year. The next Madison Scouts winter camp will be March 23-25th in Madison and the colorguard will join the corps for the April camp as the full corps prepares for the summer and finishes the design and implementation of the rest of the program.ABOUT THE MADISON SCOUTS For almost 70 years, the Madison Scouts have been an integral part of developing and shaping young men's lives through musical enrichment and marching excellence. We are a non-profit youth arts organization known for presenting energetic, powerful and crowd-pleasing performances. Our commitment to excellence serves as the foundation for our ultimate goal of teaching our members important life skills through music and the arts, as well as preparing them to be successful, contributing members of society.To learn more about the Madison Scouts Drum & Bugle Corps call 608-237-8775, e-mail Executive Director Jeff Spanos at mailto:jeffspanos@madisonscouts.org or visit https://madisonscouts.org/.