By Pat Gerber –

Recently, in a staff meeting at work, we were discussing the goal of achieving a unified system of services.  Although each staff member brought an expertise to the table, the idea was to work in concert with one another to provide services that ebbed and flowed with the needs of the system.  One colleague, as a means of analogy, referenced a collective group of beings from Star Trek called the The Borg.   Now, I am not a “Trekky” nor do I know much about this particular group of “beings”.  What I did learn from this colleague, though, is that this is a collection of drones with the mission of acting as a “hive” and their goal is to achieve perfection. They work to all think with their “hive mind” to make decisions knowing that they impact the hive as a whole.  Unfortunately, The Borg, used their organization and effort towards domination for evil deeds.

Although, hopefully, our children are not out for evil as they contribute their own expertise to the band there are many similarities to The Borg from this fictional series.  Each band and guard member quickly learns that his/her decisions and movements impact the overall visual impact, the sound, and the unity of the performance.  As the band strives to achieve perfection, it may require many repetitions of the same movement even though any number of individuals has already mastered their parts.  Even if certain instrumentalists have been given solos during the performance, the quality of that component of the show is impacted by the whole band both before and after the solo.

So as our band strives for perfection and aims to think as “one” during their performances, let’s remember how it really is a group effort.  It is about individuals bringing talents to a group and striving for perfection for the good of the whole.  If any group of “beings” can do it, the Marching Greyhounds can!