Just a reminder, the State of the League address will be held at 8pm this Tuesday following our first league championship. We encourage ALL PEARL groups to attend this event, and weigh in on some of the BoD suggestions and announcements. Also, those who have ideas can speak up, and we will speak about them. Hope everyone had a great end of the season, and we cant wait to see you on this page on Tuesday!

8pm Eastern Time btw

Neat.

Championship Tuesday is tomorrow, and ladies and gentlemen it has been an amazing first season for PEARL. Hopefully we can grow next season and have double the success we had this season.

The PEARL Championship will be underway tomorrow, where 20 drumlines will compete for the coveted first ever league title. In Division 1, Beatboxers, Flamtastic, and Cymbalism are all in a tight race to win, with Black Beat NZ trailing closely behind. In Division 2, although The Drum Circlers are in the lead, they are not competing in this season's championship. Therefore, The Panther Pride Drumline are heavy favorites to win the event. Pandora is trailing them after being in the lead early in the season. Finally, in Division 3, the Illuminati Drumline has caused many conspiracy theories with their dominance all season. They are clear cut favorites to win not only the event, but FMA Finals. Easternwood is behind them and are also expected to give a nice performance.

Good luck to all groups competing! Also don't forget to attend the State of the League Address after the PEARL Championship!

Signing in. Waiting for Lex

-Csh- Echs signing in. Over. -Csh-

Here, but just finished work so am driving home. Weird hours in New Zealand. It 1:10pm Wednesday here.

Hello Pearl.. Let me first start out by congratulating everyone on our first successful season. Congratulations to the top three at our first ever championships.

Division 1

1st - Beatboxers 86.935
2nd - Cymbalism 86.790
3rd - Flamtastic 86.245

Division 2

1st - The Panther Pride Drumline 74.755
2nd - Pandora 66.275
3rd - Super Adventure Club 61.910

Division 3

Easternwood 63.835
Dark Defenders 55.850
New World Drumline 55.275

Congrats to everyone for competing! I believe that a write up for this championship will come soon if Alex has time.

In general, we were able to recruit 40 groups, which is awesome for our first season. It seems that most everyone has been active. It appears that we’ve had a few groups fundraising. We hope to see them on the competitive field very soon. Thank you to everyone who has been active in the forum. We really have an amazing core of active groups.

Next season, the championship event will be bigger and hopefully, depending on how much we make, will be open for all to join. We were almost able to fill all of our first season events. I believe that I set the ticket price at $25 dollars for our events. I won’t have that figure until the season ends.

Furthermore, I want to open up the discussion of scheduling to the entire league.

Topic 1:

Would it be helpful to establish set days for our league events? If no, how many events per week is an acceptable amount?

Topic 2:

Some leagues use geographical locations, others have themes, and some just use the league name when creating events. I’d like to establish a theme for our events every season. The theme may simply be a geographical location (regardless of the part of the world). In other words, the tour mustn’t be just in the United States. The tour may be set in fictional locations, considering it’s a fantasy game. Share your thoughts on this topic please. Together we may choose a theme or you may leave that entirely up to me if you do not mind.

Topic 3:

The board of directors wants to introduce the Pearl Hall of Fame (HoF). Every 3 seasons, ONE group will be inducted into the HoF based on several criteria. Therefore, starting season 41 and after the completion of season 43, the BoD will examine our groups and unanimously decide on 3 groups who meet the requirements, and the entire league will vote on which nominee is inducted into the HoF. The second induction will occur after season 46 and the third after season 49 and so on.

Requirements:

An inductee….

must be a division 1 drum line,

must complete, at least, 3 full seasons with the league,

should have placed in the top 3 at our championships, at least, twice,

must finish the seasons with a minimum score of 60 in division 2 or 3 and 70 in division 1,

and may be considered based on End of Season Awards, for instance by winning the Outstanding Director award (which will be discussed later).

In addition, there is a voter requirement. For non BoD members, to be eligible to vote you must be a member for 2 seasons within the three consecutive seasons. For instance, for the first HoF induction anyone who joined this season (41) or joins next season (42) and stays until the completion of season 43 will be eligible to vote.

Topic 4:

End of Season awards… (I’ll let alxmm98 give the details ).

Topic 5:

Some groups have joined late in the season, making the Pearl Cup point system a bit tricky. Should new members earn points towards the Pearl Cup off of events they attended before joining the league?

Topic 6:

I want to extend a hardy welcome to our newest board of director members. Please welcome with great pleasure Kiwidrummer (Jim) and Alanlovesme (Katie). Both have shown exceptional leadership and growth on FMA, especially with their own leagues in other circuits, and appear worthy of a promotion. Congrats!

I am very excited about where the league is going. It appears that we already will have finalists in all divisions, perhaps even medalists in some. The board of directors has been working hard behind the scenes to come up with ideas which will keep the league interesting, fun, and engaging. Thank you to everyone for making season 41 a success.

Congrats on a great season everyone, and good luck at finals.

The End of Season Awards will be like this: The Director of the Year award will be voted upon by BoD and HoF voters. All caption awards will go to the groups that are number one in their respective captions. The awards will be based on divisions, but we will also award the overall league caption winners as well. The Comeback Line of the Season award will go to the group who had the highest score jump within two seasons. Finally, we are introducing the Fan Favorite award, which will be awarded to the group whose show is most popular within our league. This award will be voted upon by all league members, and a show is eligible for this award only if the player explains their show concept on the forum, and the show must have at least scored a 55.

Please share any thoughts and or concerns. And thank you for everyone making this league great!

it all sounds really cool and thanks for the promotion I'm honored.

Btw, you stated, "an inductee must place in the top 3, at least, twice." Does that mean the top three in any division?

When will the end of season awards be presented? Does it start this season? I really like all ideas here. The HoF and fan favorite award is something i've never seen done on here by any league. Good job on being creative and innovative.

I might be stealing some of these ideas for BRAVO! lol

If the budget allows at the end of this season, 2 events per week would be nice. Maybe Tuesdays and Fridays? I like Tuesdays, because the final day of the regular season is always a Tuesday.

Yes, what I meant by "must place in the top 3 twice" is that over the three seasons before we induct a group, the group must place in the top 3, regardless of division. After a group's beginning 3 seasons, most groups, if they rehearse and compete hard, are bumped up to division 1. You still will be rewarded for your success in lower divisions.

The End of Season Awards will be presented this season after finals, with the exception of the Fan Favorite and Comeback Line of the Year awards. They will always be presented after FMA Finals.

Also, yes i will be doing a write up of the championship. It should be up within a few days

I like having a theme for our events, even if it's a world tour or whatever.. it becomes humdrum doing all US cities and towns. like you stated some leagues dont even use a town .. just the league name. That is so uninteresting to me. creating a theme is a chance to be creative and keep things interesting.

i am fine with 2-3 shows a week .. and yes, tuesday should be one of the set day.. Tues, thurs, sat is cool with me and perhaps the opening day on sun

I (hopefully) should get the PEARL Cup leaders up later tonight, though I don't think the top 5 has changed since Saturday night.

I agree with everything you guys said. Schedule isnt a big issue for me. Tuesday is a must though. Themes should definitely be implemented.

I do think that, along with the theme, some venues should be referenced. Venues that aren't traditionally used for drumline events, like international landmarks.