Team Composition Rules

Number of Participants Required

EXH W/, EXH W/O, IDR W/ and IDR W/O teams must have a minimum of 10 members – including the commander, but excluding the optional guidon-bearer. A 5-point penalty, per member less than 10 members, will be enforced*.

If, due to unforeseen circumstances, there is a cadet missing from a team that would ordinarily have 12 members (3 by 4) + commander, 15 members (3 by 5) + commander or 16 (4 by 4) members + commander, etc., the team will not be explicitly penalized for having a member shortage since the team still has at least 10 members. The judges will be instructed to overlook the missing cadet. However, since the appearance of the performance may be impacted by a hole in the formation, the judges may give slightly lower marks, effectively penalizing the team by implicit means.

Color Guards must have 4 members. CG’s with more or less than 4 members will not be allowed to participate.

By definition, 1MEM teams must have one member and 2MEM teams must have two members.

Recycling of Cadets:

We are aware that many teams use the MHDM as a learning experience for future drill meets. As such, we are dropping the no “recycling” cadets rule, that has been used in the past, within the IDR and EXH categories. The rationale behind allowing a team to recycle a few cadets within any given trophy category is to accommodate the situation where a school has 16-19 cadets out for drill team.  In this situation, there are too many cadets for one drill team (generally 10-13 members), but not enough for two teams (20 minimum).  Without allowing a couple cadets from the #1 team to join up with the “second-stringers,” these “second stringers” do not have the opportunity to make it out onto the drill floor.

Schools will be allowed to recycle no more that 4 cadets in a EXH or IDR category. Obviously, there will no recycling allowed in CG, 1MEM, and 2MEM. Additionally, no cadet may command more than one team in a given category.

To enforce this rule, there is a link on the registration form where any school that is registering more than one team must declare whether or not any members will be recycled; and, if so, who the members are and which teams they will be recycled in. If a violation is discovered, the violating team may be totally disqualified from the meet.

*Note: Extenuating circumstances resulting in less than 10 members per team must be proven at least one month before the meet (17 Mar 10), else the team will run the risk of being penalized for being below the minimum member requirement.