Newsletters (past and present)

What are GCCs?

Don Daber (1960)

Green Capsule Comments or GCCs, as they were commonly known, were the official publication of the Optimists organization.

In mid-1960 Don Daber became the official photographer and publicity person for the Toronto Optimists. Don was a promotional genius who he had a clear vision of how The Optimists, and other drum corps, should be promoted. One of Don's first creations was "Green Capsule Comments" or, as most people referred to it, GCC. Don had a two-fold purpose for GCC. The first objective was keep corps members informed about what was happening within the corps. The second, and more important goal, was to create a communications vehicle that could be used to promote the corps. In addition to corps members GCC was distributed to the fans of the Toronto Optimists, to drum corps publications and to others in the greater drum corps community. GCCs quickly became the envy of every other drum corps.

The first issue of GCC was published in December of 1960. Work on this issue, as well as on all later issues, was done by Don Daber together with volunteers from the corps. For the first few years printing was done using a mimeograph machine. As a result, these issues were strictly black and white, with no grey. They were, however, printed on green paper, green being the colour of The Optimists. As technology improved so did the look of the publication. In the early days there were two versions: one for the general public as well as an "Inside the Corps" edition that was strictly for corps members. Eventually the "Inside the Corps" edition disappeared.

Here's an excerpt from the Volume 3, Number 1 issue of GCC that offers a bit of background regarding the beginnings of Green Capsule Comments.

The paper actually began earlier than the dateline on that first issue---December, 1960. During the summer of 1960 the Corps established their "Thought for Today” card hung on the front inside window of the bus with the appropriate thought in relation to that particular contest we might have been attending. In conjunction with the Eastern States Championships in Rome that year a collection of “second thoughts for the day" were handed to members of the Corps on the bus as we sped towards Rome and this was a one sheet effort entitled GREEN CAPSULE COMMENTS — written in Latin (appropriate for the destination) with an English translation for the uneducated — and somehow tied in with the movie BEN HUR and the big "Invasion of Rome" ...with instructions to "Send Commander Hennius up for the Trophius". Well, we didn't send Phil up for the trophy that year as the results were: BLESSED SACRAMENT First with 85.45; GARFIELD Second with 83.25 and OPTIMISTS Third with 81.15

No further "Capsule Comments" were issued immediately after but we still continued our "Thoughts of the Day" for the remaining contests of the year. THE FIRST ISSUE was handed out at our last rehearsal of 1960 at the “Christmas & Coke" gathering as the Corps closed off that evening and consisted of 3 pages, typed one side and gave the 1960 YEAR IN REVIEW on two pages, introduced "THE STAFF" and the third page previewed what we hoped future issues of GCC would bring forth in 196l — with such column titles as: RIFLE BLASTS — Ivor Bramley; HORN BARKS — by Warren Mills; OFF THE TOP OF MY SHAKO — by Terry Sweeney; DRUM-M-M-M BEATS — by Ronn Prokop; LOOKING AT THE CORPS THROUGH GREEN COLOURED GLASSES — by Ed Nanni; and THE LAST WORD---by Don Daber. As it worked out many of these columns didn't materialize as the second issue featured CARE OF UNIFORM & EQUIPMENT by Barry Bell, a review of the 1960 record and an introduction to the "27 CLUB" by JIM STEWART. Ed Nanni closed that issue with an editorial on "THE BAGGS' WAGON" — our new Equipment Truck---an item we still haven't got as we have been buying other needed equipment in place of this.

GCCs were published every year from 1961 until the Toronto Optimists merged with the Seneca Princemen to form the Seneca Optimists. The final issue of Green Capsule Comments, Volume 15, #4, was published in late 1975.

Creating a DCI calibre corps required a shift of priorities. As a result, the first issue of GCC for the Seneca Optimists was not published until 1977. While the GCC letters stayed the same the meaning changed. The Toronto Optimists colour had been Green while the Seneca Optimists was Yellow. GCC now meant "Gold Capsule Comments"! Two issues of GCC were published in 1977 with another two in 1978. The Seneca Optimists disbanded at the end of 1978 and, until 2009, GCCs were simply another piece of the corps' history.

Bob Carell and David Johns (2011)

Optimists Alumni members David Johns and Bob Carell had marched together in the Toronto Optimists and both of them had fond memories of the old GCCs. In 2009 they decided to resurrect GCC. Officially the publication was called G&GCC (Green and Gold Capsule Comments) to honor both the Toronto Optimists and the Seneca Optimists. The initials, however, had always been "GCC" and, by the time the third issue was published, that is what they had become. Since most members of the Optimists Alumni were a bit "long in the tooth" the publication affectionately became known as Grey Capsule Comments. The final edition of that incarnation of GCC was published in January 2020.

Vern Johansson (2008)

Recently I discovered that there was a publication in the very early days of the Alumni Corps. The first copy that I found was titled GCC; however, its subtitle was "Geriatric Capsule Comments". The name was appropriate since most of the early alumni corps members had marched in the late 50s and early 60s. I'm sure that the name was carefully chosen because GCC was always the acronym for the publication! I did some checking and learned that Vern Johansson was the publisher. Vern felt that "it would be a good idea to have a record of our first performance, for posterity". The publication, while appreciated, was short-lived. In Vern's words "there were only 3 issues because I was burning the candle at both ends, as I was heavily involved in corps matters plus I was in rehearsals for my one-man show about Mark Twain." When I got my hands on copies of second and third issues I noticed that the subtitle had been dropped and they were simply called GCCs.

This section of the Toronto Optimists History website (GCC Archives) contains PDF versions of every issue of GCC that we published. There are also some scanned versions from the 60s and 70s. I am currently searching for paper copies of old GCCs. As I obtain more back issues they will be scanned and posted.

In 2021, after the creation of this website, David and I again embarked on our newsletter adventure. This time we have called them TOH Newsletters (Toronto Optimists History). A number of years ago I had done a one-time publishing of Colin Hedworth's history, "From Toronto...The Optimists!". The book had been written in longhand and I digitized it and added photos before publishing it. We are using these newsletters to add to the photographic history in Colin's book and to make the book more readily available, albeit two chapters at a time.