[Organizers] University contra clubs

[Peter Clark via Organizers]

I have worked with a few university groups in some capacity.

At Appalachian State University in NC, they have a campus events group
that put on a techno contra event a few years ago in partnership with
the group that would normally put on contra dances.  The normal group
is Appalachian Heritage Council, but apparently techno was pushing the
definition of Appalachian Heritage a bit too far (contra is not native
to the Southern Appalachians to begin with....)

Maybe something like that would work at McGill if no new groups can be formed.

Besides that, I shared advice writing the club constitution at Salem
College and helped put on some events at Guilford College.

The main thing I have seen is that having someone on campus promoting
events and possibly putting on workshops is extremely helpful.
Guilford College is small, but they have a newsletter that goes out
with upcoming events and they were consistently able to get 60-80
students at an on-campus dance with a student body not much over 1000.

Salem College is also pretty small, but a couple of students made it
happen.  One would knock on doors the evening of the dance to ask
people to come, and another gave workshops for students using a copy
of David Kaynor's Contra Dance Calling for Beginners by Beginners.
Those workshops helped give the students the confidence to come to an
evening dance where they would have otherwise felt ill-prepared and
not come.

Whatever you can do to make things as smooth as possible is helpful.
At Salem College, they didn't have a budget to start out, so we were
able to put together an open band donating its time, borrow a sound
system from the local contra dance group, and the students sold stuff
to raise funds for the caller.  At Guilford College, we helped line up
bands and brought a sound system once because the one they normally
use had already been reserved.

Also, from an approachability standpoint, I have found that it works
best when it's primarily set up as an event for students as opposed to
looking like an event on campus where an outside group is just using
the space.

Peter

On Mon, Jun 20, 2016 at 1:34 PM, Marie-Michèle Fournier
<organizers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
> Hello everyone!
>      I have recruited some of our younger dancers to start a contra club at
> their university to help us bring in more people to our dances in an effort
> to be sustainable. However, none of us are quite certain what's the best way
> to proceed with this and what exactly to do with this club. Any of you out
> there have associated university or college clubs? Could you put me in
> contact with the people in charge so we can use their ideas and experience
> with this?
> Thanks!
> Marie
> ContraMontreal
>
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