[Organizers] Volunteers

[David Chandler via Organizers]

I'm interested in how other groups handle in-dance organizational tasks -
collecting admissions, putting out refreshments, sound and perhaps checking
shoes at the door. Do you use volunteers? Pay people? If volunteers, do you
have a structured corps of volunteers you rely on or just ask for
volunteers as needed? It would be very helpful if you mentioned how
frequently you have dances, and roughly how many attend your dances.

We (Country Dance New York) have a pretty formal system, and put on roughly
80 dances a year (weekly Tuesday and Saturday 9.5 months a year), getting
roughly 40-50 for English and 60 plus for contra. Some people volunteer for
only one or a few dances, but a lot of the work is done by "full-time
volunteers," who do at least 8 tasks during the fall and/or spring. In
exchange for this they get in free to every event. The tasks are also
pretty structured - only members can work the door in order to increase
security of funds, and attendance is kept on an iPad using Square so there
is some training involved; refreshments involve buying food, refilling
water pitchers and putting out a number of different things to eat at the
break, then washing dishes and cleaning up. Volunteer coordinators line up
people for each task in advance. In general this works very well - tasks
get done, and volunteers who are short on cash can get in free. The
downside, in my view, relates to our feeling dependent on the system and
thus reluctant to consider other options for fear we would lose our
volunteers. In particular, some have suggested that it would be more fair
to lower our admission rate for those most likely to be in need (students
in particular), or to go to a "pay what you can" system of some sort. The
reports I've read suggest that "pay what you can" usually works out well,
with perhaps increased attendance and no loss of income. However, we can't
do that because if people could get in by paying what they can the
incentive to be a volunteer would vanish and we are afraid we would not be
able to get things done (or a very small group would have to do them, and
burn out since we have so many dances). However, I have heard rumors that
other dances don't have such a structured volunteer system and still manage
to get these in-dance tasks done. I would love to hear how you manage
getting tasks done with volunteers, especially if you have a "pay what you
can" or very reduced rate for those in need.

Thanks!

David
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