Re: [Callers] Tipping the musicians

On a related topic, I was interested to observe this at an English dance I called last Saturday. One person came in, sat through the evening not dancing, and at the end of the evening (after the staff shares were figured) explained to the dance manager that she hadn't paid because she'd just been listening, but that she'd like to give money to the musicians. (Dance manager declined to be a conduit for this, since the forms were filled out, and presumably since if it passes through the sponsoring nonprofit's hands the musicians will get 1099ed for it.) By the time this discussion was completed, two of the three musicians had gone home. The listener went up to the remaining musician and pressed five bucks into her hands, with some words about how musicians never make any money. With two different hats on - board chair of the sponsoring nonprofit, and caller for the evening - this really bugged me, although of course I didn't say anything about it. As board chair, I thought "do you get to decide that you're only consuming music and thus should only pay for music, and route your contribution around the path that would help pay for hall rental, calendar printing, publicity mailings, insurance - all the stuff that makes it possible to keep holding the dance?" I don't really think so. As caller - this being an English dance - I thought "What about me? I picked the tunes they played." (I have no issues whatever with people who are broke coming to the dance and paying what they can afford, or hovering and listening. I do have some issues with people who probably feel that they're doing a special wonderful thing by routing their money directly to the musicians when, if everybody did that, there wouldn't be any dance for the musicians to play at.) I don't think I have a question here, but it's been bugging me for a couple of days and I felt like mentioning it. -- Alan -- =============================================================================== Alan Winston --- WINSTON(a)SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Disclaimer: I speak only for myself, not SLAC or SSRL Phone: 650/926-3056 Paper mail to: SSRL -- SLAC BIN 99, 2575 Sand Hill Rd, Menlo Park CA 94025 ===============================================================================