Re: [Callers] Request about requests

Thanks to all who've weighed in on the "mixer requirement" sub-topic that's being introduced here in Charlottesville. I don't claim to know how many callers might be put off by an unusual stipulation like this. Maybe it's a non-issue. I'm certainly not balking myself, even though it's not my style to include mixers except at weddings. I've heard that some New England communities have a beloved tradition of dancing a certain chestnut in a given time slot - which sounds great to me, if that's what the community loves to do. Our board may have conceived the "mixer" idea out of a similar line of thinking. The board member who told me of this recently moved here from NH, in fact. I'm not sure the "starting on time" concern really applies here. In Virginia my experience is we start dances on time as long as there are people to dance. This past fall we had kind of a general slump in attendance, a trend which thankfully may already be rebounding on its own. I've seen some nights here where the caller felt forced to wait 10 minutes to begin because there were literally 5 or fewer folks ready to dance until then (often they were beginners only). Wow! That happened to me a time or two recently as the caller. Once I just waited til we could get 8 in a line, another time I think I started with a waltz so there was something to do. I suppose I could try a triplet (3 facing 3 formation, with contra corners) or even, ahem, a mixer for as few as 6 dancers. In most cases, a half hour into the dance on those night there would be at least 20-30 dancers. We consider our "norm" to be 50-75. On a bit of a tangent (not so much a caller subject, sorry): Our board in C'ville has also just introduced a door prize drawing after the very first dance, as a way to encourage folks to feel like they're "really missing something" if they don't arrive by then. Has anyone done or seen that - and what are your thoughts? Brian Hamshar -----Original Message----- Date: Saturday, March 03, 2012 12:04:00 pm To: "Caller's discussion list" <callers(a)sharedweight.net> Cc: Brian Hamshar <bhamshar(a)yahoo.com> From: "Donald Perley" <donperley(a)gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Callers] Request about requests On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 3:19 AM, Greg McKenzie <grekenzie(a)gmail.com> wrote: Not really the norm around here. One time a Burlington dance started late and I heard about it at a Montpelier dance. There was a good storm and either the band or caller was coming a long distance.