Hi Alison,

I'm sorry I can't point you towards dances in your neck of the woods (I'm on the other coast), but what jumped out at me from your message was "often no room for a do si-do (much less spinning) because the lines are so full."

To me, it sounds like you've got an opportunity. I can understand not wanting to take on calling or organizing a dance in your area (if you did, CDSS has some resources to help with that http://www.cdss.org/contra-dance.html); but I'd hope that if you announced at your barn dance that there was a local~ish weekend and were looking for a carpool; you might find a few other folks excited about more dancing opportunities. Maybe you can get those folks hooked and they'll be interested in carpooling to nearby contra that fits your desire; or get them interested in building more of a local scene. But having a crowd of folks willing to go to local barn dances seems like a great place to start.

Other resources to check for finding dances:

contradancelinks.com

dancegypsy.com

And I think you're right around the corner from Lark, a dance camp in Mendicino that people travel from across the country to go to.
http://www.larkcamp.com/

Not sure if it's in your budget (~$700) or schedule (August 1-9) to go, but contacting the organizers (presumably at least semi-local) might give you some leads on local opportunities. Although if you're not contacting them about attending, they might be swamped with getting ready for the dance camp if you contact them in the next two weeks.

Good luck!

On Sat, Jul 19, 2014 at 3:27 PM, Alison Murphy via Callers <callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

Hi y'all,

Does anyone know of ongoing contras on the North coast? Arcata/Eureka?
The closest things I've found are 3 hours away in Oregon in and Ukiah,
and I don't have a car pool. Anyone? Please contact me off-list if you
are between NorHum and the Oregon or Ukiah dances, and are interested
in trying to set up a car pool.

I was active on this list at one time as a newbie caller in Memphis.
After moving a few times and a couple more children born, I just don't
have enough free time to continue that hobby, but sadly, there is no
local contra dance here that I've been able to find. Gmail quit
sorting my callers mail into a separate folder for some unknown
reason, or I'd never have thought to bother this list with the
question.

The barn dances I've attended in Arcata are packed with non/newbie
dancers, beer is sold, and there is no teaching, not even the names
of standard moves taught in many cases, LONG walk-thrus repeated 2x
but hardly any actual calling, often no room for a do si-do (much less
spinning) because the lines are so full. Squares and traditional
dances with long inactive periods. Our Folklife society is very active
but I am just an outsider who is critical of the way things are and
who doesn't have time to call- I can tell you if I came into some
money I'd be trying to organize a contra weekend up here. I gave some
contra cards to my favorite local caller but she hasn't done aught
with them yet, and that doesn't address the problems of packed dance
halls, tipsy college kids who don't know how to share weight, and no
teaching.

~Alison Murphy
crunchy.mama.murphy@gmail.com
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Luke Donforth
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