Perhaps someone who isn't dancing should pay more, because they aren't contributing to the dance by dancing...Or perhaps a caller who is taking the time to learn to call better should pay less, because he or she will give back incomparably more in the long run... In St Louis, when we have a band that attracts a following of people who only want to listen, we do charge admission at the door - for the concert. We know when it's happening because they tell us they are just coming to listen to the band. But normally, if someone comes to watch because they aren't sure they want to do this thing called contradancing, we let them in for free, and should probably pay them to put up with us constantly pestering them to dance. Also, friends and relatives who just came to see what their aunt or nephew is always going on about, are not charged. I wish we had a way to test for economic hardship and could have a sliding scale, the way CDSS has for membership. But I can't think of a dignified way to put it. In the coming years we will probably have to figure this out. M E On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 2:14 AM, Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing < winston(a)slac.stanford.edu&gt; wrote:

Martha wrote: Perhaps so, but I think that determination ought to be made by the sponsoring organization. (If the caller has some students and has invited them to come and take notes, then he or she should let the sponsoring organization know to invite 'em in.) Sure, perfectly sensible. BACDS has an official rate: $9/$10 dollars / $2 discount for BACDS/CDSS members / $5 for student/low-income (depending on shorter vs. longer dance), but allows dance managers plenty of discretion so there's an unofficial sliding scale past that. Part of the student discount rate wasn't really that we thought students were necessarily broke; it was that we thought it would be creepy and unattractive to put up signs that said "People under 30, we desperately want you!" [Incidentally, whenever organizations start talking about discounts and people taking undue advantage, etc, it's really easy to get into incredible implementation details - "should it be with student id?" "what's low-income?" - and start trying to get your volunteers to go through excessive hassle to verify that nobody's taking advantage. In community-based dancing, this is almost completely a waste of time. People who can afford full fare will usually pay full fare; you get *some* money from people who couldn't afford full fare, and if there are a few cheaters, so what? You probably have more total revenue than before introducing the discounts and you make yourself accessible to a broader section of the community.] Locally, queer Contra has "$x or pay what you can", without condition on what "can" means. That seems to be reasonably stigma-free. -- 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 ===============================================================================

My reaction as a caller is What, am I? Chopped liver? :) If I'm calling, I'm an essential part of the event, and the organizers have to pay me too. Anyone partaking should bear some of the overhead of the event, with an exception for non-dancing children (IMHO). Joy Greenwolfe