I have 4 categorizes for my dances in my card box.: 1. Easy contras 2. Medium difficulty contras 3. Hardest contras. 4. Triplets, circles, scatter mixers, etc. Each dance clearly states the type: proper, improper, becket, etc. at the top of the card. The thing that I can't do, but sometimes might like to do is to search for dances with particular calls such as hey, petronella turn, etc. That might be easier if I kept my dances on a tablet. As I plan for a dance, I will go through each stack and pick out the dances of that type that I might like to call. And depending on the crowd, I can easily adjust the difficulty level up or down during the dance. On Fri, Apr 7, 2017 at 9:20 PM, Cheryl Joyal via Callers < callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote:

On 2017-04-07 1820, Cheryl Joyal via Callers wrote: snip Hi Cheryl, Most responses seem to follow the categorisation ideas you've started with or alternates. So I suppose I'll chip in with this as I haven't seen anyone else mention it. I don't categorise mine, not to that degree. Nor do I use cards, too small to see. I often have one-side-used paper available so I simply use binders with letter size print outs. I stand a chance of seeing what I need from the music stand if I require a reminder at all during the dance. Also I can put the Calling version of text at page top and if I do a Teaching version of text I'll place that below, on the lower half the page. That's usually for ECD. That keeps the Calling portion clean, with minimal text. I do keep one binder for ECD/Playford and that ilk, and another which tends to house Contra, Barn/Community/Easy, and eCeilidh, Scottish Ceilidh. Each binder is alphabetically sorted. (Kalia: Just a _handful_ of dances do have a copy in the other binder. Others I know where to find them, and mark them up if they migrate to a collection for an event, so they may find their way "home".) Occasionally I'll pull most of a type out for a gig, or a gig's worth and spares. i.e. overnight travel for a Scottish ceilidh. I tag such items as Becket, Double Progression, Easy and such in text and underline or bold that. Occasionally I'll mark it up with another term or characteristic if it seems useful along the way. I've tried Colin Hume's program and enjoyed it, however I can't really afford it so haven't carried on using it (shareware honour and all that.) I don't always have a computer along running MS Windows either. The one I own is a 10" netbook so not as much real estate for viewing. I'd really enjoy a cross platform application, however don't expect one to show up any time soon. (In Java perhaps?) I'm also loath to enter then re-enter loads of dance and event data with the adoption of new devices or operating systems. So, for now, this works. If I really desire a dance or to include a move/figure for an event, then at initial program planning time I'll do some text searches on the desktop computer, gather some titles and pull them. Not a big deal. Other good go-to dances are known to me, or I somewhat automatically recognise dances for certain characteristics as I review the collection titles or body manually (computer or binder.) Again no big deal. Going beyond the collection and heading to programming - at a dance (or before) I'll often pull the "cards" I might use, maybe do a physical sort by perceived overall difficulty (for the event audience) or possible sequence (then spares). Then I hand-print a program page with a pick-list of titles in a right-hand column. I tend to code them to remind me of the set formation (for non-MUC), significant characteristic(s) or figure(s). Then when I've called them (and entered them in the main body) I'll stroke them out in that column. Works for me, both for a record, and a program planning aid for before and during. So much of all this kind of breakdown relates to how one approaches things, how we perceive or see them, our own organisation style, how much of what kind of work we wish to do, or how much chaos we'll tolerate, etc. Enjoy learning about your own process. Cheers, John - not a luddite -- J.D. Erskine Victoria, BC Island Dance - Folk & Country dance info - site & mail list Vancouver Island & BC islands http://vecds.ca/island.dance/