At our Jamaica Plain gender free dance we have noticed that often beginners don't show up until after the dance has started which is one of the reasons we decided to not do beginners workshops. The door sitter sometimes directs new dancers who do come early to an experienced dancer for a very informal workshop in the corner. Also sometimes we have a mini-workshop at the break although we have been trying to keep breaks short since if they are long newcomers tend to leave since they don't know many people there. The door sitter often tells beginners to make sure they dance with experienced dancers. One thing I have noticed is sometimes a pair of people come together and since they don't know the contra dance culture they assume they are supposed to dance with the person they came with. We do have some signs around the room (patterned after the ones that BIDA has) that say various things like: dance with different partners, smile, everyone makes mistakes,...