Hi Chet,
Here in Saint Louis we have a monthly dance called "Callers' Choice" We use it as an opportunity to try new dances (either new to the caller or newly written); to let new callers "get their feet wet" by calling to real dancers in a friendly environment (After a while calling a dance to salt and pepper shakers loses its charm); and to just mess around in general.
Almost always we have someone coordinating the evening (every now an then no one volunteers and we wing it -- with mixed results.) People who want to call send their dances to the coordinator usually by Wednesday before the Saturday dance) and the coordinator tries to organize a coherent program using these dances. This is also good practice for new callers who need to learn to think about the entire evening rather than thinking about single dances.
This has worked very well for us over the years, and we often hear from dancers that Callers's Choice is "the most fun of any of the dances." That's probably because the dancers feel invested in making things work --- particularly with new callers -- and we can all laugh together at the occasional mishaps.
Speaking of mishaps I had one recently where I was scheduled to call two dances. The one I tried in the first half didn't work at all, so I ditched it and went with Plan B (the other dance). Then in the second half I got up and said -- "I figured out what was wrong and we're going to try again." The response from crowd was amazingly positive (and the dance worked)
Dale
BTW although we normally pay our callers for Saint Louis dances, we don't pay the callers at Callers' Choice. We do pay the band (mostly.)