In my opinion, I believe contra dancing to be in a completely different realm than the situations you describe in #4.  In those situations, you have to be competitive if you want to bring people to your service, and you really have no responsibility to those you are competing with. In contra dancing, though, I tend to believe that organizations should SUPPORT other organizations rather than compete with them.  We all have little communities in our regional areas, but then we are all part of a the larger contra dance community, since we all meet up at dance weekends and places like NEFFA to give ideas and support.  I tend to believe that groups should try as hard as possible to not compete with existing dance series, especially those who are struggling as it is to get people to come.  I guess the question is - what if events are different?  Recently an English ceilidh dance competed with a contra dance.  Sometimes you have a square event or an English Country dance event that competes with a contra dance.  OTOH, there are only so many weekends in a calendar the year, and if you want to hold an event you might have no choice but to compete.  Just do it with care and realize the downstream effects of you holding your big special dance against a regular dance series that is begging to get regular dancers to come to their events. Perry ________________________________ From: Chrissy Fowler <ktaadn_me(a)hotmail.com> To: "organizers(a)sharedweight.net" <organizers(a)sharedweight.net> Sent: Monday, April 28, 2014 1:31 PM Subject: [Organizers] to conflict or not to conflict? What do people think about New Events that conflict with an existing dance series?  ("New Events" could be single event dances or a new dance series.) Sub-questions: 1.  Is it a problem?  Not a problem?  Why/why not? 2.  What defines a conflict?  Same weekend, same day, same time, same type of event?Within 2 mile, 20 mile, 200 mile radius? 3.  What, if any, is the responsibility of an organizer of a 'new event' to avoid conflicts with existing dances? Why/Why not? 4.  Can we get insight on this by looking at parallel examples in other realms (small business, education, global markets, religious institutions, other forms of entertainment, etc.)? - 2014 NEFFA session ** Please RETAIN SUBJECT LINE in all replies!  Especially IF YOU GET THE DIGEST! *** "Dance, when you're broken open... dance, when you're perfectly free" ~ Rumi chrissyfowler.com belfastflyingshoes.org westbranchwords.com                         _______________________________________________ Organizers mailing list Organizers(a)sharedweight.net http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/organizers

I think that in higher population areas perhaps this isn't as much of a problem as they can support more than one dance, but in our area, I definitely think you are stepping on someone else's toes if you plan a similar event on the same night, and sometimes the same weekend, as another. I feel that most dance organizers in our area are careful to avoid dances on the same weekend (or at least the same night) unless they are at least an hour or more away. I know we certainly tried to do that when we began our regular dance. It just seems the polite thing to do and shows you care more about providing more opportunities to dance (or whatever the event) than competing to get everyone to yours no matter what it does to the others. Most of us are struggling to keep our dances alive (and we've already lost one local one and almost a second). I think it could really upset some organizers if another group planned an event on their night. Mary Anne On 4/28/2014 1:31 PM, Chrissy Fowler wrote: