Hi fellow shared weight organizers,
Reporting in from this year's Dance Flurry organizers discussion --- wow!
The conversations were so rich and folks brought so much to the table.
See attached for a copy of the notes.
I did tell everyone about shared weight so hopefully some folks will join
us here. :)
I might pepper the list with a few thoughts/questions coming out of the
Dance Flurry discussion over the next month or so. There were some great
ideas raised.
Thanks,
Emily in Ottawa
Hello Organizers - Audrey here with my CDSS hat on. With the survey we took last year and through our general enquiries, there’s been a lot requests for help with Code of Conducts. I’m in the process of collecting examples and creating a list in our resource of portal <https://cdss.org/resources/resource-portal/> for folks to reference. If your community has a code of conduct you’d be willing to share, can you please take a moment and submit it on our google form?
https://forms.gle/NTRAF9KDY3WXQtL47
Thank you so much!
Audrey
Hi fellow dance organizers!
There's going to be a dance organizers discussion at this year's Dance
Flurry! (Sunday 12:15-1:45)
For those of you attending the Flurry and interested in talking shop, I'd
love to hear what would be most useful to you for that 1.5hrs! And even if
you aren't attending the Flurry, what would you want to be talking
about/getting out of an in-person organizer discussion these days?
I've hosted this session for a number of years now and it's always been
wonderful to connect with fellow organizers. However, I want to make the
session as useful as possible to those in attendance and I need input to
make that happen!
Thanks so much :)
Emily Addison
Ottawa ON
At one time I asked people to volunteer and put their name in raffle box
for prizes I obtained from sponsors. It worked fairly well. I don't want
to take the time to go soliciting more prizes.
What other ideas do you all have for getting more volunteers to help out
both at dances for simple things (set up, take down etc) and membership on
our dance council for more ongoing needs? We have open board meetings
which helps encourage participation, but we could use more volunteer help.
I dance in kansas city and lawence and I am on kc dance council.
As an aside....I'm Looking forward to Mid Missouri Traditional Dancers
Spring Breakdown contra dance weekend. March 15-17 in the magical Kimball
Ballroom Columbia Missouri with Emily Rush and Nova ( Kathleen Fownes on
fiddle, Everest Witman on guitar and mandolin, and Guillaume Sparrow-Pepin
on accordion and piano)
Consider it!!
https://mmtd.wordpress.com/
Thanks,
Sandy
Hello folks,
I haven't chimed in on this for a while, so I thought I'd mention again
that there's a list of callers who have hung their shingle available as a
google spreadsheet at
http://tinyurl.com/hnb72wv
If you know of a caller who wants to be on that list, they can submit
information at
https://goo.gl/forms/62beEKCKsyysepGk1
If you're a caller who wants to be off that list, or have information
changed, reach out to me if you don't have your direct edit link anymore.
Happy New Year.
Luke
Hi fellow organizers,
Leaving this here as a resource for other dance organizers to use in
evaluating sickness safety policies, especially for people who focus on CDC
recommendations.
https://www.cdc.gov/nwss/rv/COVID19-currentlevels.html
CDC recently added a page with trends and a state-by-state map of
wastewater numbers, which it extrapolates wastewater numbers vs historical
data to estimate.
Basically, a state-by-state map of how much there's covid spread.
Since public tracking of infection numbers stopped being required, this can
be an alternate.
Some notes:
- Not all areas test/report wastewater numbers, so usefulness will vary
state to state.
- For what it's worth, this holiday surge has put nearly all of the US
population in "high" or "very high". (mirroring trends of the past 3
holiday seasons)
- Typically wastewater trends up and down 1-2 weeks ahead of hospital
admission trending, due to viral incubation period.
- There's flu
- The CDC is not including any specific recommendations based off
wastewater numbers.
Their recommendations page references hospitalization levels.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.h…
hospitalization levels can be found, per-county:
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#maps_new-admissions-rate-county
In dance,
Julian Blechner
Western Mass dance organizer / caller
Hi all,
There’s been a lot of discussion regarding generational transition and one
of the things that has come up over and over is that to engage young
people, especially young women, dances must be able to deal with any
“creeps” who routinely cause discomfort to targeted others.
Beyond a statement of values, which sets the expectation for behavior at a
dance, what actionable policies has your organization successfully (or
unsuccessfully) implemented regarding this issue?
Looking for:
- reporting policy and organizational response to reports.
- communications with those who violate community values, including
warnings.
- addressing continued unacceptable behavior.
- mistakes organizations can make when forming for executing policies.
- anything else relevant to the topic.
Not a fun discussion, but perhaps a helpful one to have.
Best,
Virginia
Our community, like many others, has fewer young dancers than we would
like. I am wondering how different factors influence that and what we can
do.
Does the night of the week matter? We dance on a Saturday night. Would
Friday be better?
Does frequency matter? We dance once a month?
Does location matter? We have a college (University of Kansas KU) Would a
dance location closer to or on campus matter?
Are outreach strategies effective and what has your community found
successful?
Thanks,
Sandy Seiler
Lawrence, Kansas
I started dancing square dances in upstate New York as a kid. Every Saturday evening in the summer local musicians and callers would run the dance. It was an easy way to have contact with the girls for a shy guy. In college in the 50s was the beginning of the club dance movement. I went to a local square dance one Saturday a month. They were still with a live band. I thought I was a good dancer, but here were all sorts of figures I had never heard of. I asked the best women dancers I saw and quickly picked up the various figures which were mostly new combinations of what I had already done. I danced a few contras off and on at various places, but really got into it when my wife and I moved to the Boston area in the mid 60s. There we could dance 3-5 nights a week with both contras and English. It was our recreation and exercise. I loved the contra community. There were family dances, pot lucks before some of the dances, adult dances. I didn’t like English to begin with because it wasn’t called, just talked through and one was expected to know it. One Monday after NEFFA few years later George Fogg ran an English dance where he called the dances for a while just like in contras. That was when I fell in love with English with its lovely music. Since then I have loved both as well as Scandi and Balkan dancing. To me, dancing of most any kind is great and I do it as much as I can. Most everywhere in the country I have danced the community has been so welcoming and friendly.
Bob
Michigan
Hello dear dance organizers,
I appreciate and value this list when it is focused on dance organizing topics, especially when members speak from their own experience. Occasionally, I enjoy posts that meander into related topics, or are an analysis or description of others' experiences...but less so. I don't find it at all useful when the conversation diverges into social and political commentary, even that commentary is well-intentioned.
I didn't notice specific language about this, at least not directly, but here are the list guidelines:
https://www.sharedweight.net/about/list-standards/https://www.sharedweight.net/lists/dance-organizers/
Please, can we keep focused on sharing our own dance organizing experiences in order to mutually support each other to succeed in the important and valuable work that we all do in our wonderfully varied ways? Thanks, all!
Cheers from Maine,
Chrissy
<><><><><><>
chrissyfowler.com<http://www.chrissyfowler.com> dance leadership
westbranchwords.com<http://www.westbranchwords.com> academic transcription
belfastflyingshoes.org<http://www.belfastflyingshoes.org> participatory dance & music
