Organizers

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518 discussions

by Marie-Michèle Fournier via Organizers

Hello everyone! This is something I am trying to develop and I was wondering if anyone had some that they like to use. I like the "if square dancing and swing dancing met in a bar, you'd get contra", but as someone pointed out to me, if the person you are talking to doesn't really know what square dancing is like it's not very helpful. What are your favorite elevator pitches? How do you describe contra to friends, family or potential new dancers? Thanks! Marie Communications for ContraMontreal

10 years, 1 month

What is the main goal of your dance series or organization?

by Marie-Michèle Fournier via Organizers

Hi all! It's a pretty simple question to articulate, but for us the answer is not so easy to put in words, so I am looking at other places for inspiration! Thanks! Marie ContraMontreal

10 years, 3 months

talent info sheet and contracts - thoughts and queries???

by Emily Addison via Organizers

Hi Fellow Organizers, As many of you know (because I've already posted on this!), Ottawa Contra is trying to improve our talent info/contracts. I've been working with versions from your various dance communities as well as ideas that came up at the Puttin On The Dance session re talent. I've attached our draft as it is now and would love to get your thoughts on a few aspects. See below for five questions. :) Emily 1. *Does our cancellation policy look fair? Anything we should do different?* *If Ottawa Contra has to cancel a gig within three months of the event, we will compensate the talent for the full agreed upon amount. If the caller or band needs to cancel the gig, please let us know ASAP. Bands can substitute a member if agreed with Ottawa Contra (no additional pay). If you don't perform, we don't compensate. Please note that cancellation is difficult for us as we promote all bands/callers over the whole season.* 2. *I'm trying to open up channels for us to give feedback to the occasional caller/band when things don't go well. Does our wording on 'feedback both ways' seem good in terms of being able to approach post-gig to provide comments if there are particular issues (in addition to the emails we send when it goes really well!).* *Callers & Bands - Feedback both ways:* *We would like to foster an open dialogue of feedback from you to us and from us to you! If you are uncomfortable with feedback, please let us know ahead of time. And, if you have any feedback for us regarding any aspect of your experience with Ottawa Contra, please begin the dialogue!* 3. *Sit Ins/sharing mic... ... we'd like to (if talent willing) have options for a caller and 1-2 local musicians to get a bit of experience in order to build capacity. See what you think of how we suggest that. **BAND: · 'Sit ins'* *: If you are willing, 1-2 of our local contra musicians would love to 'sit in' with you for 1-2 sets. This is a purposeful attempt on our part to build capacity in our dance musician community – having locals get to feel your amazing energy will help them a lot! This is only if you are willing and we'll confirm with you ahead of time. (These sit ins could be mic'd or not.) CallErs: If you are willing, we would like to arrange a time of your choice during the evening where one of our local callers could call one dance. We would love for you to take a few notes and provide them with some constructive feedback on what they did well and what they could tweak (i.e., stop-start-continue). Our local callers would really benefit from calling with varied professional bands and from your tips! * 4. *Caller archiving: This is an idea from Belfast and Concord. What do you think?* *Archiving:* We have started an archive that lists past programs which you may refer to before/during the dance. Please record your called program there – name of dance, composer/author, comments, etc. This is shared with other visiting callers to get a sense of pacing, types of dances called, and challenges they come across . 5. *Gender-mixer dance... ... this is something some people on our committee want to try to help women especially who are scared about learning the gents role (it's true - we have many and 1 workshop a year isn't doing it). Also other reasons as some folks like to play with gender roles. However, we aren't interested in becoming a gender free dance and we have a lot of beginners every time who get confused when people change roles too much (it already happens a bit). What do you think?* *Gender-mixer dance:* (Optional ) In the second half, we would like you to announce (a full dance ahead) that there will be a gender-mixer for those who want it. Randomly choose a line for folks who want to play opposite gender roles, swap roles throughout the dance, etc. A few dancers do this regularly but some folks who are learning the opposite gender role want a more safe time to experiment where they won't be embarrassed if they make mistakes, etc.

10 years, 4 months

Bringing in more English dancers

by David Chandler via Organizers

This has been a difficult year for English dancing in NYC, with lots of people not dancing because of disability, weather, etc. We are looking for ways to get more dancers to come and join our community on a continuing basis, and want to survey dancers (those who came only once, those who came for a while and dropped out, and long-timers) about what might make dancing more attractive. Rather than reinvent the wheel we wondered if any other communities have done such surveys, and/or found good ways to expand their English dancing community. Thanks for your help! I'll post this separately on ECD. David Chandler

10 years, 4 months

performer communication

by Chrissy Fowler via Organizers

I was recently reminded of how thoroughly the Chattahoochee Country Dancers appear (at least from their comprehensive, and very entertaining, web materials) to communicate with performers. http://www.contradance.org/html/band-caller-info.php Cheers, Chrissy Fowler . . . Chrissy Fowler | 207.338.0979 chrissyfowler.com | westbranchwords.com | belfastflyingshoes.org (1st Friday Community & Contra Dances)

10 years, 4 months

Saying "no"

by Jeff Kaufman via Organizers

When you're handling booking for bands or callers, there are generally some proper you don't want to book. When the reason is straightforward it's not too hard to communicate ("you need to get more experience; play some smaller dances and get back to me" or "on even days our series only books local callers, ago the dates you suggested don't work, but what about DATE?") but sometimes the reason is "we don't think you're very good, and you've been doing enough dances that we don't think booking you for ours will help you improve"? I'd like to just say "no" without getting into reasons, but everything I write sounds either too short and curt or overshary. How do other bookers handle this?

10 years, 4 months

Re: [Organizers] Organizers Digest, Vol 12, Issue 8

by Julie Bermant via Organizers

Thanks Don and Lou! I will check out https://civicrm.org <https://civicrm.org/> and would love to see the email produced by mail chimp. (they certainly have catchy ads!) You could send it to treasurer(a)friendsofgreenfielddance.org <mailto:treasurer@friendsofgreenfielddance.org>. Julie > On Apr 24, 2015, at 4:08 PM, via Organizers <organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote: > > Send Organizers mailing list submissions to > organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/organizers-sharedweight.net > > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > organizers-request(a)lists.sharedweight.net > > You can reach the person managing the list at > organizers-owner(a)lists.sharedweight.net > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Organizers digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Data Base resource question (Julie Bermant via Organizers) > 2. Re: Data Base resource question (Don Veino via Organizers) > 3. Re: Data Base resource question (Lou Echeandia via Organizers) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 13:33:38 -0400 > From: Julie Bermant via Organizers <organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> > To: organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net > Subject: [Organizers] Data Base resource question > Message-ID: <9E04D02B-7B1D-43CD-B8C4-03B6E71D9C3A(a)jbermant.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 > > Hi All, > I am looking for a simple, intuitive program to manage finances (membership money,) and to send emails. I use Quicken to track our general finances, but have been struggling to find a data base that will track membership and send out thank you letters. Being able to send out other letters to our membership would be a plus. I am presently using Exceed, but it is clumsy and takes a lot of work to get out the letters, and though it is supposed to be able to email them, that function doesn?t seem to work. > > Any suggestions??? > Thank you! > Julie > Treasurer Friends of Greenfield Dance > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 13:40:21 -0400 > From: Don Veino via Organizers <organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> > To: Julie Bermant <julie(a)jbermant.com> > Cc: "organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net" > <organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> > Subject: Re: [Organizers] Data Base resource question > Message-ID: > <CAAJTtiK+BsPrMXCKq3SRVXKye4sOfMy__uCrzcCwtQkYvmGqLQ(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > Have looked into this space a bit but not implemented anything so far. That > said, this looked interesting and is a free and open source product: > https://civicrm.org/ . > > -Don > > On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 1:33 PM, Julie Bermant via Organizers < > organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote: > >> Hi All, >> I am looking for a simple, intuitive program to manage finances >> (membership money,) and to send emails. I use Quicken to track our general >> finances, but have been struggling to find a data base that will track >> membership and send out thank you letters. Being able to send out other >> letters to our membership would be a plus. I am presently using Exceed, but >> it is clumsy and takes a lot of work to get out the letters, and though it >> is supposed to be able to email them, that function doesn?t seem to work. >> >> Any suggestions??? >> Thank you! >> Julie >> Treasurer Friends of Greenfield Dance >> _______________________________________________ >> Organizers mailing list >> Organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net >> http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/organizers-sharedweight.net >> >

10 years, 4 months

Re: [Organizers] Data Base resource question

by Lou Echeandia via Organizers

Hi, Julie, Not so much for finances but for emailings and tracking and identification of membership status by date as well as absolute status, you might look into a website, Mailchimp.com. Their "Entrepreneur" entry level allows up to 2000 contacts and 12,000 mailings per month - free, and no credit card info is required. It takes a little work but once you establish your method your mailings will be relatively simple. The mailings go out in bulk but to only the members in your contact list you specified. The mailing can be scheduled but there is no automation in the free service. I can send you an example of one of our recent mailings if you like. Regards, Lou Echeandia, Treasurer, Oakland County Traditional Dance Society, Southeast Michigan On Apr 24, 2015 1:33 PM, Julie Bermant via Organizers <organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote: > > Hi All, > I am looking for a simple, intuitive program to manage finances (membership money,) and to send emails. I use Quicken to track our general finances, but have been struggling to find a data base that will track membership and send out thank you letters. Being able to send out other letters to our membership would be a plus. I am presently using Exceed, but it is clumsy and takes a lot of work to get out the letters, and though it is supposed to be able to email them, that function doesn’t seem to work. > > Any suggestions??? > Thank you! > Julie > Treasurer Friends of Greenfield Dance > _______________________________________________ > Organizers mailing list > Organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net > http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/organizers-sharedweight.net

10 years, 4 months

Data Base resource question

by Julie Bermant via Organizers

Hi All, I am looking for a simple, intuitive program to manage finances (membership money,) and to send emails. I use Quicken to track our general finances, but have been struggling to find a data base that will track membership and send out thank you letters. Being able to send out other letters to our membership would be a plus. I am presently using Exceed, but it is clumsy and takes a lot of work to get out the letters, and though it is supposed to be able to email them, that function doesn’t seem to work. Any suggestions??? Thank you! Julie Treasurer Friends of Greenfield Dance

10 years, 4 months

Dance organizers - anyone have talent sit in with visiting bands?

by Emily Addison via Organizers

Hi Dance Organizers, One more question stemming from my work on our callers handout here in Ottawa... except this query relates to musicians! Do any of your dances facilitate local musicians sitting in (either on OR off mic) with visiting bands? This came up at Puttin' On The Dance 2 and we have a few keen musicians who would like to do this as part of their strategy for improving their chops. I've since talked to two touring musicians who are very open to this and think that some other bands may also be open. However, I anticipate that other bands may not be open. So ... if you do something like this... 1. How do you structure it? Is anyone allowed on stage? Do the musicians get permission from organizer ahead of time (e.g., book their spot)? Is there a max number of sets a night that are 'sit in'? Are any 'sit ins' on mic or are all off mic? ???? ???? 2. Also, how do you pitch the idea to the hired band? I'm particularly talking about TOURING BANDS and then local musicians who already have some dance experience (not random musicians). With thanks! Emily

10 years, 5 months

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Organizers