[Organizers] Re: Is it time to change our mask mandates?

Responding to Lisa’s question for data on other dance organizer experiences relative to policies about masks: See https://www.belfastflyingshoes.org for info on our programs, policies, etc. Our series resumed dancing outdoors in July-Oct 2022. When our monthly two-part public dance series moved indoors in November 2023, the Belfast Flying Shoes board of directors unanimously approved a community care policy that was in line with our local circumstances. (The BFS board makes decisions by consensus. For the BFS Board this means coming to unanimous agreement after robust discussion, including respectfully sharing divergent perspectives.) The board and I (as executive director of the nonprofit) took many things into consideration. These included, but weren't limited to: local health metrics, the nonprofit's values, feedback from our constituents, our individual values, and a variety of underlying philosophical questions (many of which Harris L articulated on this list in January. I’ve copied Harris's post below.) Our consensus-based decision-making considered the three aspects that Harris suggested: "We need science *and* community input *and* organizer judgment to guide decisions." Among other things, that BFS policy required contact info and encouraged masks, which we offer free of charge. The current policy no longer requires contact info, but it’s still optional to get an update if anyone reports experiencing illness and we still offer masks. In Maine, policies differ. And at least one series was started because the people who organized it wanted particular policies. I think this speaks to an important truth in our current moment -- there's always room for other dances that meet certain needs! Cheers, Chrissy Fowler Belfast Flying Shoes (Belfast ME) <><><><><><> belfastflyingshoes.org<http://www.belfastflyingshoes.org> participatory dance & music Harris Lapiroff, from SW Organizers archive, January 2023: I feel that we need science *and* community input to make good decisions as organizers. I don't think either is sufficient alone. Plagiarizing a comment from myself in a previous conversation about covid precautions that took place on Facebook: I think people who have been following the science and even agree on the science might make different decisions about what precautions are valuable based on factors that science hasn't yet or may never provide clarity on. Some of them are scientific questions and some of them are not. And some of them are questions that can *only* be answered by our community! Questions like: - What is the exact nature and prevalence of long covid? - How do the risks of covid compare to risks we took in a prepandemic world? - How does our community value risk for pleasure? - Will things get less risky in the future? - How long is our community willing to wear masks while dancing? A year? Two years? Forever? - Does our community care if we exclude people who can't or won't get vaccinated? - Etc. I think people can agree on the (mostly) settled science—how covid is transmitted, how well masks and vaccines work, what the possible outcomes of a covid infection are, who is most at risk—and still have very different answers to these questions, many of which are pretty reasonable. We need science *and* community input *and* organizer judgment to guide decisions. Harris ________________________________