[Organizers] Re: Need ideas/feedback about how to get new dancers to return

On "Listen to youth, put them on your committee, and implement their suggestions", this is pretty tricky and is something I've seen several organizations get wrong. Let's say you're an established organization with a lot of institutional knowledge and a built-up system of how things are done, and you add an enthusiastic young dancer, musician, or caller to your board. They probably don't know much about how the organization works, and they're initially not going to know much about what needs doing. When they have ideas about how to do things differently they often won't understand the practical issues that led to things being the way they are. So you can easily get one of two dynamics: a. They're initially excited and propose things, but then get frustrated as the long-time folks explain the issues and none of their proposals stick. b. They stay quiet because they understand how much they don't know, and don't end up contributing much. Then, when their initial term is up they don't stay on because they don't feel like they've accomplished anything and don't feel useful. I've been the excited young person in this case, and can think of several other friends who have as well. In retrospect I think most of us wish we had said no to the invitation. I don't think the solution is as simple as "implement their suggestions", though: not every suggestion will be a good one (none of us, young or old, have only good ideas). What I've seen work well is giving people responsibility, especially in areas where they can quickly learn what makes the dance work. For example, if your dance has a person who does/oversees setup and/or cleanup, teach them how to do this. Get them filling out the end-of-dance financial sheets to figure out who gets what money. If you're putting on a new one-off event get them on a small committee with 1-2 other friendly organizers. Then when they propose changes they'll be better ones (less likely to propose something infeasible) and the changes are more likely to be well received (in a do-ocracy people respect the people they see putting in work). There's also a completely different path, where the enthusiastic young person gets together a group of people and starts something independent. They can make their own mistakes, without making more work for people on the committee. If they want to make their new dance gender-free, half squares, all open bands + open calling, or something else that might get a lot of pushback at an existing dance, they can just go ahead and do it. When these work well they draw a new crowd, pulling from their own networks instead of mostly drawing people away from the existing dance, and you get a healthier community with more options. Jeff On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 8:49 AM Julian Blechner via Organizers < organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote: