Hi All,

              I think the biggest challenge is complacency.  We have a good crowd coming along to the dances so we assume it will always be good and we focus on enjoying the dancing; finding new dancers tends to drop in our priorities.

              The sad fact is that there is always attrition.  People stop dancing regularly for countless reasons.

              Many of the Folk Dance Clubs in England have suffered from this. They failed to recruit because they were happy with their group as it was.  Then people started getting older and health failed; the attrition rate went up, and a number of clubs have closed.

              I have worked with dance companies (other styles of dance) that are run as a business; their main focus is always on recruitment. They know there will be attrition; they put it in their business plan.  But they can’t afford for numbers to drop as it is their livelihood, so they are always looking at new ways to find more dancers.

              No matter how well your group is doing you need to focus on recruitment. Otherwise, one day, you will see numbers drop…

              Sadly, recruiting new dancers is not easy!  I recently managed to get a major article and photograph into the centre-spread of the What’s On supplement of the local newspaper, advertising our big Saturday night dance.  It must have been seen by tens of thousands of people.  We got ONE person along to the dance through that article – and she was someone we knew anyway!

              We usually find that word-of-mouth brings in the most new dancers, so we look for ways to facilitate that.  We always have a stack of flyers on the desk for people to give to their friends.  Business Cards can be even more effective as they can be carried more easily by the dancers to give to anyone they meet.  Apart from basic details the Business Card can also offer free entry on the first visit.

              Good luck!

            Happy dancing,                         

                   John                                  

John Sweeney, Dancer, England   john@modernjive.com 01233 625 362 & 07802 940 574                         

http://www.modernjive.com for Modern Jive Events & DVDs                               

http://www.contrafusion.co.uk for Dancing in Kent