[Organizers] Re: Struggling to Revitalize the core post covid

Hi Sandy, I think a lot of dances are facing this or similar situations. There isn’t a silver bullet but there a lots of things you can try. What will work will depend on your community - and not on mine or anyone else’s on this list. Do what works, try stuff, and let us know how it goes, the good and the bad. I’m going to mix in some general community-building thoughts as well as address your specific concern about bringing back your core, in part because many may not be there to be brought back. First, two observations: Lots of people trimmed down their commitments in the pandemic and are enjoying a bit more free time. Many of those are not coming back, and neither are some elders who have slowed down, those who moved away, etc. So, don’t equate success with bringing them all back. Build a new core of prior and newer dancers. Also, a trend that definitely accelerated in the pandemic is a decrease in personal commitment to activity groups, even among older folks but especially among younger. What they are loyal to is their friend group or partner. More people pick and choose what they’ll do this weekend on the spur of the moment with their friends or partner. This is a real bummer both because you need a bigger community to get a critical mass and because skill advances quickest with frequent practice, which people don’t get if they only come occasionally. So, some general things to try: A good way to take advantage of the latter trend is to focus as much on making the dance a fun social space where people come to be with friends they only meet dancing, as on the dancing itself. Make the dancing itself the most fun it can be. With lots of beginners, simple dances danced at tempo are more fun than complex dances taught forever and then danced slowly, even for experienced dancers. Make sure your callers know the kind of crowd they’ll get and that they should prepare simple but fun dances. Keep a reasonable tempo, so it’s dancing and not just walking. Several recent threads here listed simple-but-fun dances. Make it a party all the time and give it a theme some of the time. People love costumes (optional, of course), and there may be folks who are into cosplay, decorating, fancier snack foods, etc. who can help. Advertise any themed event, of course! Get on people’s calendars. Be on all the socials, not just your generation’s. Kids have not done email or Facebook for well over a decade. Specific to your question of bringing back the core: Reach out to your former core dancers and ask them in a positive way what would get them to come out and dance. You’ll get some information, which you can consider, but you’ll also be sending the message that they’re missed and you want them back. Personal contact is better than an email blast. If there’s a very large number, you could consider holding a private event on a different night as a one-off welcome-back event. Pony up for a high-end band and caller and use that event as a bring-them-back occasion. Reach out to the former core and personally invite them. Make the last 2-4 dances each evening a little more advanced. Make it clear in the ads, at the start of the workshop, and early in the evening that the last hour or so is more advanced and may not be accessible to first-timers. You can say that the workshop offsets the advanced portion, if people ask. Then, do some moderately more-complex stuff in that time. Don’t expect festival-level dancing. For my dance, I might try a hey. If it works with mildly more complex dances, you can notch it up a bit more the next dance, and adjust from there. The key thing is to monitor the newbies to see if they keep coming back and join the advanced dancing after a few weeks. If not, dial back. Hold intermediate workshops before the newbie lesson. Advertise this as a quick way to get good enough to enjoy dancing all night. Finally, the two elephants: covid and gender terms. These have been hashed to death, so let’s not do that again. Just be in touch with your community’s wishes, make your decisions, and be clear about them. Depending on the community, you may lose some dancers and take heat for it no matter what you do. Predictability is key, here, as is staying in touch with the community. —jh— On Sun, Jul 16, 2023 at 9:21 PM Sandy Seiler via Organizers < organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote: