My wife, Jennifer Horrocks, and I hosted three weekend organizers retreats for the southeast region in 2017, 2018, and 2023. I failed to track down any prior organizer retreats to learn from them. That failure is on me. Jennifer sells contra dance dresses that she sews at weekend dances, which she goes to once or twice a month. It was at these weekend dances, in discussions with their organizers, that the idea of a dance organizers weekend retreat took shape. We've had organizers from Memphis, Baltimore, Charleston, Greenville, Atlanta, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Berea, and others attend (list off the top of my head).

I'm bringing this up to note some of our decisions that we made in how we structured these retreats in case there's any value in that structure to others:

We would learn from one another.
There would be no value judgements made. We've made choices in how we've organized our dances. We talked about those choices and what we thought worked and what didn't work. We shared that information.
Effective human communication (shared, open communication) in a group starts to top out with 12 people (from social psychology studies I had read). We had 12 bedrooms in our facility so we limited the weekend retreat to 12 organizations but allowed an organization to have a primary and a secondary representative. We'd end up with 15 to 18 participants.
The only cost to the participants would be their travel costs. We provided housing and food.
The facility (housing, dining, meeting) was a remodeled 150 year old farm house on 100 acres an hour outside of Atlanta.
Informal social time was as valuable as structured meeting time (this we quickly learned). Over the weekend the two balanced out.
The content of the sessions was set by the participants during each meal, with Friday dinner a general meet and greet and lay of the land time. For instance, over Saturday morning's breakfast we decided how many structured sessions we'd have the rest of the morning and the topics that would be covered. At the lunch after those meetings we'd decide what was important to us for the afternoon sessions, etc. What we wanted to talk about would change through the weekend.
Sessions were facilitated in that one person was tasked with putting any tangents on a parking lot board and ensuring that the discussion didn't get hijacked by anyone. Also, any value judgements that crept in were politely clipped.
Sunday sessions were a mix of "what's important that we haven't covered" and left over parking lot tangents that we wanted to discuss.
Topics ranged from "how to keep dust down on the floor" to "what fans make the least noise" to "how do you advertise" to "what sort of contracts to you have with your talent" to "how do you handle the terminology shifts" to "what forms of payment do you accept" to "does a sliding scale work", etc. (etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.)
I covered the housing and food costs. The facility is owned by my family and was available, so I only had utility and cleaning costs to cover for its use. Jennifer cooked the meals for everyone.

Jennifer has been asked by organizers to host another one of these, and she's looking into whether the farmhouse is available this summer.

The above grew out of a more local afternoon salmon, steak, & veggie grilling for local dance organizers that we hosted for a couple of years before the 2017 regional weekend retreat.

Hope this is useful to someone,
Heitzso

On 3/1/25 08:28, Emily Addison via Organizers wrote:

Hi Shared Weight Organizers :)

Sharing on behalf of the Puttin' On The Dance volunteer team!

:) :) :)

Emily in Ottawa

======================================================

Dear dance organizers,

Today, REGISTRATION IS OPEN for Puttin' On the Dance 3: Dancing Forward Together, the dance organizers’ conference on May 2-4 in Belfast, Maine.

Our conference theme, Dancing Forward Together, reflects the commitment we all share. Our dances create strong social bonds and positive uplift to our communities, and in this time of uncertainty and upheaval, it is especially important for dance organizers to support each other and ourselves. POTD will nourish peer to peer connections and buoy our spirits, helping us return to our dance organizations with renewed commitment and vigor. Let’s join hands to move forward!

Before you register, look at puttinonthedance.org/potd-3/ for important info on:

- fees

- scholarships

- schedule

- program survey

- and more!

Register Here: https://forms.gle/uUMWrebtrwJdBTJW9

The Fund Your Attendance page has new information, including:

- scholarship process

- offsetting the exchange rate for Canadians

- additional strategies to fund your attendance without stretching your personal reserves.

We’re getting some great input through the POTD3 Program Input Survey - if you haven’t filled it out, here’s the form: https://forms.gle/3gCBRuqodu9Z2RCV8

We can’t wait to be with you in May!
POTD Planning Team

Patty Giavara, Chrissy Fowler & Emily Addison

PS Check out these amazing photos from POTD2 to get a sense of the fun and energy!
_______________________________________________
Organizers mailing list -- organizers@lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to organizers-leave@lists.sharedweight.net