May I ask, what role terms you use, and do you publicize that? Do you have any young organizers? Do you try to "make young people feel heard" or do you hear them? When young women come, are they descended upon by older established male presenting dancers who just want to welcome them but don't understand the negative effect that may have? ------------------------------ *From:* Sandy Seiler via Organizers <organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> *Sent:* Sunday, October 29, 2023 10:54:44 AM *To:* A list for dance organizers <organizers(a)sharedweight.net> *Subject:* [Organizers] Attracting young dancers Our community, like many others, has fewer young dancers than we would like. I am wondering how different factors influence that and what we can do. Does the night of the week matter? We dance on a Saturday night. Would Friday be better? Does frequency matter? We dance once a month? Does location matter? We have a college (University of Kansas KU) Would a dance location closer to or on campus matter? Are outreach strategies effective and what has your community found successful? Thanks, Sandy Seiler Lawrence, Kansas

As a caller and organizer, this is a hot button topic for me. Please, if you are organizing a dance, take responsibility for this decision and make it clearly public to your participants in advance. I understand you may be uncomfortable making this choice and possibly want to "please everybody" by leaving it to the caller but that just sets up the worst dynamic for all. My take is that the dance's organizers *own* the culture and implementation policies of their dance. If you would not leave it up to the caller to decide to do swing dance instead or declare the admission is half off for a given event, then you shouldn't leave such a topic to them either. "Traditional", Larks/ Robins, positional - alternating per event, whatever - make the determination and let the people coming know in advance. I personally will no longer accept bookings from a dance that doesn't have a stated role term policy. I will call with the terms stated (or decline the event). I had a booking for a longstanding dance which changed from decades of "Traditional" to "Caller's Choice" after booking me, with no heads up. I first heard of it when I started hearing from people advocating for one or the other terms, as "my choice". The organizers wouldn't make the call and the publicity was already out there. Bad scene for all, not the way to set up dance joy. On Sun, Oct 29, 2023, 1:28 PM Sandy Seiler via Organizers < organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote: <snip> Currently terminology is the caller's decision. So it goes back and forth from gendered to non gendered. That is not mentioned on the website, but I do know that at least one of our callers has requested that the Lawrence board make a decision about it so the callers don't have that responsibility and possible fall out from it. </snip> _______________________________________________ Organizers mailing list -- organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to organizers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net

How do you feel, in a gender-neutral series, about leaving the decision of larks/robins vs. positional to the caller, so long as it's declared and publicized in advance? At least in some areas, there are not enough positional callers to have an all-positional series. Thanks, --jh-- On Mon, Oct 30, 2023 at 12:32 AM Lisa Marie Lunt via Organizers < organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Organizers mailing list -- organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to organizers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net

For what it's worth, I went to a dance where a caller chose role-name-light dances, and had this interaction with my partner, a college-age dancer who's reasonably experienced. We were just in hands four. (Small talk ensues, then unprompted:) Partner: "The second dance I got confused by something the caller said. I can't remember what exactly." (Dance had us in Long Lines, for a Larks allemande left.) Caller: "Left hand dancer with the left hand free ... allemande left" Partner: "That was it." (Next move is the same role does something else, again the caller chose to not just say "larks") Unless one is censoring one's repertoire severely, even dances with basic things like "one role allemandes after a long lines" which is in a bajillion dances, can get so much more wordy. And, if the dance has a few people need prompting mid-dance, there's no simple way to recover if you're avoiding saying a role name. So, I'd suggest any organizer who is considering allowing positional calling take the time to understand the ramifications to what that actually means. In dance, Julian Blechner On Mon, Oct 30, 2023, 9:28 AM Rich Dempsey via Organizers < organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Organizers mailing list -- organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to organizers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net

contentious issue, before they arrive at the dance, will ensure that somebody is surprised/ disappointed/ angry when the decision is made "on the fly" - I've seen dancers storm off the floor in such situations. It's unfair to stick the caller in such a charged situation from the start. But more importantly, it's unfair to the dancers who may be traveling a distance for anticipated fun. And, ultimately, the organizers end up having to deal with resultant issues anyway - in my opinion it's better to just address it up front.

I think it's important to listen to what Don Veino just wrote. Don is both a caller and organizer. It's not fair to put the responsibility for choosing role names on the callers. It's the organizers' responsibility to make decisions about our dances. Lisa Lunt She/her Jamaica Plain (Boston) Gender Free Contra Dance On Sun, Oct 29, 2023, 4:17 PM Don Veino via Organizers < organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote: <snip>

Chiming in from up in Ottawa way as both a caller and a long-time dance organizer. I feel pretty strongly that the organizers should take ownership and leadership in their community over the role terms that are used. Leaving it to a caller, especially if visiting, is opening that caller up to lots of dancers who may have strong opinions in that community. I don't feel that it's the caller's role to carry the weight of the role terminology discussion in a community. It's the organizers that are doing all the other work and leaving it to the caller feels like a bit of a cop out to me. I do appreciate callers who engage with organizers to discuss the use of various role terms and increase the dialogue around this topic. But just as messages about safe communities/dancing should be led by the organizers and not left just to the caller, so should be this piece about the role terms. Despite my strongish stated message, I am totally open to other ideas/perspectives on this. Just my two cents given my current perspective. Emily in Ottawa ON On Mon, Oct 30, 2023 at 6:00 PM Jerome Grisanti via Organizers < organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Organizers mailing list -- organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to organizers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net

Hi Don, thank you for responding to my comment. Let me first say I'm delighted how folks younger than I are stepping up and keeping our tradition vital. Before we get lost in a swamp with these threads and multiple responses I'll clarify my statement. It was strictly in response to someone who appeared to be making a blanket statement that all dance series should require callers to use gender neutral terms as a way to draw in new dancers. (Why it is in this thread). That's a pretty much a control thing, in my mind. I believe series should be free to set the stsndards as they wish. I am glad to see the ever increasing inclusiveness of our events and feel, generally, things are on the right track. But in my belief individuals should be somewhat free to call, to dance, to play in a way they are most comfortable. We are all artists, in the end. There is a saying "people will cone fir the band but leave because of the caller" which if the organizers pay attention the market will sort out those who dancers find onerous and objectionable. Culture shift is not a bad thing and in my mind nothing draws better than exuberance. In the spirit of the joy of dance, Jeff On Sun, Oct 29, 2023, 4:14 PM Don Veino via Organizers &lt;organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Organizers mailing list -- organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to organizers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net

Sorry, another very long one. As many readers will know, I started a college contra group and an in-town group in Orlando just as the pandemic was starting. There had not been contra in Orlando for a number of years before, but there is a nice dance about an hour's drive from here that gets 50+ dancers every month. It's got a fairly relaxed tempo that's accessible to many older dancers, but a few younger dancers go. My goal was to make a Northern-style dance that was attractive to and largely populated by energetic dancers, many of whom might be roughly college-age, as was the case in the dance I learned at in 1987. Being a professor, I started on campus, literally just months before the start of the pandemic. The whole story is long and littered with great examples of what went wrong and things to learn from. Here are some takeaways. 1. Non-dancing just-out-of-high-schoolers think of dancing as a pre-romantic activity. Two students and I put on an open-to-the-public, very decorated, pop-rock contra dance party on campus. It was heavily advertised, with a website, posters all over campus, announcements in student activity socials and email lists, Facebook, Discord, Instagram, Reddit, Meetup, Tiktok, local arts calendars, tabling, enticing graphics, you name it. It's amazing what you can line up in over 2 years of not dancing! It was free to students and baited with tons of free pizza in the heavily trafficked atrium we were dancing in. We got 35 dancers! But, just 4-5 students. MANY students entered the space, looked, turned around, and left. When our student leaders (2 of the 4-5) chased them down and asked them why they left, they said, "We don't want to dance with our parents!" Lesson: if you're holding an event intended to get a lot of college-age folks to come who have never danced before, everyone dancing and most of the organizers should be college-age. Following this experience, we closed the campus dances to those over 30 (that pissed some people off!), and used it as a "gateway drug" to get students to eventually come to our in-town dances, which are open to all. The experienced students bring new students. It worked for a while, but see below for how it eventually failed. Now we have two independent dances. Or had. 2. Young people today have been bombarded with come-ons to participate in activities from people older than them since their infancy. They are really good at shutting all that out. They barely even remember posters they pass five times a day. Social-media tactics of the past simply don't work anymore. Rather than using socials like Facebook that present things users might like to try, they go for Discord, where defined groups of people interact, or Instagram, where you see just the groups you want to see. Our group has given out about 1500 business cards with our ad and a QR code, posted many hundred flyers, has a group in every social including some we pay for (like Meetup), has tabled at Pride and other events that draw tens of thousands of visitors, been in local arts podcasts, been featured in local magazines, tabled at large events on campus, etc., etc., etc. We've done it graphically, with video, with young people as the face of the group. Basically, none of that works directly with any consistency (but, see below). Surveying our dancers revealed that only two things have ever worked to get people to try contra dancing: a: Friends dragging friends. Success varies a lot, here. Some people are magnets. Others, well, aren't. (I'm in the latter category.) If you have a magnet in your group who is interested, make recruitment their only job! Years ago, the Monday Night Contra in Concord, MA, succeeded in competing with the more-popular Thursday Night NEFFA dance by identifying the magnets and giving them free admission if they brought all their friends. Those magnets were established dancers, however. This was Don Veino's genius and he can share details. b: Advertising in spaces where people are purposefully looking for an activity. Tabling at the start-of-the-year campus activities midway is the main one of these that has worked for us. This brought out 45 dancers to the first event, about half of whom stayed through the middle of the year. Meetup has brought in maybe half a dozen to a dozen dancers in 18 months, so maybe one every other month. We get a few people a month from web searches, who find our website. It's really not hard to become discoverable to those looking. 3. A group of old people (I'm 56) can't create a social event for a group of young adults with any real probability of success. A group of young adults can do it, but it is very hard even for them to succeed at convincing their peers to try it in this age of infinite fun things to do and easy discovery. You need at least one really talented young leader who is/are themselves inspired to rally others to the cause. You can give this group advice as they request it, but if you push too hard, they'll find something more fun to do. Lacking such organizers, our campus group, which started with 45 students off the annual student activity tabling event, dwindled away by the middle of the spring semester. 4. People of all ages, but especially young people, are sensitive to the social environment. Forget creepers (no, DON'T, but read on). On at least two separate occasions, we lost 10-20 dancers from our in-town dance in a single evening, who never came back, because a single, well meaning individual tried to give them dance pointers during the dance and was a little too assertive about it. I tried hard to figure out who this person was and failed both times (I was told it was an older woman in both situations, but they were described differently). I was calling; it happened right in front of me and I had no idea. In the first occurrence, one week the students were there, the next a third of our dancers were gone, never to return. I talked to a few of the dancers who left (they were also in the campus group) and they told me after the fact that the 15 students who had been coming had decided as a group not to attend anymore. Nothing I could say would interest them in coming back. They weren't hurt or offended, it just made contra dancing not rise to the level of other fun stuff to do on a Friday night. One or two did eventually return, but the damage was done. The toxic person wasn't a creepy guy, it was just some lady who made the students self-conscious while, I'm guessing, she was trying to improve the dance. The second time was four dances ago, and our attendance dropped by 20 dancers. The person who told me why she wasn't coming anymore was a senior medical professional in her mid-30s. Competing with karaoke, salsa, swing, Lindy, Netflix, pinball, bowling, tiddlywinks, movies, yoga, etc. is tough! 5. But, there seems to be a silver lining in all this "wasted" ad effort. People now know about us, from all the ads. The ads don't bring them in, their friends do. But, it's easier if those being dragged by their friends have actually heard of us before. We get a lot of, "I've been meaning to try this for a while, then Suzie asked me," now. The socials may not bring in many new people, but they keep the regulars coming back. 6. The social aspect is as important as the dancing itself. People go out to have fun! They ask their friends along if they think their friends will have fun! So, focus on the fun! We now take longer breaks between dances (partly because of the high tempo) and we have eliminated "the break", when many leave. Sometimes, people have so much fun socializing that we throw in a random waltz to get them out of the chairs and snacks and back onto the floor. At our most recent event, we had just 18 dancers, one sound tech, a caller, three musicians, and me, but we had 14 dancers in our final dance and 12 went out for ice cream at 10:30 pm. In the past, half the dancers would be gone by 9:15. I'm hoping we can build back up to the 40 we had in early September, and soon, as the dance cost $880 and brought in just $260! I'm grateful to our dance angel and local arts grant agency. 7. Wrapping this together, I think there's a pretty well established set of things to do to make an open dance friendly to younger dancers who want to be there: Unless it's in an area with particularly strong religious politics, gender-neutral calling and normalizing role experimentation is important (we're gender-neutral and our students strongly like that, but a survey showed that the rest of the dancers don't much like it). Social environment is important, both stopping creepers and just making it not feel judgy, on the negative side, and making it a party that lasts on the positive (heavy snacks, go out after, decorate, do themes, even organize your volunteers in groups who like to hang out with each other). Making it free for students helps, and enticing the magnets to bring all their friends helps. Letting the young people dance with each other, rather than telling them they should dance with everyone, helps a lot. Empower a cross section of your target audience as organizers and planners, making sure their voice is heard on an equal basis, even if there are much more experienced and vocal people on the board. They want to go to their dance, not yours. But, none of this means that you'll get a huge number of younger dancers. You can't make that happen. Only they can, and they might, for a while. Don't be surprised or discouraged if big groups decide to go elsewhere one day. This happens. They're not there to satisfy us, and they have lots of options of things that will satisfy themselves. --jh-- On Sun, Oct 29, 2023 at 2:12 PM Tepfer, Seth via Organizers < organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Organizers mailing list -- organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to organizers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net

It would be helpful if, when asking a question or giving an example, people on this list clarified whether they are talking specifically about contra or ECD or mix of those and/or other related forms. There may be nuanced responses based on that info. Brooke On Sun, Oct 29, 2023 at 11:30 AM Perry Shafran via Organizers < organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote:

Is Will Loving in the house? Or anyone from the Amherst, MA, Wednesday night contra? He was the ONLY person on the board over 30 in the years after he founded it, and it was largely a college/post-college crowd, the few times I was privileged to attend. He told me that was his formula. Maybe he can give details. This was in the mid-2010s, I think. To me, there is a big difference between events run by and for younger dancers and broad community events with a predominantly older crowd trying to make up for our lame recruiting/retention efforts a few decades back, so we can keep our dances from dying as we age out, or to bring some energy into them, or out of some principle of inclusion. Or whatever our real reasons are for focusing so heavily on recruiting younger dancers (which, guilty, I do for their energy). --jh-- On Wed, Nov 8, 2023 at 9:27 AM Chrissy Fowler via Organizers < organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Organizers mailing list -- organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to organizers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net

Marie-Michèle, Hietzo, Marie-Michèle wrote: male-presenting people almost all dance one role and female-presenting people almost all dance the other, no matter what role names they use. Hietzo, do the rural Georgia dances with strong younger participation fit this description? Thanks, --jh-- On Wed, Nov 8, 2023 at 11:15 AM Marie-Michèle Fournier via Organizers &lt;organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote: I took over as main organiser in Montreal when I was in my late 30s and the people who decided to join the organizing committee after that were all my age or younger except one. Gradually after that, our age average became younger and younger, however part of that is unfortunately because we lost several older dancers. I don't know exactly what it is we did that made older dancers less likely to come back and younger dancers more likely to, except for being very strongly non-gendered, even before we switched to Larks and Robins after the pandemic. But I can tell you that I haven't yet found a dance with a strong younger core where male-presenting people almost all dance one role and female-presenting people almost all dance the other, no matter what role names they use. Marie-Michèle, Montréal, Québec, Canada On Wed, Nov 8, 2023 at 9:58 AM Joe Harrington via Organizers &lt;organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote: Is Will Loving in the house?  Or anyone from the Amherst, MA, Wednesday night contra?  He was the ONLY person on the board over 30 in the years after he founded it, and it was largely a college/post-college crowd, the few times I was privileged to attend.  He told me that was his formula.  Maybe he can give details. This was in the mid-2010s, I think. To me, there is a big difference between events run by and for younger dancers and broad community events with a predominantly older crowd trying to make up for our lame recruiting/retention efforts a few decades back, so we can keep our dances from dying as we age out, or to bring some energy into them, or out of some principle of inclusion. Or whatever our real reasons are for focusing so heavily on recruiting younger dancers (which, guilty, I do for their energy). --jh-- On Wed, Nov 8, 2023 at 9:27 AM Chrissy Fowler via Organizers &lt;organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote: Thanks Dana, for this reframing of the conversation! Shakes things up a bit in my mind. Love it. In Belfast ME, where our demographics have skewed toward a majority of dancers in teens-early 30s, we recruited board members in that age range because they already were the majority. (See https://www.belfastflyingshoes.org/board-of-directors) I’m curious what other organizers have experienced when they recruited people in teens/20s in order to increase that demographic among their dancers. Cheers, Chrissy Fowler Belfast ME <><><><><><> chrissyfowler.com <http://www.chrissyfowler.com> dance leadership westbranchwords.com <http://www.westbranchwords.com> academic transcription belfastflyingshoes.org <http://www.belfastflyingshoes.org> participatory dance & music ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *From:* Dana Dwinell-Yardley via Organizers &lt;organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; *Sent:* Monday, November 6, 2023 11:13:16 AM *To:* A list for dance organizers &lt;organizers(a)sharedweight.net&gt; *Subject:* [Organizers] Re: Attracting young dancers And I forgot to note that my dance is Montpelier, VT! On Mon, Nov 6, 2023 at 10:56 AM Dana Dwinell-Yardley &lt;danadwya(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I'm coming in late to this discussion with a thought from the Form the Ocean dance weekend in 2019. They held a community discussion at that weekend structured around the idea of starting at "Point D." As in, with big conversations in our communities, we so often churn round and round on points A, B, C: "how do we get more diversity?? we're so [white/old/middle class/etc]! but we need diversity!" What if, instead, we started at point D and bypassed those first few questions that we always start with? I would suggest that Point D for this conversation about young dancers might be: *"Our dance *already has* age diversity. How shall we be with the people already in the room?"* rather than scrambling to say "we need morrrrrrrrre young dancers!" I'm 36, an in-between sort of age in the contra dance world. I started dancing 19 years ago, when I was 17. I absolutely started dancing because it was a place to hang out with my friends. And, I could tell which adults would talk to me like I was a fellow dancer, and which ones talked to me like I was a Young Person. I still have friendships with the ones who treated me like a person to this day. Get to know your young dancers like you would get to know anyone else you don't know yet! Don't be overbearing! Be friendly, ask them to dance, learn about their lives, but also leave them alone to do their own thing and hang with their friends. Treat them like humans and not A Class of People We Need for Diversity. People can tell when they're being tokenized. (My friend group and I had an experience about 4-5 years ago at our local English dance where the dance organizers/regulars practically *pounced* on us as we walked in the door and were like "wow! young people! so nice to have young people! can we give you a discount? will you come back again? will you bring your friends?" and we were like "...um we're just here to English dance?" It was very off-putting and made us LESS likely to come back again!) I also have lots of thoughts about fostering a culture of consent, non-gendered role terms, young people on your organizing committee, etc, but I'll save them for another day! Thanks, Dana On Sun, Oct 29, 2023 at 10:55 AM Sandy Seiler via Organizers &lt;organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote: Our community, like many others, has fewer young dancers than we would like.  I am wondering how different factors influence that and what we can do. Does the night of the week matter?  We dance on a Saturday night.  Would Friday be better? Does frequency matter? We dance once a month? Does location matter? We have a college (University of Kansas KU)  Would a dance location closer to or on campus matter? Are outreach strategies effective and what has your community found successful? Thanks, Sandy Seiler Lawrence, Kansas

You confirmed my suspicions. "Youth" isn't a monoculture that follows a single set of values. There are certainly youth communities that do strongly value gender-blind dancing, and they are probably the norm in the US Northeast, up into Canada, and perhaps many other regions. But, in some of the places where youth-plus dancing is strongest, the culture is quite different. I don't know if Hayley Smith is on this list, but there's some quite-bold, religious-traditionalist, young people dancing in large numbers, down South. I'm pretty sure I'd be having an easier time building our dance above 20 weekly participants if I were using traditional terms, including attracting and retaining more young dancers. --jh-- On Thu, Nov 9, 2023 at 12:58 PM Heitzso via Organizers < organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Organizers mailing list -- organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to organizers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net

While any generation has variety, the trends, long-term, are compelling: https://www.statista.com/statistics/719685/american-adults-who-identify-as-… Realize that in states that have passed laws making being trans illegal in one or more ways, people are fleeing to the closet for safety, as well. In dance, Julian Blechner On Thu, Nov 9, 2023, 9:26 PM Joe Harrington via Organizers < organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote:

You all, I'm curious to hear YOUR first experiences at a contra, whether when young or not. As I think back, it took me three attempts over about 15 years, from young to less young, to get over the threshold and really start enjoying myself (not counting those grade school square dance classes). My first experiences stunk. Once I got into contra, I was always concerned when I brought friends who were new to contra whether they'd have fun. The most perilous moments were 1) when they (or I) needed to find a partner and, then, 2) absorbing the disapproval of hot shot dancers when one messed up. Now, as an organizer, I'd like to stay aware of the confusion and concerns of first-, second- and third-... timers. Would anyone mind sharing? Rob Dancing in Arkansas _______________________________________________ Organizers mailing list -- organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to organizers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net

You all, I'm curious to hear YOUR first experiences at a contra, whether when young or not. As I think back, it took me three attempts over about 15 years, from young to less young, to get over the threshold and really start enjoying myself (not counting those grade school square dance classes). My first experiences stunk. Once I got into contra, I was always concerned when I brought friends who were new to contra whether they'd have fun. The most perilous moments were 1) when they (or I) needed to find a partner and, then, 2) absorbing the disapproval of hot shot dancers when one messed up. Now, as an organizer, I'd like to stay aware of the confusion and concerns of first-, second- and third-... timers. Would anyone mind sharing? Rob Dancing in Arkansas _______________________________________________ Organizers mailing list -- organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net _______________________________________________ Organizers mailing list -- organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to organizers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net

My first time, I attended at the invitation of a friend and coworker. She basically invited the entire staff at our workplace during our weekly meeting. This was in Louisville. I was recently separated, and I knew I needed some positive socialization, so I showed up. I didn't see my friend, but I was swept into the dance, one woman after another asking me for the next dance. It definitely made me feel not only welcome, but actually wanted. I decided that night to attend as often as possible (luckily, it was weekly). Jerome Grisanti On Fri, Nov 10, 2023, 7:52 PM Robert Matson via Organizers < organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Organizers mailing list -- organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to organizers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net

You all, I'm curious to hear YOUR first experiences at a contra, whether when young or not. As I think back, it took me three attempts over about 15 years, from young to less young, to get over the threshold and really start enjoying myself (not counting those grade school square dance classes). My first experiences stunk. Once I got into contra, I was always concerned when I brought friends who were new to contra whether they'd have fun. The most perilous moments were 1) when they (or I) needed to find a partner and, then, 2) absorbing the disapproval of hot shot dancers when one messed up. Now, as an organizer, I'd like to stay aware of the confusion and concerns of first-, second- and third-... timers. Would anyone mind sharing? Rob Dancing in Arkansas _______________________________________________ Organizers mailing list -- organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to organizers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net _______________________________________________ Organizers mailing list -- organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to organizers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net _______________________________________________ Organizers mailing list -- organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to organizers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net

Is Will Loving in the house? Or anyone from the Amherst, MA, Wednesday night contra? He was the ONLY person on the board over 30 in the years after he founded it, and it was largely a college/post-college crowd, the few times I was privileged to attend. He told me that was his formula. Maybe he can give details. This was in the mid-2010s, I think. To me, there is a big difference between events run by and for younger dancers and broad community events with a predominantly older crowd trying to make up for our lame recruiting/retention efforts a few decades back, so we can keep our dances from dying as we age out, or to bring some energy into them, or out of some principle of inclusion. Or whatever our real reasons are for focusing so heavily on recruiting younger dancers (which, guilty, I do for their energy). --jh-- On Wed, Nov 8, 2023 at 9:27 AM Chrissy Fowler via Organizers < organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Organizers mailing list -- organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to organizers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net

Purely for amusement, I offer this article from 1895 titled "Decline in Dancing" https://www.newspapers.com/clip/40820357/an_1895_analysis_of_the_decline_in Dave