Minutes of SSDS Meeting
February 3, 2002

Taken by: Tania

Present: Tania, Maria, Sally, Lynn, Greg, Tanna, Steve, Mary, Chris, Can, Steve Ryan

1. Old Business

General Report - Tania submitted Updowntowners grant application; lottery drawing for winners will take place in the spring. Tania submitted final report on CRC administrative grant. Weekly dance status report: We still need people at the door to greet newcomers and provide a presence to deter crime. We have been successfully using the honor system lately to collect admissions, but some people come in late and don't volunteer to pay. We collect admissions until 10 p.m. and need to remind people taking Thursday lessons to pay $1 hop admission. Weekly dance attendance is good and improving. We decided to close the side door to entrants and make people come through the bar into the dance hall to control the traffic flow and protect the floor from wet shoes. Can and Tanna will make a sign. Maria will start scheduling people to work the door in half hour slots until 10 p.m. Maria asked if we can keep the hop going until 11 p.m. if there is interest on a particular night. Steve said that SSDS rents the space until 11 p.m. but will check with the bartender to make sure it is OK with her as well.

Disposal of runners from Hudson Hall - Steve hasn't checked with Gus at Ballybay yet, but Greg said he will take them.

Change in web server - Can reported that our web site physically moved to another server with lower quality but that when that contract term expires on March 3, 2002 we will move to a new server. He found a new provider at a lower cost of $7.77 per month. We keep our web address intact because we pay to register it. With the new provider, if we make successful referrals then SSDS gets two months service for free. The new server has email accounts that we may want to set up for instructors, specific events. Can also can set up as many as five parallel sites for other people to manage, such as photos, Three-D's. Hop admission coupons to local instructors - Greg sent out letter and a total of 100 coupons to five local instructors - Lynn, Maria, Steve, Sandy & Tracie. Instructors must sign the back of the coupon, and we will keep track of how many are used.

IRS advance ruling period ends 12/31/02 for 501(c)(3) status. Steve will check with our IRS expert to see if we should be doing anything to prepare.

Financial Report - Steve reported that we had hop revenue of $546 in January for five Thursdays and paid rent of $190. Other revenue for January was $177.50 proceeds for the NYE dance, $100 for Can's donation of his DJ services for the Erie Canal Museum dance (which used the SSDS equipment), $100 equipment rental from Chris' Friday dances. Total revenue for January was $923.50, total expenses were $428 (includes hop rent, BMI license fee, $50 donation in memory of Kim McLaughlin's mother), for a net income of $495.50. Steve has prepared and is sending out IRS 1099 forms to instructors/bands that we paid more than $600 to in 2001.

Dance venue list - Tracie to divide into quadrants to ease volunteer recruiting. Carried over until next meeting because Tracie not present. Better quality workshops. Tania & Can. Review revised drafts of workshop organization checklist, workshop evaluation form. Carried over to next meeting.

Marketing/publicity policy. Can & Tracie. Discuss proposal to give out SSDS weekly dance admissions ($3) or workshop admissions to established dance groups as door prizes. Carried over to next meeting.

2. New Business

Proposed amendment to corporate bylaws. Tania drafted an amendment to formalize existing policy that for-profit dance instructors or anyone receiving significant revenues from a dance-related business may not hold a position on the board of directors or serve as a corporate officer. The amendment is necessary to prevent conflicts of interest and to protect our not-for-profit status with the IRS. Tania read the formal amendment, which is attached, and we all agreed to adopt it as written.

Progress on upcoming events.

1. Mario workshops July 12-14, 2002 (Maria). The schedule for the weekend will depend on his work schedule. The worst case scenario would be Saturday classes and 2-3 Sunday classes. The best case scenario would be to spread the classes over Friday night. We will know Mario's schedule by April. Greg said that even if we don't have workshops on Friday night, we should plan on a dance to attract out-of-towners to our event. Can suggested that we use local instructors to give a lesson on Friday night if necessary. Venue - Maria has us pencilled in at the Kallet but will write a letter to them to determine rental terms. She will circulate a draft of the letter to the board. Kallet probably will only agree to a 50/50 split but the venue may be worth it. We still will need SSDS volunteers at the Kallet for registration purposes and troubleshooting. Due to travel distance to Oneida, we will have to plan the schedule carefully, explore renting showers. We would not want a bar at Kallet due to extra cost to SSDS. Tracie called the manager at Hotel Syracuse who told her to call back in mid-March. Hotel Syracuse supposedly needs business; Can said the Hotel is doing a 150-person dinner for SU event for $22 per person and the hall for free. Can will check the dance floor condition at that event.
2. Kyle & Sara workshops Sept. 20-22, 2002 (Steve). They are holding the date for us. Tania will review the contract they sent.
3. Lindy hop dance and 2 workshops with Skye & Sara April 13, 2002 (Greg). Steve has to negotiate a rental rate for Ballybay, which is reserved. We will prefer to use Ballybay for the food as well. Instructors' contract is negotiated ($250 total) and band is set for $450 (7 pieces plus one or two vocalists). Tania drafted the instructors' contract and will send it out. Brian will call the band to discuss BPM and music selection. Tanna drafted a flyer, which she will send to Can for review. The band will play for four hours, three sets with two 20-minute breaks. Greg will send 10 full price or 20 half price dance (not workshop) admission coupons to Skye and Sara to attract Ithaca dancers to our event.
4. Jo Thompson teaching workshop Thursday, Sept. 26 (Maria). Maria reported that Thompson's workshop rate is $200 per hour, and our Thursday workshops will be the only WCS she teaches that weekend. Can noted that this is the Thursday after our Kyle & Sarah workshop, so people may be less willing to pay for more workshops. We need 40 people at $10 each to break even, not counting her dinner and travel expenses. Thompson will be available in Syracuse for private lessons on Friday at a rate of $75 per hour. We decided to schedule two workshops for that Thursday night and will determine the price to cover our expenses once we know her air fare costs. We decided to start the hop late that night. Lessons will be 7 to 8, 8 to 9, and then the hop. Steve will check with Ballybay to see if we can have the hall until midnight that night. We decided to include SSDS with the Kallet's plan for a weekend flyer promoting Thompson's workshops for 1/5 of the total flyer cost. Maria is designing the flyer for the Kallet and will run it by the board for approval. SSDS will do its own flyers as well.
5. Diane Nardone. Need to set date. (Steve). Steve will contact Diane.

Proposed events. Brian (on his own) is organizing a four-week lesson series with Dan & Caitlin from Ithaca at Rockefeller Church in Syracuse in March on Monday nights. He plans to have demos in Walt Medici's class to attract SU students. The classes may affect the content/attendance of SSDS's April 13 event. Steve will give Brian SSDS hop flyers so that Brian can promote our dances to these new students; we will ask Brian to publicize the April 13 event as well.

Hanover Square series. Tania reported that the Updowntowners will take over event for 2002. She drafted a proposal for SSDS to participate again at $125 per event but has not heard back. The dates are not set, but one proposed date (7/12) conflicts with our Mario workshops, so we decided not to do the Hanover Square lessons that night. Tania will contact organizers to determine schedule, status of proposal.

Review of ISDN conflict with April 13 SSDS event. Can summarized that last year SSDS's Lindy workshops conflicted with ISDN's band dance and Howard Schler of ISDN was upset and suggested that SSDS bus its dancers to Ithaca that evening. Partly as a result of that conflict, SSDS adopted an official policy to minimize scheduling conflicts. In setting the date for the April 13 Lindy event, we checked for all regional conflicts (including clearing the date with organizers of a WCS event in Buffalo); we put the date on our web site and in the weekly schedule emails. Nonetheless, ISDN set a monthly band dance "TBA" for April 13 after SSDS had had the date on its calendar. Tania sent an email to Howard about the conflict, and his response suggested in part that SSDS event organizers check with five different ISDN organizers for conflicts. After a lengthy discussion, we agreed that the SSDS board would write to the ISDN board expressing our disappointment in the conflict and Howard's response. The letter will let ISDN know about our policy and encourage them to adopt a similar policy. Can will draft the letter and Greg will review it. We also will consider attending an ISDN board meeting.

Other business

1. Publicity. Steve proposed that SSDS put together a mailing soon in newsletter format about the many events scheduled for this year. Tania will set a date for the annual summer picnic to include in the newsletter. Tania and Steve will work on this newsletter.
2. More publicity. Maria noted that she is putting together a master flyer of WCS events. Maria also proposed that SSDS participate in a postcard mailing with the Kallet publicizing the national instructors (Kevin & Vicki, Mario, Kyle & Sarah, Jo Thompson). She will report on the cost at the next meeting. Maria will talk to Kim McLaughlin about the mailing list. Tania asked who will do the labor of stamping/labeling the postcards and noted that it must also be shared. Lynn noted that the post office permits computers to print mailable postmarks for an extra penny cost and that ARC clients are available to fold mailers.
3. Nedim workshop recap. At Maria's request, we reviewed the cost of the Nedim Catel workshop from 2001 because we are considering additional salsa workshops in 2002. Nedim last year taught 4 workshops in one day and received $100 per workshop plus half the profit, for a total of $1500. As a result of this arrangement, SSDS adopted its policy of including the cost of volunteer labor in its expenses for all projects. It was reported that beginners had trouble with Nedim's teaching style because he didn't break down the moves when teaching and other non-beginners also had trouble with his teaching style. We need to rethink whether to have salsa workshops and if Nedim is the person to hire again. Maria and Steve said that if we do workshops it should be an all-Latin weekend. Swing dance is evolving in a Latin direction. We noted that if we bring in Latin teachers from NYC we could attract advanced/intermediate local salsa dancers. Any decision on the salsa workshops was tabled.
4. Shoe vendor. Steve said that a national dance shoe vendor contacted him for permission to sell products at SSDS events, at no cost to SSDS. He will find out if the dealer is reputable. SSDS may charge a fee.
5. Can reported that two new Lindy instructors/dancers from San Diego sent a general inquiry in search of teaching engagements at a rate of $200 per hour. Lynn said that these teachers are not nationally known. We declined to pursue the offer.
6. Can noted that he is going to assign as a senior project to his engineering students the task of creating a computerized sound system for SSDS to use.
7. Can reported in response to Brian's inquiry from a prior meeting that ISDN does not play two types of songs back-to-back. Ithaca's DJ said that she reads the crowd. We decided to keep our music mix policy in place, which includes a read-the-crowd discretionary measure.

Meeting adjourned. Next meeting Sunday March 3 at 11 a.m. at Can's house.

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