Minutes of SSDS Meeting March 3, 2003

Present: Tania, Dave, Lynn, Sally, Can, Mike, Alice, Greg

Minutes by: Tania

1. Old Business
   • General Report
     1. Weekly dance status report. Dave reported that attendance has averaged 50 people for the last few weeks. In January, the average attendance was in the high 50s, and in October and November attendance averaged in the high 60s. The lower attendance probably is due to snow and cold temperatures keeping people home. Dave said he is getting door duty volunteers by the second email request and that the sign-in book for logging student discounts is working out OK and the money is matching up. Between 11 and 22 students pay the $1 reduced fee.
     2. Review of Winterfest dances. Tania reported that the dances, including the dance floor layout, went well and SSDS members made up most of the crowd. About 100 people attended on 2/14 and 100 to 125 people attended on 2/21. Tania invoiced the Updowntowners to pay SSDS $250 ($125 per dance).
     3. Purchase of storage cabinet (Greg). Carried over.
     4. Report on decision re: Marcus and Barbl workshop. Greg reported that scheduling this workshop became difficult because it would have to be in the fall and avoid conflicts with Frankie Manning in October and a Rochester event in November, leaving September, when there is Swing Out New Hampshire. After much discussion among active Lindy constituents, we concluded that we would have to rely on our own Syracuse Lindy community to support an M&B weekend and thought that the Syracuse community was too small to do it. M&B may not be the best choice to build a Lindy community anyway because they teach at intermediate and advanced levels. We might be better off doing one-day, cheaper workshops to build Lindy skills. Can reported that at the SU Lindy dance on 3/1 only about 12 dancers were SU students and the rest were from the outside community and concluded that we can't count on SU students to build a Lindy community. Can said maybe we need to reach into the high schools to bring dancers into the community. We need to think of new ways to attract new dancers.

        Can suggested that SSDS support existing one-day workshops. Tania and others noted that we need to be careful in collaborating with for-profit organizers in order to protect our non-profit status. We discussed adding a Saturday Lindy dance at Ballybay. Greg said he would talk to Dan and Caitlin about doing a one-day workshop, possibly in WCS/Lindy cross-over in April, May or early summer. The proposal would be to teach afternoon workshops and have an evening dance. Greg will find out if a Lindy event thought to be taking place in the North Country in April is happening. Greg also will explore Bill Borgida's availability for workshops. Greg noted that there is a lot of Lindy dancing available regionally.

        SSDS wants to support and nurture Lindy events, which should originate from the Lindy dancers. SSDS is open to proposals from instructors because we want to support local Lindy. We need to support professional and polished efforts. Greg will send an email to local Lindy teachers soliciting proposals.

     5. Tania reported that Chris Chandler, who has long supported the weekly dances, also works at Time Warner locally and will coordinate taping and production of a feature piece on SSDS to be aired on Time Warner's local channel 13 on the "Magazine 13" program. Chris and a photographer will be at the lessons and dance on March 13.
   • Consent agenda – No items.
   • Financial Report – Greg distributed the monthly reports and noted that February income was $166.20. Greg has put 50 hours into the IRS filing and is close to completing it. Tania and he will work on a second IRS filing explaining why SSDS does not need to file Forms 990 (i.e., income is too low).
   • Committee Reports – No reports.
   • Marketing Report. Dave will set up shirts to sell at the weekly dance admission table, and Tania will announce that shirts are available for sale. Greg will retrieve the shirt petty cash fund from Tracie as a result. We need to explore ways to better allocate the marketing duties because it's too much for one person.
   • Progress on upcoming events.
     1. Saturday DJ'd dances March 29 and April 26. Can is setting up March 29 dance. DJs will include Chris Egan, Lon Snook and Dan Amores.
     2. Nardone Hustle workshops/ Fall WCS workshops. Steve Ryan and Kim McLaughlin will coordinate dates in September and November, seeking to avoid conflict with Lynn Miller's Frankie Manning weekend in October.
     3. Mario Robau workshop. Maria said that she would like to add a class Friday night in music interpretation, and all agreed. Maria may try to get Mario into town a day early (Thursday) to allow for more privates because the private lesson slots already are full. We agreed as long as SSDS receives a benefit for the added cost, such as more local private slots.
2. New Business
   • Proposal to allow inserts in SSDS mailings. We agreed to allow local instructors to add their lesson inserts into SSDS bulk mailings as long as the instructor has contributed to SSDS efforts (typically by volunteer efforts on behalf of SSDS) and SSDS already has a mailing planned. The instructor would pay his/her pro rata share of the total mailing cost.

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