Minutes of SSDS Meeting
March 3, 2002

Taken by: Tania

Present: Maria, Greg, Steve & Tanna, Can, Lynn, Sally, Tracie, Kim, Stacey, Tania

  1. Old Business
    1. General Report
      1. Weekly dance status report. Maria reported that she is having no problem finding volunteers to work the door and she got a better response from email than flyers asking for volunteers. We need to keep the side door closed and post signs. Tanna made signs, Greg offered to make more. Maria proposed starting the hop later because people were coming in while the lessons were ending. Tracie said that the 7 to 8 class sometimes runs over 5 or 10 minutes; the 7 to 8 class waits in the bar area for the hop to start. After a lengthy discussion, we decided to keep the hop starting time at 8 p.m. The teachers will stick to the posted lesson time and announce to their classes that students need to pay $1 admission for the hop. Maria will have her own money bag with change so she doesn't have to interrupt Steve's lesson to get the change. The person collecting the first shift (8 to 8:30) will have to be there about 15 minutes before 8 and not take the class. He/she can collect in the coatroom area. Maria and Steve will coordinate the hop money. Maria will try to collect $1 admissions inside the 7-8 class. Money collectors need to ask people if they need a survival lesson and we need to make regular announcements at 8:30 that the lesson is available. Can is going to create for Maria (and future hop coordinators) a "hop kit" with all necessary materials (money bag, signs, flyers, etc.) The next break in classes is 3/14 with a review of WCS basics, then classes run 3/21 through April.
      2. Status on newsletter/mailing; joint workshop postcard. Tania will draft newsletter content and send to Tracie for formatting and review. Kim said the mailing list of over 600 names is up to date. Maria hasn't finished the joint workshop postcard for SSDS and Kallet.
      3. Hanover Square series for 2002. Tania reported that the dates are set with no conflicts and SSDS will be paid $125 per event for publicity, supplying dancers, and teaching a free beginning lesson. We will need eight volunteer instructors. Dates are June 7 & 21, July 5 & 19, Aug 2, 16, & 30, Sept 13, all Fridays from 7 to 10 p.m. Bands not announced yet.
      4. Annual summer picnic is set for Thursday June 27, 5 to 10 p.m. Tania made the reservation for Camp Brockway on 2/27 at a cost of $75. Tania got permission to use the facility late (until 10). Kim will do the games and contests. We need to make sure we serve the food at 6 p.m. Next year we need to make the reservation in January because a lot of dates already were taken this year.
      5. Resolution of April 13 conflict with ISDN. Can, Greg and Tania wrote a letter to the ISDN board, which agreed to look into a conflicts policy. Our own conflicts policy permits conflicts with monthly dances. We were successful in raising the awareness of the ISDN board. SSDS is going to give Ithaca Lindy dancers half price dance coupons for our event on April 13.
      6. Proposal to Ukrainian Home regarding floor refinishing. Carried over.
      7. E-mail to SSDS web site. Can reported that we can set up email accounts at no extra cost to syrswingdance.org and a test address is on the site. He said that instructors or the hop coordinator may want to use this feature.
      8. Shoe vendor at SSDS events. Carried over.
    2. Financial Report - Steve not present, so tabled.
    3. Dance venue list - Tracie will work on dividing list into quadrants to ease volunteer recruiting. We need to fill holes in the master list.
    4. Better quality workshops - Tania will email draft to Tracie and Kim for their review. We may set up a separate web page as a guide to organizing workshops. Tania will have a final draft soon.
    5. Marketing/publicity policy - Can & Tracie.
      1. We agreed to give out pairs of hop admission tickets as door prizes for dances organized by United Singles, USABDA, Bruce Heffron, Lynn's band dances, Chris's Friday country dances, new tango instructor. Greg will crate an envelope with SSDS logo, two tickets, flyer and business card. Tracie and Greg will coordinate which groups get tickets and how many.
      2. Stacey suggested SSDS donate a prize such as lessons (SSDS would pay tuition), T-Shirts, hop tickets to WCNY auction for publicity. Tracie will follow up on cost.
      3. Review of policy of giving hop admission tickets to local instructors for their students. Give-away is intended to attract new dancers to hops, especially beginner dancers. The goal is to encourage people who don't come to the hop to try it out. Can noted as an aside that we also want to level the playing field for non-Thursday students to get an occasional freebie. It is up to the instructors' discretion to hand out the tickets.
      4. Tracie noted that as the marketing coordinator, publicity/marketing efforts should go through her.
      5. Proposal for incentives to encourage people to pre-register for our big events. We usually give a price break to those who register one week ahead. Could have a drawing from pre-registrations for a prize like the weekend package or a private lesson (give winner the choice). We would like to encourage people to pre-register because it makes things easier to plan, we can make up flowcharts and registration sheets in advance. More advanced dancers don't usually pre-register so this incentive may not work. We need to consider costs. May consider this on an event by event basis. Discussion tabled until future meeting for vote.
    6. Progress on upcoming events.
      1. Mario workshops July 12-14, 2002. Maria is planning on 9 ½ hours of lessons on Saturday and Sunday, with five classes on Saturday and three classes on Sunday. Maria based this on the same schedule Mario works in Conn. workshops, but she hasn't heard on the price per hour. Robau originally said fee was $1500 but didn't specify number of hours, and she is waiting to hear back from him. The standard deal is $1500 or half the net profits, whichever is greater, and that will be our offer to Robau. He understands that our expenses are included in the calculation. He will book his own flight. Venue: Polish Home on Park Avenue is possible, Maria will contact. Tracie will follow up on the Hotel Syracuse. Probably won't go with Kallet. K of C is possible, it holds 120-180 people but may not be big enough. Ukrainian Home is still bigger. For hall rental in general we'll pay $500 to $800 with $1000 as a ceiling. Goal is $800. Need to decide venue by April meeting.
      2. Kyle & Sara workshops Sept. 20-22, 2002 (Steve). Tania reviewed their contract, which is not acceptable because it is too one-sided and ambiguous. Tania will coordinate with Steve in terms of negotiating additional terms.
      3. Lindy hop dance and 2 workshops with Skye & Sara April 13, 2002. Greg is in contact with instructors about lesson content. Lynn raised a concern that the dance hall is too small for 60 people at workshops. We need to advertise that we anticipate this event to sell out. We had a very lengthy discussion about the best way to price the workshops, packages, individual lessons and dances. Our expenses are $1000 excluding misc. expenses such as flyers [450 band, 250 instructors, 200 food ($3 per person), 100 hall]. We made calculations using 50 people at the break-even point. Although we took an initial vote on pricing, we determined that Greg would continue to look into the matter and we did not reach a final decision.
      4. Jo Thompson teaching workshop Thursday, Sept. 26 (Maria). Nothing new.
      5. Diane Nardone. Need to set date. (Steve). Carried over.
    7. Proposed events. Possible Lindy and salsa events for 2002. Includes Brian's ideas for community salsa event, ways to grow Lindy community; discussion of Nardone or NYC instructors for Latin workshops. Whether SSDS wants to put resources into Latin. TABLED.
  2. New Business
    1. Coop dance opportunity with OCC. Can is in contact with a student group at OCC that is organizing a dance on April 20 at OCC cafeteria. It is a fundraiser for the students' music club. SSDS will help out with publicity and a survival lesson. The students don't know if they are hiring a band yet.
    2. Other business. None.

Next meeting 7 pm Sunday April 7 at Tracie's house.

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