Minutes of SSDS Meeting April 4, 2004

Present: Tania, Jayant, Mary Ellen, Deborah, Lynn, Sally, Can, Rosalie, Maria, Ann

Minutes by: Tania

1. Old Business
   1. General Report
      1. Weekly dance status report. Nothing new to report.
      2. Publicity. Deborah reported that SSDS events will be on Bruce Heffron's monthly email distribution to his list; our notice still is in the Stars calendar. She coordinated the March mailing of a little fewer than 650 pieces. SSDS has both a bulk mailing permit and a not-for-profit mailing permit. For our next mailing, Deborah will look into copying our permit on each piece so we don't have to use stamps. Some copy centers won't reproduce the permit number, but she will check ahead.
      3. New T-shirts. Deborah modified the SSDS logo to everyone's satisfaction. The shirts are in and ready to print. Cost of 200 shirts is $1263.18, and we still need to pay the artist $200 for her artwork, for total cost of $1463.18. We probably will sell the shirts at $10 each.
   2. Financial Report - According to Greg's report, March had a net loss of $44.14 due to mailer and web-space rental expenses. The hops yielded $220 in income, and the 3/27 Calmix dance yielded $170 in income.
   3. Progress on upcoming events.
      1. Hanover Square 2004. Tania reported that Bill Cooper gave her proposed dates. Organizers did not accept SSDS's suggestion to group the swinging in the square dates into consecutive Fridays. The proposed dates are alternating Fridays beginning on May 21 and ending on September 17. Cooper has taken our input concerning band selection, although the band dates are not yet available. After much discussion, we agreed to do all nine swinging in the square events at $125 per event to achieve consistency in the public's mind (If we did not do some swinging Fridays, members of the public could come expecting a lesson and believe SSDS had dropped the ball) and fundraising. Tania expressed concern at recruiting enough volunteer instructors. We will ask USABDA if they would like to teach at a couple of the events for $100. We will teach the lesson at the first band break and stress to instructors to keep the lesson at 20 minutes.
      2. Summer picnic. June 24 at Arrowhead Lodge Oneida Shores. Tania. No report.
      3. Mario Robau workshops April 30-May 2. Maria reported that she already has registrations for 14-15 weekend passes; cut-off is 4/16. She has received complaints about the allocation of 5 private lesson slots because 15 people applied. We cannot schedule more than five privates due to Mario's hectic teaching schedule. After a lengthy discussion of Maria's process of allocating privates, we agreed that it was fair. Tania asked Maria to direct complaints to her.
         Volunteers: four people (Rosalie and 3 Toronto dancers) will handle all registration duties in exchange for weekend passes; Mary Ellen & John McNeil will do clean-up and set-up, Dave Moran is the gofer, Alice is doing housing, Mary Ellen is doing the dances, Maria is overall coordinator. Free weekend passes to four captains. Maria is giving the dance DJs and dance door volunteers free admission to the dance or $10 off the pass price. Mary Ellen will ask Kim Colasanti to MC the dance contest; Mary Ellen is investigating a demo by local jazz dance class, to which we will give dance admission. Mary Ellen completed the menu book. Water will be available for sale at the downstairs bar so we don't have to pay a bartender.
      4. Nardone-Cordoba-Szekely workshops September 17-19. Steve. No report.
      5. Demo June 11, 2004 for Community General Hospital Foundation. Tania is lining up volunteers. Tania will email organizers to determine size and type of dance floor.
2. New Business
   1. Calmix Dance. Can. Proposed dates 5/22, 9/25 and 11/27 approved. We will add 7/31 and 8/28 dates because Maria will coordinate those dances. Can will check the Ballybay calendar for the new dates.
   2. New Board Members. Tania was pleased to announce that Deborah Smith and Mary Ellen Dunlap agreed to join the SSDS Board. We will change the corporate bylaws to permit no fewer than 3 and no more than 6 board members, and we will officially elect Deborah and Mary Ellen at a corporate meeting among Tania, Greg and Can. This will allow a smooth transition until Can decides to rotate off the board due to his increased work commitments.
   3. Other business. We discussed the need to ask all dancers, especially experienced dancers, to dance with new people, especially newcomers, because there is the appearance of a "clique" at the hops. Tania will make an announcement on Thursdays.

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