Minutes of SSDS Meeting July 18, 2004

Present: Deborah, Cathy Osinski, Steve, Mary Ellen, Tania, Mike, Alice, Greg, Dan

Minutes by: Tania

  1. Old Business
    1. General Report
      1. Weekly dance status report.
        1. We discussed whether to go to the honor system to collect admissions or maintain the current system of having four door-duty volunteers. We opted to keep the current system not only to make sure that people are paying but mostly to maintain a welcoming face at the door and a presence to alert newcomers to the free lesson and to keep an accurate attendance and student count.
        2. There have been comments from some dancers that we don’t play much traditional “swing” music. We will try to be aware of this and attentive to the audience. Steve needs to finish the annotations to our Lindy music collection. Tania asked Lindy dancers to make specific suggestions to the DJ on shift.
      2. Publicity. Deborah continues to monitor our weekly ads in the New Times and Stars magazines. We now have a postal meter number, and Deborah bought a rubber stamp to allow us to print it on our mailers. The summer mailer will consist of flyers for the Holiday dance, Halloween dance, CalMix dances and September workshop weekend. Deborah will coordinate the mailing so that it is put together by the first week in August. Deborah will check the T-shirt supply at BallyBay and restock if necessary.
      3. Review of summer picnic. We agreed to keep the Oneida Shores venue and may consider using it for other events. The event had a net loss of $177.11 (income of 145, expenses of 147.11 for food and 175 for hall rental). About 56 people attended, down from 75 in 2003 and 85 in 2002. Lower attendance may be because the picnic was a week earlier than usual. Tania will book the hall for July 2005.
      4. June 11 demo for Community General Hospital Foundation. Tania thanked the performers/volunteers for their efforts. We received a $100 donation and good exposure. The event organizers were happy with our work.
      5. Status of sale of old stereo components. Can reported in absentia that the components are not sold yet. We will keep them on consignment because they haven’t been there very long.
    2. Greg still is assembling data for his financial report because he has been out of town. Generally, we are doing better this summer at the hops than in past years and taking in about $400 per month income not counting income from other sources such as Hanover Square fees.
    3. Progress on upcoming events.
      1. Hanover Square 2004. Tania is having trouble getting volunteer instructors. USABDA never responded to our invitation to teach. The crowd seems to be changing, with fewer swing dancers. There are four dates open, Tania will teach two, Dan Herman agreed to teach one, and we will forego teaching the last one if there is no volunteer. We will not teach at Hanover Square in 2005 despite the income because it is not worth burning out our instructor volunteers. We will just publicize the event and hand out our flyers.
      2. Nardone-Cordoba-Szekely workshops September 17-19. Steve supplied a draft flyer and a rough budget, both of which we discussed and edited on consensus. Venue is Ukrainian Home. Cathy is the registration captain; Mary Ellen is the refreshments captain. Steve is not sure who will handle housing. Captains will get free passes to the weekend, people working a registration shift get $10 off (one free workshop), and dance door volunteers get free admission to the dance.
      3. Calmix dances. Maria is organizing dance on 8/28; she and Chris Egan will DJ. Other confirmed dates are 9/25 and 11/27.
      4. Halloween Dance October 30. Steve booked the Ukrainian Home for $275-$300. We will try for a decorating party the Friday or Thursday before. We will alternate band sets and DJ sets as we did in 2003. Admission will be $10, with a $2 discount to students.
      5. Holiday dance 12/16. Knights of Columbus hall (E. Taft Road) booked.
  2. New Business
    1. Creative solutions to poor teaching space at Ballybay for the survival lesson. We agreed that the current practice of teaching the survival lesson in the hallway with traffic and poor light sends a bad message to our newcomers. We discussed these options: 1. turn the music down and teach lesson (currently at 9 or later) in the corner near the counter of flyers. 2. teach the lesson in the main space between 8 and 8:20. There was a concern that we would lose people in the transition from more advanced lessons to a delayed-start dance. 3. teach the lesson at 8 with the hop ongoing near the flyers. 4. teach the lesson at 8:30 as advertised in the main room by the flyers with the music turned down. The final proposal was adopted. The DJ needs to be sure to play slower ECS songs after the lesson so beginners can practice.
    2. Accounting for volunteer hours for workshop weekends. Greg proposed, and we adopted, the following policy, which is really a reiteration of our existing policy. Captains receive a free pass, registration volunteers get a free workshop, dance door duty volunteers get free admission to the dance. When we do the accounting, we expense $1,000 (100 hours) for the captains and administrative and organizing costs. Example: 4 captains with free weekend passes is 4 x $80 or $320, leaving $680 as the cost of administrative and organizing hours because the sum is $1,000. If an event has 6 to 8 captains, then we will need to rethink the basic assumption of 100 hours of volunteer time and assume more than 100 hours so that our administrative costs are recognized.

Next Monthly Meeting: September 12 at Mary Ellen’s house.

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