Minutes of SSDS Meeting
October 6, 2002

Present: Tania, Alice, Mary Ellen, Sally, Stacey, Lynn, Greg, Kim, Mike, Steve, Can, Alysia, Carol, Maria, Andy, Ilona

Minutes by: Tania

General Report –

(1) Weekly dance status report. Things are fine. We are seeing new faces every week. There was a proposal to cancel the dance on Halloween night due to vandalism concerns. After a lengthy discussion we decided to keep the dance as scheduled and Can will put in his weekly calendar notice a reminder that people should be aware of their surroundings when entering and leaving Ballybay and that pranks sometimes happen on Halloween night.

(2) Hanover Square series for 2002. Tania reported that we have been paid in full for our participation. Tania will send a formal thank you letter to event organizer Bill Cooper. Per a discussion at an earlier SSDS meeting, Tania, Maria and Lynn will try to meet with Cooper to discuss ways to improve the event.

(3) Demo on October 12 for Eldercare Foundation. Lynn reported that SSDS has an hour-long slot to perform outside under a tent with a portable dance floor. Lynn will put out an email to the list inviting people to participate. Lynn will contact Tracie to get SSDS weekly dance flyers to distribute at demo. Lynn’s students and dancers with experience working with elders will participate.

(4) CRC grant applications. Tania reported that the first grant deadline is October 9, and she won’t be able to meet it. Our applications for this project grant have not been successful for the last few cycles. Tania suggested, and we agreed, to concentrate on the administrative grant, where we have had better success and which yields unrestricted funds.

Financial Report – Steve & Greg reported that they are still working on their spread sheet but produced reports for July, August, September and year-to-date (attached) Year to date we have net income of $8,245.

(1) Workshop documents. Tania circulated the final draft of this document, which is divided into two parts. The first part is an overview of SSDS policies and practices regarding workshop planning and execution. The second part is a more "nuts and bolts" list of roles and responsibilities generally necessary to organize a successful event. Tania said that this is a "living" document that will be edited from time to time as we gain more experience. Tania thanked the committee (Kim, Greg, Maria & Steve) for its work on this document. The document was adopted with the understanding that at our November meeting people can bring up any suggested corrections.

(2) Dance venues. No one has heard anything new regarding the sale of the Ukrainian Home building. Ballybay is still comfortable for our weekly dances.

(3) Workshop review classes. No report.

Marketing Report. Kim noted that we need to put together a mailing in October to publicize the Halloween dance and Diane Nardone weekend. Kim will coordinate this with Tracie this week. The third mailer piece will be a save the date flyer for our holiday and NYE dances.

(1) Diane Nardone Nov. 15-17. Kim reported that the Ukrainian Home is booked ($250). Alysia is helping Kim with the event schedule. She is planning demos by her and Steve’s class, Maria’s group, Marisa Guzman and has one or two other openings. Kim needs volunteers for registration, clean-up and refreshments and will send out a solicitation email. We are paying Nardone $125 per hour for seven hours of workshops. Nardone has openings for seven privates, most of which are taken. Nardone’s hotel is booked and she is driving up ($150 budgeted). Steve is helping with set-up.

(2) Halloween Dance October 26. Can reported that two bands (Stroke and Seaway Swing) will use the same PA system. Each band will play alternating 45-minute sets with breaks of 15-30-15 minutes. Over the breaks will be one demo, costume contest and probably no dance contests. Mary Ellen is in charge of refreshments and door duty and will send out an email asking for volunteers. Door duty volunteers get half off the dance admission of $10. The Friday night before the dance is a decorating party, dance and rehearsal for the demo group. We approved Steve’s proposal to supply pizza for the party. Can will send out publicity emails and make announcements at hops.

(3) Holiday party Dec. 19. The Knights of Columbus on Taft Road is booked. Greg still needs to send the deposit check. Can will email Cindy to make sure we still have the date. We will get volunteer captains at the November meeting.

(4) New Years Eve party. Ilona reported that Ballybay is reserved. She will increase the number of vegetarian dishes from last year and get ideas for recipes from Mary Ellen and Greg to pass along to Paul at Ballybay. We will co-op again with USABDA. Ilona will do a preliminary flyer for the event. We will try to keep things the same as last year, i.e., 9 to 1:30 a.m., music mix. Other scheduled NYE dances in the area are at the Kallet in Oneida, Cynthia Harkness, possibly Bruce Heffron. Volunteer DJs don’t have to pay admission. Maria volunteered to DJ a shift. Last year we had 78 people, we proposed a cap of 80 people. We will review last year’s minutes to confirm the cap and other concerns.

We discussed a possible price increase so it’s $20 pre-registered and $25 at the door. Can said that we should add value – like more dancing time – if we increase the price. Pricing is difficult because we don’t know our costs yet. Maria volunteered to handle registration (advance sales). We will need to keep updates on the web as tickets sell out. Pre-registration cut-off will be December 20. Ilona will check with Paul at Ballybay about decorations. At the door we will alternate SSDS and USABDA greeters, who will get $5 off the ticket price for a half hour shift. Mary Ellen will schedule door duty volunteers.

Review of "lessons learned" from July 2002 Robau workshops. (deferred from August meeting). Maria reviewed points she and Mary Ellen compiled (see attached). The major problem is setting up registration tables to avoid bottlenecks. We discussed ways to reconfigure the tables in the Ukrainian Home without taking away too much dance space. We need more volunteers to help with registration. Apparently the Ukrainian Home knew the a/c wasn’t working correctly, but we rent the hall for its a/c as well as the space. Can will investigate renting portable a/c units.

Sally asked why the video notebooks still were not out and was worried that people would be upset about the delay. Maria said that she received three email inquiries. 30 notebooks were ordered and 15 are done to date. Maria had problems with production and keeping costs reasonable and ended up making the tapes on her home VCR. She said she took on this project not knowing how much work it would be and recommends that we hire a professional in the future or not do it.

Proposal for monthly Saturday DJ’d dances. Based on the success of our Saturday night DJ’d WCS dance on Sept. 21, we considered having similar events on a regular basis. We discussed two issues at length and agreed to continue the discussion at the November meeting.

(1) Frequency. Can suggested having a dance in months where SSDS does not have another major event (like the Halloween or NYE dances). Maria said we should schedule it every month so that people can rely on it. The first Saturday of the month has two conflicts (Guzman and Donna). The second Saturday conflicts with Jackie’s dances in Buffalo; the third weekend is USABDA’s dances (on Sundays). The fourth Sunday may work.

We decided that if we schedule dances four months in advance around the SSDS schedule or pre-existing events, we can give people enough notice and avoid conflicts. Mary Ellen and a volunteer to be determined will schedule dances in January, February, March and April.

(2) Content. We did not reach a consensus on this topic. One proposal would be California mix, which is 2-3 WCS and then throw something else in per DJ discretion. Tania suggested following the weekly dance music mix, but this idea was rejected because the Saturday dance would turn into just another hop and attendance would decline. Can said the weekly dance is our flagship with the Lindy/WCS mix and the monthly dance is something above that to support the WCS aspect of the community. Some people believe the 9/21 dance was successful (75 to 80 people) because it was WCS heavy and advertised primarily as a WCS dance with other things thrown in. Alice and others pointed out that it is frustrating for Lindy dancers who support the event if no Lindy is played at all. She said she doesn’t expect to hear as much Lindy as she would at a weekly dance or Lindy event, but that the DJ should acknowledge if Lindy dancers are present, perhaps by playing one Lindy for every 4-5 songs. We considered starting at 8 p.m. and having country dancing for the first hour and/or scheduling music by time slot. Maria suggested including jack and jill or strictly swing contests, but Can said he would oppose that as cutting down on the dance time.

At the November meeting, we will continue this discussion about content and focus on what is the purpose of the monthly dance, who are we trying to serve, and how can we strive not to alienate any aspect of our dance community.

Other business. None.

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