Minutes of SSDS Meeting
December 2, 2001

Taken by: Tania

Present: Alice, Can, Mary Ellen, Andy, Ilona, Candy, Mike, Greg, Lynn, Sally, Steve (Olin), Tanna, Maria, Cynthia, Tracie, Tania

1. Old Business

General Report -- Nothing unusual to report. End of year bills such as insurance, licensing will be coming up soon.

Financial Report -- Steve Ryan was absent so we did not get a full financial report. Tracie reported on his behalf that hop revenue was down in November compared to October. November gross revenue (rent payments have not been subtracted yet) for hops was $69, $72 and $46.

Holiday party -- The committee is Tania, Alice & Cynthia. Cynthia confirmed that we are booked at the Knights of Columbus on Taft Road, North Syracuse for December 20. Rent is $175, which includes bartender. Hall is already decorated. Set-up 6 p.m., dinner 7 p.m., dancing until 10:30 p.m. Admission $5 or dish to pass. Last year we had 70 people and spent $105 on turkey & ham. Flyers are done, and we will do regular announcements at hops and via email.

New Year's Eve party -- The committee is Andy, Ilona, Greg, Tanna, Steve. Ballybay is booked and our cost for food and rent will be $12.50 per person. Second floor space is not feasible for dancing. Ilona is leaving menu details up to Johnston but stressed to him the need for vegetarian dishes; dinner will be served buffet style with turkey & ham but no omelets. Party hours are 9 to 2 and admission is $17.50 until Dec. 20 then $20. Hope to sell many tickets at (or before) Holiday Party on the 20th. Ilona set the capacity at 90 people and is confident we will have a majority of people buy pre-sale tickets and sell out. Ilona said Ballybay doesn't need much advance notice on a head count. She has spent $25 on flyer copies so far and plans to spend another $45 or so on party favors and additional copies. Greg is making additional copies of flyers (about 100) and ensuring that we have 75 flyers at the Holiday Dance. Ilona will send about 50 flyers to Guzman's studio. Tania will loan Ilona NYE decorations from past SSDS parties. Ballybay will take care of set up and clean up; Andy & Ilona will be there to supervise set-up and to decorate. We will use SSDS sound system. Bar will be open even for people outside our party.
Ilona distributed flyers to USABDA dancers, but they have no more events before NYE. Ilona & Can will push pre-sale tickets via our email lists, announcements at hops and Holiday Party on the 20th. We decided that we will need four volunteers to work half-hour shifts at the door to check admissions, sell any leftover tickets. Each volunteer will get $5 off his/her ticket price.
We discussed the music mix. Volunteer DJs are Steve, Andy & Can, and they will meet to work out details. Andy will make a ballroom playlist for Can & Steve. We made a general decision on the music mix to capitalize on musical overlap (hustle, cha, salsa/mambo, ECS, WCS) and to play music that lends itself to multiple dances. Greg suggested that we stay middle of the road on music in order to maximize dancing by everyone. Ilona agreed and said we would play fewer waltzes & rumbas than at typical USABDA dance. We will honor requests. Maria suggested a mix structure such as smooth-swing-rhythm-swing, but we agreed to use the middle-of-the-road/overlap strategy over any particular formula.
Ilona said she would like to have a 50/50 raffle and we agreed as long as it does not cut into dance time and is done for fun rather than fundraising. Ilona will get nice prizes like champagne. The gifts will be at the door on display and people will buy tickets at the door only.

Excess shirt inventory -- Tracie reported that she has packaged all of our shirt inventory. Partial inventory is 2 XL old design tees, 33 old design tanks, mostly size large; 28 new design tees, 72 new design tanks. Tracie plans a spring/summer promotion for the tanks. She noted that tanks obviously don't sell as well and we need to order more tees, possibly crop shirts for "petite" people, cap sleeves for women. We will not order more shirts until we make an effort to actually market existing stock.
Tracie will bring sampler of shirts to hops & dance events, including a sign to advertise them. Maria and Mary Ellen also are willing to bring shirts to sell at some regional dance events. Tracie noted that there are new people at hops who may be interested in buying the shirts. Can or Tracie will put the shirt designs on the web page for advertising. Tracie may send out a marketing email to the list. We will keep the price of shirts at $8 old design, $10 new design. The spring sale effort may include cutting the price but we'll decide in the next couple of months.

Mixer dances at hops -- Maria reported that at a regional event they did a dance card mixer. People get cards and have to fill in five to ten names of different people with whom they have danced, then turn in the card for a prize drawing. We agreed to try this game at the Holiday Party and to have prizes worth $8-10 for the drawing (how about large SSDS tank tops?). Maria will contact Kim McLaughlin for the contest golf pencils she bought for SSDS.
We agreed to keep doing snowball and birthday dances at the hops once a month. We will try to do the snowball dance at every hop, but it has to be early in the evening for maximum effect.

2. New Business

Dance venue list -- We discussed ways to flesh out the master list of dance venues that Tracie created and agreed to divide the list into eight to ten neighborhoods. Then eight to ten volunteers will take an assigned neighborhood and fill in the blanks for the venues on their lists. Tracie agreed to divide the list geographically. Once the list is redesigned we will make announcements at hops and via email to solicit volunteers.

Progress on upcoming events.

1. Mario Robau workshops July 12-14, 2002. Maria reported that things are fine, she is still looking for an adequate venue with a good wood floor and that can accommodate 300 people for the Saturday night dance. Save the date flyers are out. We discussed whether using the Kallet in Oneida, which is available, is feasible and decided to explore the idea. Maria agreed to talk to the Kallet about rental price (and to possibly avoid the 50/50 profit sharing rent method), how late we can use the space, and what blocks of hotel rooms in the area are available. The Kallet normally wants a 50/50 profit sharing split which would cut into revenue but has the advantage of the Kallet doing door, refreshments and clean-up. If we use the Kallet, then we would change the workshop schedule to have workshops late in the day and the dance immediately after so that we don't lose people. We also would need a hotel package in the Oneida area.
   Other possible venues would be a school gym, but acoustics are poor. Tracie will check on a deal with the Hotel Syracuse for dance space and room rates. Tracie also will check on the Holiday Inn on Seventh North Street in Liverpool and the Ramada Inn in Liverpool. On each of the latter two venues we need to make sure the dance floor is large enough. Cynthia will check on the available dance floor at the Quality Inn in Liverpool.
2. Kyle & Sara workshops. Tracie reported that Steve Ryan e-mailed the instructors the verified dates of Sept. 20-22, 2002 but he has not heard back from them. The following weekend is Jo Thompson in Oneida where, according to Maria, Jo Thompson will teach line dance and night club two-step. We agreed that the Thompson event will not likely have a large impact on the Kyle & Sara workshop, which will teach only WCS.
3. Lindy hop dance with live band in spring 2002. Steve & Tanna have contacted the band Seaway Swing, and they are available most dates in mid-March through April. Greg has written to Skye & Sara but has not heard back. The instructors' availability will drive the event date. After much discussion, we agreed to organize a one-day effort of Lindy workshops with a band dance to follow. From this event, we will see if we have enough support in the Lindy community for a larger event. We will try to use the Ukrainian Home venue. Tanna suggested that we schedule the dance and workshops close together so that the band is setting up during the last lesson and we don't lose people. She suggested that SSDS buy pizza to help keep people there. If Skye & Sara are not available, we will try other instructors such as Esther & Rich in Rochester. Lynn & Greg will work together to contact and schedule instructors. Lynn noted that he has seen a Lindy group based in Montreal which would be great for a Lindy weekend of workshops and DJ dances. The Montreal instructors' fee is $1,000 for the whole weekend (plus expenses). Lynn noted that we might be able to draw from the region with a new teacher because there is a drought of Lindy teachers. Greg expressed uncertainty whether the Lindy community is able to support an entire workshop/dance weekend.
4. Jo Thompson teaching workshop Thursday, Sept. 26. Maria summarized our prior decision to bring Thompson in at a cost of 1/5 her air fare, one night's lodging, and her usual workshop fee. We have not made a firm commitment yet because we don't know Thompson's fee, and Maria will inquire. Most likely Thompson will be available for private lessons in Syracuse that Friday; she charges $70 per hour.
5. Diane Nardone. We would like to schedule another hustle workshop in 2002 and will need to fit it into our existing workshop schedule. Spring may be the best time. We will pick a date at our next meeting.

Better quality workshops -- Tania working on checklist/general plan.

Other Business

1. We may want to look into the cost and feasibility of building a portable dance floor for SSDS events.
2. Tracie and Lynn will teach Thursday workshops to fill in gaps in Steve & Kim's teaching schedule. Lynn will teach on Dec. 27 and pay SSDS rent for using the space from 6 to 8 p.m. Tracie still was finalizing her plans to teach with Maria and/or Steve. Per prior policy decision, SSDS offers available Thursday teaching space to local instructors who also contribute to SSDS in exchange for the hourly rent that SSDS pays.

Next meeting: Sunday January 6 at 7 p.m. at Can's house.

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