Present: Tania, Steve, Greg, Andy, Ilona, Lynn, Sally, Stacey, Maria, Dave
Minutes by: Tania
1. Old Business
General Report –
(1) Weekly dance status report. Everything is status quo. Greg stated that almost all of the Lindy music we have been playing is too fast and is really jitterbug music. He noted that Lindy is being done more and more often to slower music and recommended a BPM of 130 to 150. Lynn concurred in this recommendation. Greg said 160 BPM is too hard to Lindy to.
(2) Review of Nardone weekend, including possibility of review classes. In the absence of event organizer Kim, Tania noted that the weekend generally went well and there were no major problems. Tania said that she has spoken to Kim about the need to schedule review classes. Net income for the weekend was $1532.56. Ilona said that Vatan Koc scheduled an Argentine Tango workshop for the same weekend, which affected 4 to 5 people who missed our hustle weekend. Vatan scheduled his workshop after SSDS had established and publicized the Nardone dates, so the conflict was out of SSDS’s control.
(3) Revised email traffic policy. Deferred due to Can’s absence.
Financial Report – Steve & Greg distributed a report for November 2002. Income from November hops was $376, plus the Nardone income brought the month’s net income to $1,900. We discussed spending some of SSDS’s accumulated cash on necessary items, particularly CDs. Greg will work on buying more Lindy CDs, and we decided to duplicate Can’s private collection so that we don’t have to rely on that. We spend a pathetically low amount ($88) on CDs.
We also approved buying a new storage cabinet because the current one is in such bad shape. Greg will check SU’s surplus warehouse. We need to ask Ballybay’s permission before making a change because a new cabinet will take up more space.
Greg will have a full 2002 report at the next meeting.
Committee Reports
(1) Dance venues. No report from Maria but Ilona noted that a new dance venue, Moonlight Ballroom, has opened on Erie Boulevard near Midler Avenue. The owner is Nino Moricone. We agreed that we should check out the dance space and rates before considering whether it would be feasible to move any SSDS events to the location.
(2) Workshop review classes. Deferred due to Tracie’s absence.
Marketing Report. Update on postal permit, etc. deferred due to Tracie’s absence.
Progress on upcoming events.
(1) Holiday party Dec. 19. (Tania, Alice and Sally). Tania will be in touch with her volunteers about the food/set-up. Maria is handling the contest and prizes. Tania needs a list of volunteers from all organizers for events in 2002 so we can publicize it and thank our volunteers.
(2) New Years Eve party. Illona reported that 15 advance tickets were sold as of 12/5. She said that level of sales is good and last year most tickets were sold in the last week and last few days. The menu is set. Illona will check with owner Paul about whether he is decorating the hall. The only expense she has so far is $10 for flyer paper, and Tracie has a receipt for copying. Ilona said she is willing to work most of the door, but she will get a few volunteers to relieve her. Tania, Dave and Greg offered to help with door duty. Greg asked Ilona to ask Paul to leave the food out until about 10 p.m. instead of taking it away after only an hour.
(3) Winterfest dances February 14 and 21. The band is Street Corner (ECS) on the 14th and Stroke (WCS) on the 21st. Cost is $5 and venue is Hotel Syracuse. Tania noted that we will need two volunteer teachers, for a ECS and WCS survival lesson. In response to Stacey’s question about flipping the bands, Tania said that the dance/music genres were chosen to fit with Winterfest’s other events, particularly Saturday events, and we can’t switch. Tania will keep working with the event organizers on setting up the space so that the dance floor will be available to dancers and not band-watchers or drinkers. Possible solutions could be getting identified security volunteers to ask watchers to keep off the dance floor, roping off the dance floor to restrict access. Tania will ask for volunteers to help her with set-up. Tania didn’t know what was planned for the band breaks other than our survival lesson. This is not an SSDS event, so our control is limited.
Proposal for monthly Saturday DJ’d dances. Dances are scheduled for January 25, March 29 and April 26. Can has tried to confirm the Ballybay reservation. Although our last discussion of the music mix at a meeting came to no resolution, in a subsequent email exchange we reached a consensus on the issue. Tania confirmed with the group that we agreed to play primarily WCS but play a Lindy every 4 or 5 songs to accommodate those dancers. Greg noted that there is a huge crossover between WCS and Lindy as Lindy slows down. We also had discussed having a country hour at the beginning of the evening to serve that community. Maria had suggested having a lesson with regional instructors, but that may conflict with the country hour. After discussing possible schedules in an attempt to minimize conflict and serve both goals (country hour and lesson), we proposed having the country hour from 7 to 8, lesson from 8 to 9, and dance from 9 until midnight or 11 p.m. This event will have to be a work in progress to see how it goes. Steve will ask Cindy Overstreet if she can teach January 25. We have not yet set a fee structure for paying the teacher, if any, or charging admission.
There is some possibility that we could have monthly dances at the new Moonlight Ballroom, but we have no information on availability, cost, or size of the venue (it may be too large). Ballybay costs only $100, and we don’t want to have to move our sound system.
2. New Business
Transition during Steve’s leave of absence. Tania reported that the board had discussed allocation of Steve’s regular volunteer duties during his 6 to 8 month leave of absence starting after the new year. Tania will help Can with DJ duties at the weekly dances, and they will ask other volunteers such as Maria and Mary Ellen to help out. Kim has a lesson schedule for the 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday slot and will advise the board of any gaps so that the board can offer the time to area instructors who contribute to SSDS. Any teacher in the 6 to 8 p.m. slot is responsible for setting up the sound system for the dance. Tania talked to Kim about this, and she agreed to do it. Steve will give Kim his key to our storage cabinet and show Kim how to set up the system. Carol MacLean agreed to manage the SSDS telephone line at Steve’s house by changing the outgoing message with information on current events, taking messages off the line, and sending out requested information. The SSDS line is commingled on Steve’s phone bill. Greg said SSDS will pay Carol a set amount each month to cover the cost of the line.
We decided to throw a going-away dance for Steve at Ballybay on Friday December 27 from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. Admission will be free. Andy & Ilona will reserve the hall. Tania will work on other details for the dance.
Calendar of events for 2003. Tania asked people to think about our schedule for SSDS workshop and dance events and to propose specific dates/months at the next meeting. The only set event is Mario Robau workshops on July 11-13. We would like to have Nardone back and must consider whether our community could support having her teach two workshop weekends in 2003. Steve and others said they would like to see a second WCS workshop, and we would like to have a Lindy event as well.
Other business
(1) Greg requested that we teach a survival two-step lesson at a weekly dance because we are playing two-step music fairly frequently. Maria agreed to teach it on December 26 between 8:30 and 8:45 p.m. She really needs to keep the lesson to 15 minutes so it won’t interfere with dancing. We will try this and get feedback. If people like the lesson-in-the-dance format, we can use it to teach something once a month or so.
(2) Maria said she is still working on the financial report for the Mario video notebooks.
Next Business Meeting: Sunday January 5 at 7 p.m. at Tania’s house.