Gale wrote: > Dance venue in transition Qs?
> Just curious as to longevity of dance series. > How do you handle organizer burnout? > I know an organizer who has been at it for 12 years and wishes to turn > the series > over to a new 'generation'. > How do you generate support and bring new people in to the organization > of dances? > (dancers scatter when there is mention of organizing!) > There is a small loyal group of dancers. The problem is no one wishes to > take up the duties of organizer. This is compounded by the fact that the > main organizer needs to > be a resident of the town where the dance is held. (I do what I can. I > organized a dance and found it was not my calling. esp. as the sole > organizer, dancers want to dance not organize!) Reframe. You're not looking for an individual to whom the organizer can hand the robe and sceptre; you're looking to (a) get a certain minimum set of duties done and (b) develop a broader sense of ownership of the dance so that people feel motivated to help get the duties done (and possibly expand the stuff that gets done). One of those duties is to be the resident interface to the town, but that person probably doesn't actually have to be the person who books the staff, sweeps the floor, and bakes the cookies (if any). People are wary of open-ended commitments, so "could you be the organizer of a dance series" is a scary question. "Could you bring refreshments in even-numbered months?" is a much less scary kind of question. I'd suggest that you announce at a dance (maybe two dances) that at date X in the future, so-and-so plans to retire from running the dance, and that at (well-defined date and location well before that time) there'll be a meeting for those interested in having the dance continue to discuss what to do about it. You do need somebody to host that meeting and somebody to facilitate/lead it and it would be helpful if the organizer could, beforehand, make a list of the stuff that he or she does for the series. If there's nobody willing to even come to a meeting, then the dance series doesn't have enough dancer commitment to function, and it'll have to die when the organizer retires. If you get some people, you can start discussing what needs to happen and who can do it, and possibly extract commitments either to do those things or to recruit people to do those things. If nobody's willing to make even the commitments necessary to keep the dance functioning, then it has to shut down. Maybe they'll miss it enough when it's gone to start it up again. I don't have an answer if you've got enough volunteers to keep it going and nobody fulfills the residency requirement, except to ask the current organizer to keep functioning in the reduced-obligation role of resident interface to the town. -- Alan -- =============================================================================== Alan Winston --- [email protected] Disclaimer: I speak only for myself, not SLAC or SSRL Phone: 650/926-3056 Paper mail to: SSRL -- SLAC BIN 99, 2575 Sand Hill Rd, Menlo Park CA 94025 ===============================================================================
