[Organizers] Re: Dance Policy Decisions (e.g.: roles) Was: Attracting young dancers

[Winston, Alan P. via Organizers]

TBF, the couple of dances who book me and are caller's choice on role names ask 
me to make the choice in advance and announce it on the calendar, which I think 
fulfills the requirement.

For the contra I'm an organizer for - Palo Alto - our default since our return 
from the pandemic  is larks and robins but we say "yes" if callers say they 
want to do positional and we don't usually announce *that*.  If no role name is 
used I don't think we have to announce what role name we're not using.

-- Alan


From: Don Veino via Organizers 
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2023 12:25 PM
To: Lisa Marie Lunt
Cc: organizers shared weight
Subject: [Organizers] Re: Dance Policy Decisions (e.g.: roles) Was: Attracting 
young dancers

Thanks for the support, Lisa. Of course, I'm just one opinion on this subject, 
but it comes from experience on both sides. My primary concern is actually for 
the dancers - I'll quote a bit I wrote to an off-list reply:

My point is: being unclear about what dancers should expect on such a 
contentious issue, before they arrive at the dance, will ensure that somebody 
is surprised/ disappointed/ angry when the decision is made "on the fly" - I've 
seen dancers storm off the floor in such situations. It's unfair to stick the 
caller in such a charged situation from the start. But more importantly, it's 
unfair to the dancers who may be traveling a distance for anticipated fun. And, 
ultimately, the organizers end up having to deal with resultant issues anyway - 
in my opinion it's better to just address it up front.

-Don


On Mon, Oct 30, 2023 at 12:30 AM Lisa Marie Lunt 
mailto:lisal...@gmail.com>> wrote:
I think it's important to listen to what Don Veino just wrote. Don is both a 
caller and organizer. It's not fair to put the responsibility for choosing role 
names on the callers. It's the organizers' responsibility to make decisions 
about our dances.

Lisa Lunt
She/her
Jamaica Plain (Boston) Gender Free Contra Dance

On Sun, Oct 29, 2023, 4:17 PM Don Veino via Organizers 
mailto:organizers@lists.sharedweight.net>> 
wrote:
As a caller and organizer, this is a hot button topic for me.

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[Organizers] Re: administrative question

[Winston, Alan P. via Organizers]

The Bay Area Country Dance Society is a San Francisco Bay Area nonprofit which 
has a board and officers (each with a 1-year term and subject to reelection 
every year) that sponsors multiple ECD and contra series and dance weeks and 
weekends and performance teams (morris and "American Dance").

While some board members are organizers of other events, others are interested 
community members who don't run events.  No board member - in their capacity as 
a board member - serves on an event committee.  The board underwrites events 
and pays losses, sets pay policies, pays rent for the website, pays a 
bookkeeper to handle all the 1099s.  The dance and camp committees run the 
dances and camps but have to get budgets approved, submit final reports, etc.

The Board has to approve volunteers to be in charge of events, annually, and 
appoints series programmers who then make booking decisions (within the 
financial limits the board has set, or getting permission to go outside them).  
So the same person can be in charge of a camp every year but they have to get 
reapproved every time.

Other than that, there are no term limits.  On the Board, it's a complicated 
enough organization that it takes a new member about a year to get hold of all 
the stuff we do, learn enough about how events run to understand budgets, etc.

(I've been the chair for a *long* time.  I once tried to promote bylaws changes 
to at least keep the whole board from dissolving every year - really, all the 
officer terms and the board member terms expire every May, so if we don't hold 
an election we'd technically have nobody in those positions,k and the people 
who can vote in those elections are the current board, so there'd be nobody 
able to vote, which is dumb.  Tried to set up three year terms with staggered 
starts so that no more than a third of the board wold turn over.  The idea went 
nowhere.  Even if someone committed to a three-year term they might still 
resign after one.)

In practice, what we've been finding is that it's hard enough to get people 
willing to be Board members, attend most of the meetings, red email enough to 
be up on issues, that it seems self-defeating to demand that the people willing 
to keep doing it stop doing it.

It's not ideal.  We did have one person we would have liked to have on the 
Board who said she wouldn't do it unless we instituted term limits - but we 
couldn't see enough benefit and could see too much risk.

-- Alan


From: Peggy Hesley via Organizers 
Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2023 3:53 PM
To: organizers@lists.sharedweight.net
Subject: [Organizers] administrative question

Hello! I’ve finally found the opportunity to join this group, and I’d like to 
ask a question. Do any of your contra boards have term limits, and or required 
rotation of officers?

Thanks, Peg
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[Organizers] Re: Is it time to end COVID restrictions at most contra dances?

[Winston, Alan P. via Organizers]

I think the argument about whether masks protect only the wearer or other 
people is kind of a red herring (although my opinion is that a well-fitting N95 
or better protects other people and I know my Airgami has enough of a seal that 
if I breath out I can see the mask puff up).  I don't really think a surgical 
mask does much.  If I could only have one intervention (out of the suite of 
vax, test, mask, temperature check) I would definitely pick N95-equivalent mask 
wearing, rigourously enforced.

And I'm generally in full agreement with Perry.

Why I'm bothering to write is that there's meat to Joe's initial question about 
whether protective measures discourage dancers (and especially young dancers) 
from showing up and whether there's an impact both in short term attendance and 
long term viability of the dance form as a result of requiring protective 
measures.

In my organization our COVID policy is informed by epidemiological advice, and 
we know that no protections are 100%, but our goal is to have no preventable 
transmission of COVID at our dances, so we require vaccination and booster (and 
will require a bivalent booster as of February 1), AND mask wearing (KF94, 
KN95, N95, or equivalent tech mask at CDC yellow and red levels, down to 
well-fitting cloth masks at green levels), AND a little questionnaire that you 
have to fill out about whether you have symptoms, have tested positive, had 
anyone else in your household test positive AND at higher levels you have to 
step outside to take a drink of water or eat a snack AND at CDC Red level you 
have to get a negative test within six hours of the start of the dance (and 
show us a photo on your phone).  It's a lot, it's a burden on the volunteers 
who run the different dance series, attendance at our contra dances is notably 
down since before the pandemic shutdown.  More of our English dances tha
 n our contras have come back and they're mostly doing just about as well as 
they did before - they were always smaller, but attendance hasn't dropped as 
much.  We do get some new dancers at each series.

There's staff we'd love to hire because they're unvaccinated (and because this 
is for the safety of all it doesn't matter whether they have a doctor's note 
about why they're unvaccinated; we're not punishing anti-vaxxers), we have at 
least one formerly very reliable volunteer who can't come because unvaccinated. 

We think we have the right goal - no preventable transmission at our events - 
and a set of actions that seem to be achieving it, so we're staying the course 
with that.

We think the close contact and heavy breathing of contra dancing (especially) 
makes it a higher risk activity than most and merits more precautions, so we 
have continued with our requirements as our counties have dropped mask mandates.

But it really does come at a cost.  There are people who can't dance in masks 
and they don't dance with us any more.  The Bay Area contra community has 
fragmented more and a couple of dance series have started that operate on 
different rules - negative test, mask if you wanna, don't come if you feel 
sick.  (And at least one of those something like a third of the attendees 
tested positive in the following week, I'm told..). But I'm glad these other 
series exist, so that people can choose their personal risk levels, and so that 
people who can't dance under our rules have an outlet to dance with people who 
are willing to accept that risk.

So: Whatever set of precautions you choose (including the empty set) you will 
exclude someone.  There are people who won't dance if they have to mask; there 
are people who won't dance if unmasked people are dancing.  Etc.  This is not 
an issue where people can really meet in the middle.  In the 
pandemic-still-going-on-but-everybody's-tired-of-it era, you'll alienate 
*somebody* no matter what you choose.

None of us *like* to make people unhappy or exclude them, so this is difficult. 
 And I'm afraid it's going to stay difficult for a long time.  Further, the 
"right answer" depend on your goals - and I don't actually think "no 
preventable transmission" is the only valid goal; I wouldn't think that 
somebody who was working on "nobody dies because of a transmission at one of 
our events" was a monster - so there's no right answer and everything will be 
unsatisfactory in some way.

So, to Joe's questions: Yes, they do discourage some people who were showing up 
from showing up.  And they put a fliter on which people are willing to try it 
if they have to wear a mask, and because attendance is smaller and most 
recruitment is word of mouth, there are fewer people recruiting, and in some 
environments insisting on a full suite of precautions could, in the short or 
long term, kill your dance.  It absolutely could.

And you have to decide whether that risk is more or less acceptable to you than 
having as little chance as possible of someone getting COVID at your dance.  
That's it.  Your 

[Organizers] Re: Performer "Testing to Unmask" Policy Timing

[Winston, Alan P. via Organizers]

I think you can add all the BACDS camps and dances in the SF Bay Area to the 
vax(and boosted)+mask = no spread so far list.

(We bump up to also requiring tests within six hours of the start of the dance 
if CDC level is read.)

-- Alsn


From: Julian Blechner via Organizers 
Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2022 7:47 PM
To: Joe Harrington
Cc: A list for dance organizers
Subject: [Organizers] Re: Performer "Testing to Unmask" Policy Timing

Dances with vax+mask policy I know offhand with no reported spreads, despite a 
culture of "please test if you feel ill, please tell us, and we will tell 
dancers":

Greenfield, MA
BIDA, MA
Concord, MA
Downtown Amherst Contra, MA
Rainbow Contra in Western Mass
Pioneer Valley's ECD
Montpelier, VT (I believe?)
Glen Echo, MD
Pinewoods camp weeks that had this policy, at least masking and testing for 3 
days
Albany Contra, NY (I am pretty sure)
Portland, ME's new series

Unsure about CDNY, but I am pretty sure too.

-Julian

On Wed, Dec 21, 2022, 10:17 PM Joe Harrington via Organizers 
mailto:organizers@lists.sharedweight.net>> 
wrote:
I know we all hate them, but some dances are still requiring masks.  Has there 
been documented spread at a dance where everyone is in a (K)N95 or better, like 
a Breeze 99?  How about vax+mask or vax+test+mask?  I think we all know that 
vax+test-mask=spread, from numerous events this past summer and since.

I'd also be interested in a professional opinion on whether our gyrations mean 
anything if we're not also masking full time when we're out and about.  I know 
the theory, dance is more breathing and close up for a long time, but the new 
variants are so infectious that I wonder if that matters.  If you're getting 
10x the infectious dose in the grocery store, protection during a dance 
wouldn't matter much.  It's like locking the doors and leaving all the windows 
open.  But, maybe it's 0.1x the infectious dose at the grocery, and our 
measures do matter.  I'm only interested in data, not speculation.  Does anyone 
have any?

--jh--


On Wed, Dec 21, 2022 at 4:37 PM Heitzso via Organizers 
mailto:organizers@lists.sharedweight.net>> 
wrote:
My wife got covid at Roanoke Railroader last summer and I got it from her.
I researched then (so relevant to variants then, not necessarily current 
variants)
and most transmission occurs 1 to 2 days before testing to 2 to 3 days after 
testing.
I don't know if that is relevant to this discussion because ...
I assume most people test when they start to feel different from normal health 
...
which might explain the "1 to 2 days before testing" transmission
and that's different from a "test regardless of how you feel to dance" testing 
policy.
But, I do not know that. That just happens to be the data.

Turkey Quicky, a mini-weekend, fortunately escaped covid spread though
someone tested positive Saturday morning after dancing Friday night.
(most dancers were unmasked)
A KY weekend dance before TQ had a roughly 20% covid
spread with a recent negative test and a negative test on entry policy.

I'm not saying what policy should or should not be enacted to
prevent the spread of covid. I'm just noting one official statistic
and two recent weekend dances data points.

-Heitzso
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[Organizers] Re: Seeking news on covid infections from dances with vaccination

[Winston, Alan P. via Organizers]

And indeed, in the first post I mentioned this, and the only one where I gave a 
denominator, it was 100k.


From: Woody Lane via Organizers 
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2021 3:14 PM
To: organizers@lists.sharedweight.net
Subject: [Organizers] Re: Seeking news on covid infections from dances with 
vaccination

You probably meant 2.8/100K. Which is actually quite low.

In comparison, here in Douglas County (in western Oregon), the current 
infection rate is 106/100K

Data by county across the U.S.:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html
(I don't know if this page has an account wall.)

Woody

--
Woody Lane
Caller, Percussive Dancer
Roseburg, Oregon


On 8/16/2021 2:34 PM, Lisa Marie Lunt via Organizers wrote:
Alan, how did you come up with the threshold of 2.8/1k?

Lisa Lunt
Pronouns: She/Her

On Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 5:10 PM LAWRENCE KOPLIK via Organizers 
mailto:organizers@lists.sharedweight.net>> 
wrote:
Princeton Country Dancers had dances on July 24 and July 31 and then
canceled the dances we had scheduled for August and September.

We have not heard of anyone who attended those 2 dances coming down with covid.

Thanks,
Larry Koplik
On 08/16/2021 4:43 PM Liz Burkhart via Organizers 
mailto:organizers@lists.sharedweight.net>> 
wrote:


Hi all, with some dances resuming for the summer, I'd like to hear how that's 
been for dance communities. Have groups started and then stopped? Is there any 
news of infections from dance camps or weekends? I know Pinewoods heightened 
their requirements (from just vaccination to also multiple negative tests + 
masking for the first few days of American Week), and then cancelled the rest 
of their camps.

Thanks,
Liz Burkhart (she/her)
Organizer with Lavender Country and Folk Dancers


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[Organizers] Re: Seeking news on covid infections from dances with vaccination

[Winston, Alan P. via Organizers]

In California, the state public health department was putting counties into 
risk tiers by case counts, and the 2.8 was the upper threshold for the lowest 
tier.

(In fact, when we made the rule, case counts were at 1.9, and we set the limit 
at 2, but 2.8 was a little more intellectually defensible.  At the time the 
dance would have happened case counts were at 10.)

[Assortment of difficult questions in how to do that setting - do we care, from 
a risk management perspective,  about case counts in the county if every 
attendee is provably vaccinated?  How much risk are we going to allow attendees 
to assume by attending?  And then Delta upset our applecart.  Our guiding 
principle is that we don't want anyone to die or get sick who wouldn't 
otherwise as a result of our holding a dance, including children or 
immunocompromised people at home, so we're gonna be cautious.]

-- Alan


From: Lisa Marie Lunt via Organizers 
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2021 2:33 PM
To: LAWRENCE KOPLIK
Cc: Liz Burkhart; Liz Burkhart via Organizers
Subject: [Organizers] Re: Seeking news on covid infections from dances with 
vaccination

Alan, how did you come up with the threshold of 2.8/1k?

Lisa Lunt
Pronouns: She/Her

On Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 5:10 PM LAWRENCE KOPLIK via Organizers 
mailto:organizers@lists.sharedweight.net>> 
wrote:
Princeton Country Dancers had dances on July 24 and July 31 and then
canceled the dances we had scheduled for August and September.

We have not heard of anyone who attended those 2 dances coming down with covid.

Thanks,
Larry Koplik
On 08/16/2021 4:43 PM Liz Burkhart via Organizers 
mailto:organizers@lists.sharedweight.net>> 
wrote:


Hi all, with some dances resuming for the summer, I'd like to hear how that's 
been for dance communities. Have groups started and then stopped? Is there any 
news of infections from dance camps or weekends? I know Pinewoods heightened 
their requirements (from just vaccination to also multiple negative tests + 
masking for the first few days of American Week), and then cancelled the rest 
of their camps.

Thanks,
Liz Burkhart (she/her)
Organizer with Lavender Country and Folk Dancers
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[Organizers] Re: Seeking news on covid infections from dances with vaccination

[Winston, Alan P. via Organizers]

In the SF Bay Area, we were cuing up to start at the end of July (with an 
automatic cancellation if case counts rose above the "moderate" tier - 2.8/100k 
), and the case counts rose above that tier, so we didn't start, which was 
pretty disappoinintg.  SInce they've only gotten higher since then, we're not 
planning a restart for any date certain.

We've approved a special event for November but that will automatically be 
canceled if the case counts are too high.

--Alan


From: Lisa Brown via Organizers 
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2021 1:53 PM
To: Liz Burkhart
Cc: organizers@lists.sharedweight.net
Subject: [Organizers] Re: Seeking news on covid infections from dances with 
vaccination

We started doing ECD in July and got three dances in (we dance weekly) before 
closing down again due to the high transmission rate in our community. We began 
with proof of vaccination required and by the end we also required masks. We 
won't be dancing again until the transmission rate in our county drops lower.

:Lisa
Country Dancers of Rochester

On Mon, Aug 16, 2021 at 4:44 PM Liz Burkhart via Organizers 
mailto:organizers@lists.sharedweight.net>> 
wrote:
Hi all, with some dances resuming for the summer, I'd like to hear how that's 
been for dance communities. Have groups started and then stopped? Is there any 
news of infections from dance camps or weekends? I know Pinewoods heightened 
their requirements (from just vaccination to also multiple negative tests + 
masking for the first few days of American Week), and then cancelled the rest 
of their camps.

Thanks,
Liz Burkhart (she/her)
Organizer with Lavender Country and Folk Dancers
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--
Seneca Falls. Selma. Stonewall.
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[Organizers] Re: photography policy?

[Winston, Alan P. via Organizers]

BACDS started trying to address this 10 or so years ago when we wanted to put 
dance images in our publicity and privacy concerns meant that we couldn't just 
use pictures.  It was very frustrating that while the Board was  arguing about 
this stuff pictures of our dances from random dancers were turning up on FB 
with no concern for privacy.  We eventually concluded that if we were going to 
take publicity photos we'd let people know beforehand, announce what dance in 
the evening we were going to do it in, and let people sit down or leave the 
room for that one dance.

That's okay when you're in charge of the photographer.

It turns out to be effectively impossible to really prevent photography without 
draconian measures like searches at the door and confiscating all the 
cellphones.

The people who don't want to be photographed range from people who just have a 
preference to people for whom it's a matter of survival - those who have fled 
violent abusers or who are, say, in witness protection.  You cannot guarantee 
their safety and they need to understand that you can do at most a best-effort 
attempt.

Given that, it's useful to designate one line as photos okay and have signage 
at the desk about not photographing outside of that line, but people will still 
miss or forget the signage, so organizers have to keep an eye on it and 
announcements have to be made, which may on any given night be for the benefit 
of people who aren't there.

I don't think we've tried giving people "no photos please" badges.  That might 
be effective in that people reviewing images before sharing them will see a 
reminder in the picture​, but it's not likely to be useful for people who 
livestream a minute of your dance.

-- Alan


From: Karey Bacon via Organizers 
Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2021 6:16 PM
To: organizers@lists.sharedweight.net 
Subject: [Organizers] photography policy?

Hi all,
We in Philadelphia are using our Covid time to try to get some policies done.

One thing that has come up is a photography/video policy.  Some dancers do not 
want to appear in any photos or videos.

Some ideas we tossed about that have practical drawbacks:
-designate one line as always non-photo/video
-buttons or badges for those who do not want to be on camera

Is this something your dance has grappled with?  Anything you've come up with 
that you're willing to share?

Thanks in advance,

Karey Bacon
she/her/hers
267-437-5641


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[Organizers] Re: Organizers Digest, Vol 64, Issue 1

[Winston, Alan P. via Organizers]

Frederick --

Thanks so much for your kind words!

My best advice is to do what Seth suggests - let him set you up in another 
digest format.  (I could go on about "quoted-printable encoding" and "html 
code"  and "mail user agents", but it wouldn't really help.). This kind of 
thing is why I made the ECD list a plain-text only list and try to keep it that 
way.

Second best advice is that when you see a message you want to save and find 
it's got all this detritus when you save it is that you can web over to the 
shared-weight site and find the message you want in the online archive, then 
cut and paste the contents of the message into a text file on your system (in 
Windows, you can use Notepad for that; on my Mac I would use the Terminal app 
and use vi to open a file although once in Terminal I could also do a Unix 
incantation to copy from the input stream into a file.). The crucial point is 
cutting and pasting the text, which probably won't have all the detritus, from 
the archive.

Good luck!

-- Alan


From: Frederick Park  on behalf of Frederick Park via 
Organizers 
Sent: Friday, December 18, 2020 11:19 AM
To: organizers@lists.sharedweight.net 
Subject: [Organizers] Re: Organizers Digest, Vol 64, Issue 1

Dear Alan,

Thanks so much for all that you share and do for those who you’ve chosen as you 
extended family.

I’ve been a subscriber and reader, without commenting a single time to posts, 
for many years now.
Though I’ve saved most of those posts that have come my way, like the text 
below, the formatting of the notes shared always includes much that reads as 
"computer speak” related to formatting.
Do you know if there is a program that I may run these shared weight posts 
through that will strip out the extraneous background formatting text before I 
save them?
I do it all by hand and it’s frequently a long, engaging process.

I hope this finds you well. I will look forward to visit again sooner than 
later I hope.

Again, I appreciated all that you shared within our community last Tuesday! 
Thanks so much.

Best regards,

Frederick Park
Celo, NC

--

Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2020 10:42:00 -0800
From: Darlene Hamilton 
mailto:historicaldancedarl...@gmail.com>>
Subject: [Organizers] This Tuesday on 5 Things... Inside the Dancing
Mind of...
To: organizers@lists.sharedweight.net
Message-ID:
mailto:caat+20ll48akb_0e6ihy1njemvmanat+tsyj576pqr30hfo...@mail.gmail.com>>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="829aff05b6ad59e3"

--829aff05b6ad59e3
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

I will be speaking about organizing events during my 5 Things talk Tuesday
night. (I was encouraged by a friend to let you all know you might be
interested in joining in the web chat.)


*TUESDAY December 22nd:   Darlene Hamilton*

Darlene Hamilton runs the Historical Tea & Dance Society, which by 2019 was
presenting around nine events a year (including balls, afternoon =E2=80=9Ct=
ea
socials=E2=80=9D, and the all-day conference/workshop/ball =E2=80=9CJane Au=
sten Spring
Assembly=E2=80=9D), holding three+ dance classes per month, and hosting a m=
onthly
choreographers=E2=80=99 test-group called =E2=80=9CDance Kitchen.=E2=80=9D =
When the pandemic came,
Darlene created the weekly =E2=80=9C5 Things=E2=80=9D series, a combination=
dance
oral-history project and community get-together;  by now, Darlene has
recorded over 40 interviews with a host of greats from the historical and
English country dance worlds.  You don=E2=80=99t want to miss this special =
=E2=80=9C5
Things=E2=80=9D!


*Re**gistration is now open:  *https://tinyurl.com/htds-dec22



--=20



Darlene Hamilton

*The Historical Tea & Dance 
Society**www.historicalteaanddance.org
*

*Like us on facebook!*

--829aff05b6ad59e3
Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

I will be speaking about organizing events during my =
5 Things talk Tuesday night. (I was encouraged by a friend to let you all k=
now you might be interested in joining in the web chat.)=C2=A0





TUESDAY December 22nd: =C2=A0=C2=
=A0Darlene Hamilton
Darlene Hamilton runs the Historical Tea  Dance=
Society, which by 2019 was presenting around nine events a year (including=
balls, afternoon =E2=80=9Ctea socials=E2=80=9D, and the all-day conference=
/workshop/ball =E2=80=9CJane Austen Spring Assembly=E2=80=9D), holding thre=
e+ dance classes per month, and hosting a monthly choreographers=E2=80=99 t=
est-group called =E2=80=9CDance Kitchen.=E2=80=9D=C2=A0 When the pandemic came, Darlene created the=
weekly =E2=80=9C5 Things=E2=80=9D series, a combination dance oral-history=
project and community get-together;=C2=A0 by now, 

[Organizers] ECD musicians workshop with Rachel Bell August 30th

[Winston, Alan P. via Organizers]

[Claire Takemori asked me to forward this to the organizers list, I guess so 
you can let bands you work with know.]

Rachel Bell (from Alchemy, Peregrine Road, Eloise & Co, etc) famous for her 
gorgeous compositions and beautiful accordion music, is teaching an ECD 
musician workshop (all instruments, see event details for minimum experience 
level)
Sunday Aug 30, (3-415pm PT/ 6-715pm ET)
Register & donate (sliding scale) to confirm your spot.
Please share !
https://www.facebook.com/events/732727090894311/

Google registration

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1xhmSTUScRYGlMpnCjzk7m3UFP7kw2IJb1HSxclyKqgA/edit


Paypal link $15-25 sliding scale

https://paypal.me/pools/c/8ryp7AAyK6


Online meeting sponsored by bacds.org


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[Organizers] Re: Booking callers for the fall?

[Winston, Alan P. via Organizers]

Seth asked:

I’m curious to hear if you are starting to book callers for your fall and 
winter dances…  Are you booking in hopes that COVID-19 has somehow been 
resolved?  Are you waiting longer?

It seems to me that it is going to be a while before we can safely have contra 
dances, given the close proximity to every one and the heavy breathing.  Do we 
have to wait for a vaccine?

And I reply:

I'm a caller, a series programmer, and chair of our local SF Bay Area CDS 
affiliate, which ordinarily runs 14 series (contra, English, teen, etc).

Organization-wide, we instructed all series programmers not to book 
July-September and canceled any pre-existing bookings (offering to pay the 
staff the guarantees they would have gotten if the event happened).  We've been 
working on grants and fee-for-service projects to get our freelance musicians 
some income and plan to keep that up, and online events with tip jars (waltz 
concerts, tune lessons) to keep furthering our mission and to give the 
musicians support.

We haven't made a formal statement about the Oct-Dec quarter, and we haven't 
yet canceled our English dance weekend scheduled for November, but I'm pretty 
sure we'll have to, and I'm pretty sre

Our position in the Bay Area is that we have a *lot* of local talent, both 
callers and musicians.  If a contra dance started looking like a good idea to 
us as organizers and to the halls we use, we think we could pull a pretty good 
one together on very little notice.  It's way better for morale, I think, to be 
ready to put one together if its possible than to fill a calendar full of 
things we'll most likely have to cancel, and to bend our efforts towards things 
we *can* do  - including online English and contra events.

I am myself immunodeficient, diabetic, and 60, so I'm likely to get COVID-19 if 
exposed  and with a co-morbidity, wouldn't count on doing well with it, so I'm 
pretty cautious.  (Not "never go outside and have all the groceries delivered" 
cautious, but "avoid any situation where I can't maintain social distancing and 
wear a mask indoors" cautious.)  Contra ticks all the boxes for a hazardous 
activity: usually indoors and usually without HEPA-filtered fresh air, exertion 
requiring heavy breathing, difficult to do masked, can't maintain social 
distance, keep touching sweaty people, etc.

What it would take for me to go safely to a contradance is knowing that I can't 
get it (effective, widely distributed vaccine, or that I've had it and am 
immune [requires definitive answer on how much immunity antibodies provide and 
for how long, effective testing with no false negatives], or knowing that 
nobody else in the room has it and is shedding virus [and only 9 out of 10 
people who have it spike a fever, so temperature sensors are not good enough]; 
we need quick / reliable / cheap tests that can identify asymptomatic virus 
spreaders and if they're not 100% reliable produce false positives rather than 
false negatives, or finally that if I do get it there'll be a reliable and 
effective treatment available.

Society as a whole can get by without a vaccine or a treatment if there's 
frequent testing, quarantine of positives, contact tracing, repeat  Absent that 
we social distancing and caution can reduce the spread, but there's no will in 
the Federal executive to make that happen because they're focused on reopening 
the economy.  In a patchwork environment where some states are acting 
responsibly and some aren't and it's very hard to close state borders, efforts 
of responsible states will be undermined.  Further, since states can't print 
their own money, a lot of Federal support is needed for them to behave 
responsibly, and the Senate is not altogether on board with that.

Very long way of saying: Doesn't necessarily need to be a vaccine, but there 
needs to be *something* among the four paths of "able to test at the door and 
refuse admission to virus shedders", "minimize the severity of the illness with 
cheap, effective treatment or even cheaper, effective prophylaxis with no or 
tolerable side effects", "effective, available vaccine with tolerable side 
effects", and "extinguish virus by identifying and quarantining carriers and 
doing robust trace-and-test".  Currently not one of those is available to us 
and there's no reason to believe they will be available in 2020 - but a lot of 
people are working on vaccine / treatment / prophylaxis / testing, so maybe 
there'll be something in the foreseeable future.

I don't know about your community, but ours skews older (despite the valued 
presence of some younger people, some of them also immunocompromised) and has 
associated comorbidities, so I'm included to view our holding dances I wouldn't 
feel safe going to as irresponsible, and even a deal like "only let people in 
who sign a waiver saying that if they get sick they won't sue us" risks not 
only affecting our dancers but anyone they come in contact with, so is not an 

[Organizers] Re: It might be a long time until we dance again

[Winston, Alan P. via Organizers]

Jonathan's list of precondtions for reopening - basically, lots of quick cheap 
testing, easy availability of hand sanitizer, temperature monitors at doors, 
strict contact-tracing regime - is pretty much what I'd worked out for myself, 
since I don't think we can really manage shelter-in-place for 18 months.

BACDS sponsors dances and performance teams all over the main San Francisco Bay 
Area and dance camps and weekends even a bit further away (Monterey Bay, wine 
country).  My impression is that most CDSS-affiliate dance organizations run a 
series or a team or a ball or a weekend.  We do it all, and revenues from the 
various activities backstop each other, so we're usually pretty resilient, and 
we have enough money in the bank that even if a camp completely tanks the 
organizers don't have to reach into their personal pockets.

BACDS usually books in calendar quarters (we've got something like 19 series 
(biweekly or monthly, some take summers off) canceled the camps and weekends in 
July-September and told all our series programmers not to book for 
July-September.  We're moving tentatively forward with a November ECD weekend 
(but I'm not investing too heavily in it emotionally because of the strong 
chance of a resurgence of the virus in Fall.)  For restarting the dance series 
- well, the Board will monitor the situation, but since our dances are run by 
volunteers, etc, we need the halls, the board (who authorize the rent checks), 
and the series organizers all to agree that it's safe to restart.

BACDS is luckily not under a lot of financial pressure, but some of our 
musicians definitely are. (I've personally been on CDbaby and Kickstarter 
binges to get some money toward trad freelancers.)  I set up a web page on the 
organization which is supposed to be a place for links from BACDS-affiliated 
musicians for CD sales, lesson reservations, online concerts, etc, but I can't 
chase all that up myself and so far I've had *zero* uptake - nobody's sent me 
any links to put up.  I'm probably going to replace that page with a redirect 
to the CDSS freelancers page.

I do worry, a lot, about whether people who will rent halls to us will still 
have those halls to rent after a few months with no revenue for mortgage 
payments, etc.  Some of the churches we rent from are kinda marginal, and 
fraternal organizations seem like they skew old-and-at-risk.  When canceling 
our dances for months we left our rent money with the halls as a kind of 
reservation for after the emergency, but I don't think that really guarantees 
that our contra dances will have a place to meet next Spring if a 
socially-distanced AA meeting is able to take that space in August.  We'll have 
to work it out when we get there.

I edit a weekly calendar email for BACDS events and I've switched over to 
aggregating links of online activities once a week.  One of our members with a 
Zoom account has organized a weekly series of online checkins via Zoom; I 
co-hosted the one last night.  (Everybody who wants to speaks briefly about how 
they're doing this week, there's some general conversation, people can drop in 
or out.)  It's nice to see people's faces.  One of the people last night talked 
about how interesting it was to get to know dancers in a different way - at 
least to learn their names, hear what they're doing for fun, etc.  [I was 
merely co-moderating, had never attended an online check-in before, and the 
realy host did most of the moderating work; it was still surprisingly tiring to 
keep things moving, try to shut down extensive monologues, etc.]  On the one 
hand, this seems good for community cohesion; on the other, of the 400+ peple 
on the email list, about 30 checked in the first meeting and 14 in the second.  
I did sent out a separate email for the checkin as well as including it in the 
calendar, but I figure I'm not going to be flooding email boxes with maybe two 
messages a week.

-- Alan

From: Jonathan Roveto via Organizers 
Sent: Thursday, April 9, 2020 7:37 AM
To: Lisa Sieverts 
Cc: A list for dance organizers 
Subject: [Organizers] Re: It might be a long time until we dance again

I think waiting for a vaccine is overkill. At some point, you have to let 
people make up their own minds. There will be a few things to consider: 1) At 
some point, restaurants, sporting events, and schools will all start back up 
again. 2) Mass testing and antibody testing will become active. 3) Hopefully 
some treatments will present statistically significant efficacy. 4) Staying 
cooped up and without socialization are already resulting in increased suicide 
rates and are generally unhealthy in the first place.

What 1) means is that people will start coming in contact with people again, 
even if it means in the background of at-the-door temperature checks, abundant 
hand sanitizer, etc., and our dances wouldn't be the only risk factor in one's 
life by far. 2) means that we will be able to 

Re: [Organizers] Directors and Officers insurance for a medium-size dance organization with a volunteer BOD

[Winston, Alan P. via Organizers]

BACDS has at least once had a potential board member decline because he was 
afraid of losing his house.  When we looked into D insurance then (10+ years 
ago) it seemed ruinously expensive, maybe because the org was losing money 
annually at the time.  The recommendation we were given then was to get a rider 
on our individual homeowner's insurance, which I lackadaisically looked into 
but didn't do anything about.  (My employers have a group legal benefit which 
I've signed up for, so for a small monthly fee you get representation without 
per-incident charges, and I'd start there if I got sued as a Board member.)

-- Alan

On 6/7/2019 2:22 PM, Craig Meltzner via Organizers wrote:
North Bay Country Dance Society (NBCDS) is a medium-size CA dance organization 
(about 90 dances per year – contra, ECD, family, Morris team, two dance 
weekends), a CDSS affiliate, with a volunteer Board of Directors. NBCDS has 
been around 25 years. Our Board is discussing whether to purchase Directors and 
Officers liability insurance. We have a quote from a local broker for a $1 
million limit of liability, claims-made policy with a $5,000 deductible for 
annual cost of $850. Reputable insurance company – same one which provides 
general liability coverage for NBCDS through CDSS insurance program. We’ve 
researched D, understand what it covers and what it doesn’t, had one Board 
discussion without a decision. Not a cost we couldn’t cover but not 
insignificant either.

Arguments for obtaining coverage – protects individual Board members thereby 
encouraging participation, particularly among higher net-worth individuals; 
provides for defense costs in case of frivolous suits. Arguments for not 
obtaining coverage –  1) our 25 year history of having no actions taken against 
us; 2) the fact that our mandate is so narrow - we put on dances; 3)  the 
people who come to our dances understand that they are social events and we 
don't seek a community with special needs or vulnerabilities; 4) we're an 
all-volunteer run enterprise; 5) we don't make (much) money which makes us much 
less of a target; 6) if there was a suit, it is unlikely that personal assets 
would be sought.

Do any of you involved with similar non-profit organizations have information 
to share about D & O coverage? Do you have it/thought about getting it? Decided 
not to get it? Know of any dance/music/song organizations and their Board of 
Directors which have faced a suit of any kind which would be covered by D & O 
insurance? Thanks.








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Re: [Organizers] How do you, as organizers, support/encourage/manifest inclusivity at your dances?

[Winston, Alan P. via Organizers]

On 12/17/2018 1:01 PM, Luke Donforth via Organizers wrote:
I tossed a few bullet points up there, but figured I'd elaborate here; since 
it's more conducive to discussion.

Having everyone who is currently in the hall involved in any lesson before the 
regular dance does a lot to help inclusion. It lets everyone meet more folks 
than during the mill around between dances, and sets the expectation that new 
dancers will dance with experienced dancers and vice versa (assuming you're 
including partner mixing, which I strongly support in most circumstances). I 
try to keep my lesson to less than 15 minutes, so it's not a big obligation to 
the experienced dancers in the hall (and continue to welcome people to join if 
they get there late).


Do you go as far as to encourage regulars to show up early to be in the lesson? 
 Do you merely invite, strongly encourage, request people in the hall to 
participate in the lesson?

-- Alan
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Re: [Organizers] Ideas for revenue BEYOND the door entry price (Winston, Alan P.)

[Winston, Alan P. via Organizers]

On 12/4/18 1:24 PM, Claire Takemori via Organizers wrote:
> Alan,
> Actually Amweek last year applied for a CDSS grant to help us cover 
> scholarships and the change in registration pricing for last year.
> We went from $700/person to a sliding scale and we were not sure that we 
> would get enough full & over-paying folks to cover the lower-income folks and 
> scholarships.
> We were able to use the funds to bring in a new to the scene band that has 
> grown in leaps and bounds over the past year & half and will be the band for 
> our NY Eve dance this year.
>
Claire --

Thanks for that update!  I'd forgotten about that (probably because the 
grant didn't go through BACDS management, per se, but through the event 
committee).

-- Alan
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