rsc and I went to Puttin' on the Dance, a conference organized by The Country Dance & Song Society for dance organizers. There were 80 of us at a funky hotel in White River Junction in a bunch of well organized sessions where we discussed an array of topics (e.g finances, volunteers, insurance, getting young people, running good meetings, marketing techniques, sound systems....). All of this was relevant to the two gender free dances series for which I am an organizer as well as LCFD which runs two weekend dance camps every year and is the umbrella organization for the dance series as well as others. There was lots of sharing of information and discussions of how to do things better. Acres of notes were taken and the organizers will be putting it all on the web site as well as some of the presenters materials. And there are plans to develop and publicize various means for communication among organizers. Attendees were primarily from the Northeast (many of whom I've danced with at other dances) but there were a couple of people from Tennessee, Texas, and Michigan.
And in addition to this kind of fun we went to dances. On Friday night we had our own dance with attendees as the callers and musicians. For Saturday night we went to a regularly scheduled dance which was huge because in addition to the regular attendees there was us, a group of high-school students (first timers), and some grad students from Dartmouth. It was fun dancing with the high-school students most of which seemed to be having a really good time.
All in all a great weekend - and kudos to the organizers.
