That's easy - bring Enio and Terryl back again! And again! And again!
How about August? I just spoke with Enio today and they'll be free...
>To start the discussion, here are some ideas:
>
> -Buy a van?
Definitely! Can you say "ROAD TRIP!" ? There, I knew you could :-)
We could paint it like the Partridge family bus...
But I also think that we should get a chauffered limo for the club
president to use. With a hot tub in the trunk.
Beyond that, how about:
finding a volunteer to go thru our folder full of business card ideas,
finalize one of them and have a few boxes of DI cards printed up, so we can
start passing them out.
buying a second channel for the wireless headset mic. It could serve as a
backup for our existing mic, and we could use them both when we have m/f
teachers who each have something to say while teaching a step.
arranging with the Illini Union Courtyard staff to let a group of DI
members dance on the stage during lunch, 2-3 times a week for 30-45
minutes. Have dancers teach a free salsa or swing or hustle lesson and
hand out flyers. Reward the dancers who come out > twice per week by
taking them to lunch in the ballroom after that week's final demo.
We used to have a regular group of 20 people who would go to Chester St
every Tuesday and hustle from 9-11. This has all but died. We should
contact Chester St. and arrange to teach a Hustle lesson there from 8-9
when the place is otherwise dead. We could teach 4 week classes there,
where students have to pay to attend (because if they pay, they will go).
Class ends when the music starts at 9pm, and you have 2 hours of dancing on
a good floor, with mirrors and good music, so everyone will actually
practice and improve! Once people learn to hustle well, they'll look
forward to Tuesdays again, and they'll be dancing! Maybe we can convince
Paul Jones or Bruce to teach it...
putting the van (and the limo - if we drain the hot tub, we can use it as a
rumble seat...) to use by having club outings to fun places full of young
people dancing:
- student nights at the Regent dances, or the Regent's new Salsa dances.
- any of several HUGE country western dance clubs in Indianapolis, that
feature live bands, huge floors and incredible atmospheres.
- go to Club Inta's (Chicago) early on a Tuesday night for Salsa lessons
with Anyes. She is a very good Salsa dancer/teacher with lots of ballroom
training (like Enio and Terryl). Then we'll follow her to My Sister's
House (another club where she teaches 2 more hours of Salsa lessons).
Then, we can stay and dance the night away to live Salsa bands.
- go to Bossa Nova Restaurant (Chicago) early on a Wednesday night for 2
hours of Salsa lessons with Anyes. She is a very good Salsa dancer/teacher
with lots of ballroom training (like Enio and Terryl). Then, we can stay
and dance the night away to live Salsa bands.
- road trip to a dance at another college.
change the room arrangement at dances - put tables and chairs on one end of
the room instead of just having chairs around the perimeter. This will
make new dancers feel safe and comfortable by providing a place where they
can sit together, meet and talk when they're not dancing. Putting chairs
around the perimeter tends to spread everyone out, and the side by side
arrangement prevents them from even talking to one another. Consequently
they end up feeling alone and intimidated, and leave early.
and from our discussions in January:
a) have more dances, Fri-Sat night when people can attend; create atmosphere,
b) have an end-of-the class dance, but not in a big brightly-lit gym in the
middle of the week,
c) assign "greeters" at dances to meet new people at the door, welcome
them, give them a list of club events, get their name/address so the club
can send them info about next semester's events, talk to them a little bit,
make sure that they danced,
d) at dances, have classes demo routines that they learned in their courses,
e) have performances by advanced dancers to entice new people to join and
take the courses,
f) have an organized outing halfway through the class,
g) do dance demos and teach mini-classes in the dorms,
h) get groups of people together to go dancing in campus bars where people
normally don't partner dance - then hand out DI flyers to all who asked
where we learned to dance,
i) Schedule intermediate class BEFORE beginner class:
1) it keeps beginners from staying for the intermediate class and slowing
it down (they don't have the prerequisites yet)
2) it encourages intermediate dancers to stay for beginner class, where
they get to meet the beginners and help them by dancing with them.
3) the beginners who come a few minutes early get to see the intermediate
dancers dancing all their cool moves, and it gives them incentive to stick
around,
j) have more tutor preparation classes and tutor testing sessions, to
increase the number of tutors and the skill level in the club.