The board members gathered at Virginia's house at 7 pm. The there was pie! And lots of it. And other goodies too.
Present: John, Fred, Dianne B., Dianne P-Q., Gail, Victor, Virginia, Marguerite, Maris
Absent: Kenny
John called the meeting to order a 7:35 pm.
The minutes from the previous meeting were approved.
Treasurer's Report
In view of the need to create and end-of-the-year financial report for CDSS, various transactions were invoked to consolidate money in Venmo and GiveButter systems to the bank account. The report was approved.
Booker's Report
June 27 event will be a pot luck with dancing using recorded music. Victor and Dianne P-Q. will share calling duty. Emphasis will be on skills and teaching. There was discussion about using positional calling.
It was decided that "July 26 dance will be cancelled." Except that it wasn't: there was a dance, Sherlock's Meow played, Victor called. Sound was make do. Caller and Band volunteered their time. There was a pot luck. The hall was paid. This was all decided via e-mail discussion after the generally positive vibe we had for the potluck and dance on June 27.
September dance band will be Evil Twins. A motion was made and approved to pay a somewhat larger fee.
General Business
There was discussion about revising the payment schedule for bands due to the difficulty of getting bookings. It has proposed and seconded that the going rate for musicians should be $150/person/night. The motion was approved.
There was extensive continued discussion regarding calling traditional (Ladies & Gents) versus gender neutral (Larks & Robins). There are concerns. There is some feeling that this creates a lot of confusion for new dancers, as well as older ones too. Discussion to be continued.
There was additional discussion about the status of hall capacity, which is currently capped at 49. Various inquiries have been made, with assurances given that the respondent would get back in a couple of weeks. It seem that this direct approach has gotten stalled because its now been a couple of months. It is clear that City Parks needs to advocate for us. It should be noted that there are a couple of reasons for seeking to increase the hall capacity. The primary one is that have a increased number of people adds excitement to the event. The band, caller, sound tech, desk, and wall flowers, anywhere from 5-10 bodies, through their presence, diminish the energy level of a specific dance. Yet we don't have a dance without them A secondary reason is that our model of a sustainable dance series requires a minimum head count to cover expenses. A typical dance event costs something in the range of $500-$600 (including hall) to produce, but volunteers, for example the open band, can cut that in half. At a donation of $10/person that means we need to have somewhere between 50 and 60 dancers; realistically the cap needs to be raised to 70 for us to be sustainable (at the current donation level.)
There was an offer extended to the Scottish dancers to use the hall on July 26 as it was believe that we would not be using it. The Scottish group declined, thankfully, because we ended up using it ourselves on that date.
Next Meeting: Wednesday, August 13, 2025
The meeting adjourned at 8:58 pm.
/s/ Fred Druseikis
