Docey Dandies News Update 7/19/16

DOCEY DANDY NEWS UPDATE 7/19/16
 Highlights: 
1) Presidents Corner – Making Square Dancing “Funner” 
2) Johnson County Fair Recruitment Dance – August 4th 
3) Membership – Membership/Yard Sign Campaign 
4) Publicity – Photos for Health Benefits of Square Dancing Needed 
5) Travel – Trick Trackers 7/31 
6) Parade and Demo Plans for 2016 

(Click on "read more" to the right to view the rest.)

 
1) President’s Corner – Doug and Sandy
Erin and Anastasia threw a great Beach Party this past Saturday at the Grange. Total attendance was 75, but, best of all, there were 49 Docey Dandies in attendance!
This summer the Executive Board and the Advisory Board have both met to plan next year’s dance season. The meeting notes were sent to the club in an email. Highlights from the meetings are the following:
1) We are starting a major effort aimed at retaining the dancers that we already have in the club. This initiative is focused on helping to ensure our dances are fun for everyone.

 a. The first part of the initiative is aimed at our single dancers. We want to make our club the best club in the area for singles to have fun and enjoy themselves at our dances. First and foremost, this means having partners to dance with. Marvin and Diane are leading this effort. More on this in the coming months!
b. The second part of the initiative is all about making hosting of a dance fun. We will partner up beginner hosts with experienced hosts to remove the scary unknown part of hosting. In addition, the Executive and Advisory boards have voted to give hosts a modest budget for decorating or staging the hall and enable them to have fun with the theme if they choose to do so. This proposal will be put up for a club vote sometime in the near future. 

2) The club has been meeting to discuss ways of making our lessons “funner” and less stressful for our students. Our goal is to have each of the students so excited about square dancing that they invite their friends to give it a try by week 6 of lessons.

3) The Executive and Advisory Boards voted to keep Membership dues the same at $15, but to increase the door fee by $1 to $5 for club members and $6 for non-members. This extra money will go to efforts to retain current dancers as well as some initiatives to add members (see Membership section of the News Update for details).
 
2) Johnson County Fair Recruitment Dance – August 4th
Mark your calendar for our Recruitment Dance at the Johnson County Fair. It will be located on the Midway stage from 6:30 pm to 10:00 pm. Mike makes this a fun evening of Intro. to Square and Line dancing. Invite your family and friends. This is a great opportunity to show everyone how much fun we have square dancing and to promote our lessons. Hope to see you there!
Lynda Hetherington, Fair Chair

3) MEMBERSHIP – Daryl and Leslie
Membership/Yard Sign Campaign
One of the seminars we attended at Nationals covered the Marketing/Advertising Success of a Club from Ohio. This club focused on a "Yard Sign" advertising strategy and has been very successful in growing their club. After we received approval from the board, the signs were ordered and should arrive later this week. Several members will be helping place the signs in our area communities six weeks before the start of our lessons on Tuesday September 6th.
Your membership committee with Mike, is now working on having "fun" lessons this year for both angels and new students...more to be announced on this in a future update!
Leslie & Daryl, Membership Chairs

4) PUBLICITY – Tim and Christi
We would like to get photos to help promote the health benefits of square dancing. We would like to get "before" and "after" square dancing photos of your step counting devices such as vivofit, fitbit, phone app,..etc. If you are traveling to a dance, please get a single or a group photo of your devices and email them to: [email protected]. Anyone have "before" and "after" group wrist photos of our devices from the summer dance?
 
5) TRAVEL – Sandy and Doug  
Next Official Travel Dance(s):
7/31 Trick Trackers
Location - Little Blue Barn, 8245 Noland Road, Kansas City, Missouri
Time - 6:30 PM - 9:00 PM
Caller - Bill Kanai
Travel Log:
5/28 BLUESTEM SWINGERS 16 Docey Dandies Attended
6/5 SAVANNAH SAYSAYERS 13 Docey Dandies Attended – Banner Retrieved
6/12 KC PLUS 15 Docey Dandies Attended
 
6) Parade and Demos Report:
To start off, I wish to say Thank You Greg, for loaning us your trailer this year, and Thank You to both Greg and Charlie for building the frame. If you have not seen it, they have done an excellent job.
We are asking our members to look at the dates that the club is considering for the Parades and please call or text me (Donna) to let us know if you are available on a certain date and we may contact you if you are needed to dance on the float or pass out fliers. Since the trailer is smaller this year we will not be using as many people to dance at one time. However, with doing several parades we hope to use as many people as possible. Decorating will be done while waiting for the Parade to start so you would need to plan on arriving a little early.
Parades – Dates – Times under consideration for 2016:
1. Jo Co Fair – Sat. – Aug 6 – 10:30am – Gardner, KS
2. Old Settlers – Sat. – Sept 10 – 10:00am – Olathe, KS
3. SH Fall Festival – Sat. – Sept 17 – 10:00am – Spring Hill, KS
4. Maple Leaf Festival – Sat. – Oct 15 – 11:00am – Baldwin City, KS
 
Demos:
1st Presbyterian Church 150th Birthday Celebration – Sat. – Aug 13 – 7:00pm
1. Angels Needed to help dancers (This could be a good time for a Lesson Drive)
2. Possibly Work the Flier Table
3. Street Dance
4. Possibility of 100 people (everyone in Gardner has been invited)
5. Square Dance Clothes Optional
6. Free use of the Grange to stay cool (possibly dance to CD’s by National Callers/workshop moves or we may be invited to attend the Ice Cream Social at the Church)
 
Again please call or text and let me (Donna) know if you can help and which position would interest you the most. We can also trade off on dancing and working the table if it is hot. The time allotted for this event is 7:00 to 8:30 pm.