CCD STEERING COMMITTEE Meeting - Minutes
April 25, 2004

The meeting was held at the home of Bruce Tarnopolski at 7:00 p.m..

CCD Steering Committee members present: Linda Graves, Julie Howell, Harriette Liske, Lalah Manly, Bill Porter, Ann Robinson, Bruce Tarnopolski, Emily Vorder Bruegge, and Ann Whitley
Guests: Susan Davis, Pam Eidson, Fern Garber, Rob Harper, Nell Ruby, Scott Russell, Christin Whittington.

OLD BUSINESS

CALLER EVALUATION PROGRAM
After meeting with Doug’s evaluators, the CCD Steering Committee voted for Doug Singleton to become a regular caller on the Friday night rotation. Doug was contacted and accepted the offer of regular rotation status.

The caller’s evaluation program was primarily designed by Rob Harper, with input from many other CCD community members, including the callers currently on the regular rotation. Rob has been an advocate for people who would like to become callers on the regular rotation in Atlanta. It was suggested that Rob’s program be submitted as an article to the Country Dance and Song Society publication, as a model for other dance communities.

An idea that was discussed (independently of the caller evaluation process) was to create a script for the beginner’s class. It would make it easier for anyone to teach the beginner’s class, or for non-callers to fill in teaching the class in an emergency.

It was mentioned that any members of the CCD community who have complaints should be encouraged to come to the CCD Steering Committee meetings and voice their complaints, offer solutions and volunteer to work towards the solutions they have identified.

STAGE AND PARACHUTE PROPOSALS:
Moving forward on these projects will require CCD continuing to initiate contact with the church for needed approval. The parachute was tested and some felt it made the gym too hot; others said the air conditioner was not turned on initially, and that once the A/C was on, the parachute did not make the gym too hot.

FLOOR MAINTENANCE:
Steering Committee members tested the "clean room" floor mat. It seems to pull dirt and grit off the bottoms of people’s shoes without leaving sticky residue on the soles of the shoes. On Friday May 7, the mat will be tested in front of the money box, a place where everyone is likely to step on it. Other suggestions about location and number of these mats will be considered in the future. Nell Ruby said that she would be willing to make a "sculpture" out of shoes that are examples of "forbidden shoes." If CCD members would collect old shoes – from thrift shops, yard sales, even the lost and found – she would be willing to create this work of art for us. This would serve to illustrate the problem in a humorous and interesting way.

WATER FILTER:
Bill Porter gave a progress report, saying he has a water filter that would attach to a hose and would improve the quality of drinking water at the Friday night dances.

SUNDAY DANCES:
Two Sunday dances are currently scheduled: for October 31 and December 5. Seth Tepfer suggests that we pay the band a percentage of the door. This will be decided at a future meeting. The organizers of the afternoon dance workshop at the last Sunday dance discussed ways to attract more intermediate-level dancers to the workshop.

SOUND
One of our most important issues right now is the sound system. Bill Porter and Ann Whitley the subcommittee for sound) gave a report as follows:

Background
CCD's sound equipment has been behaving erratically, at times producing uncontrollable feedback or sound dropouts on the hall side (but not to the monitors, apparently). The situation has been getting worse. The components have been tested several times, and the source of the problem could not be identified because it only occurs intermittently and unpredictably. The malfunction could be in the power amp for the hall, the equalizer (EQ) for the hall, or the mixing board. The power amp and EQ for the monitors appear to be satisfactory, however.

Status Report
After consultations with Tim Cape and Tomas Valenti, the subcommittee recommended purchasing new equipment. The old gear could either be sold or kept as backup. Tim Cape offered to select equipment suitable to CCD’s needs and use the discount agreements he has with wholesalers to purchase the gear. He offered a conservative cost estimate, for budgeting purposes, of $8,000 to $10,000. The actual cost may be less.

We are presently using David Wolfe's sound system for the Friday night dances, paying David a rental fee of $75 - $100 per night, a very reasonable rate. For the What the Hey weekend, CCD will absorb the cost of renting this equipment (estimated at $150 - $200) and not pass the added cost through to Contra Quad, as the initial agreement between the two organizations did not anticipate this expense. Thus, there is no change in the financial agreement worked out between CCD and Contra Quad.

Path Forward
It was agreed by consensus that funds are available, and new equipment is a necessary and worthwhile purchase. The subcommittee will remain in communication with Tim and inform the SC about any critical decisions concerning equipment choices or cost options.

An attendee suggested that CCD request a "snake" to be included as part of the new equipment; this would route cables and board to a position farther down the hall so the sound person would not have to run back and forth to gauge the result of adjustments. Before this is done, we need to ask the church about leaving the snake in place during the week, and determine whether the snake can be protected from damage via positioning or enclosure in a steel conduit.

The steering committee concurred that the sound people need to stay with the board throughout the evening, and not leave it to dance. Sound people are currently paid $75 per night, and need to be on hand to respond to changing circumstances during the dance.

Plans to have a sound workshop are currently on hold, with the plan to first get new equipment and then evaluate training needs.

CHILD CARE:
Nell Ruby came to report to the Steering Committee on child care. The latest reincarnation of CCD Child Care, under the talented direction of Nell Ruby and Leah Smith, has been utilized every Friday night with good attendance. CCD needs to provide support to this aspect of our community. If more than 10 kids, a parent would be asked to join in and help with the kids. Depending on the age of the children, a parent might be required to stay and help with fewer than 10 kids, if they required a lot of attention. The steering committee encouraged Nell and Leah to draft some "Rules of the House" and they can refuse to provide child care to repeat offenders. Both Nell and Leah will be gone most of the summer. CCD agreed to hire a child care worker that Nell would locate and pay the worker $30 per night, in addition to the money the parents pay: $3 per child, $6 for two or more children. It was decided to continue Child care for six more months under this arrangement, and revisit it in six months (October).

There is a broken window upstairs that needs to be removed. There are some rooms upstairs that CCD will no longer have access to. Child care needs a place to store items upstairs. Bruce said the money raised from the April Collective Good used cell phone drive would be used to provide items needed by child care, such as a big locked metal cabinet for supplies. There was also mention of providing the children with snacks.

NOVEMBER 12, 13, 14, 2004 DANCE
Christin Whittington continued the discussion of child care, in this case, for the November dance weekend. She has drafted a registration form, and would like to put on the form that people who want child care need to register for it by October 25. This allows time to line up a sufficient number of child care workers. There should be one child care worker for each nine children. If there are babies, even more workers are needed. The ages of the children will be requested on the registration form, as well as any special needs (for instances, food allergies). Parents will be charged for child care, which will be available for the night dances but not the afternoon dances.
gate the purchase of one.

Buttons: Bruce Tarnopolski made more CCD buttons. He has obtained the use of a machine which cuts the circles for the buttons. It’s a lot easier to use than the previous cutter. Several present at the meeting had just come from a Birmingham dance weekend, and shared that the buttons were recycled at this dance. The buttons themselves were blanks left over from the past several years of Birmingham dance weekends. In addition, the pens used to write names on the buttons were "erasable" and by the end of the weekend, most of the names had worn off the buttons. A basket was set out for used buttons to be recycled. Those who liked to collect buttons could keep theirs, but otherwise, the buttons could be reused again.

Messy Little Room: Julie Howell suggested we meet and work on the "messy little room" in July. Someone mentioned having cleaned it recently and it got dirty again in a very short time. It was suggested the room stay locked, that kids are messing it up. We need to find out what belongs to the church – we can’t toss things that belong to the church. Once a month the lost and found items could be brought out and people could be encouraged to take their lost items home.

Piano Tuning: CCD and ContraQuad will split the cost of the piano tuning needed for the What the Hey Weekend.

Other Items Mentioned Briefly Were:
Ann Robinson was contacted by a couple who are interested in starting a contra dance at or near Reinhardt College. She will pass along any ideas from those in the community with experience in starting dances.
Bill Porter discussed the possibility of a regional communication network, which could help to prevent conflicting events between different dance communities.

Bruce reported that an ad was set to run in the paper. Ann pointed out that arrangements were made to run this ad without the Steering Committee having voted on it first. There is a danger of more newcomers coming at once than can be incorporated into the dance. Word of mouth has always been the method of bringing people in.

The budget committee will make a presentation at the May 16 meeting.
Bruce Tarnopolski will email a draft of the Bylaws to steering committee members soon, for review.

ADJOURN
The next meeting will be held at Harriette Bugel’s home on May 16 at 7 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Emily Vorder Bruegge, CCD Recording Secretary

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