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ATTRACTING AND KEEPING MEMBERS We made a change in our attitude and a change in our dress; we made a change in our calendar to get us out of a mess. We redefined our goals, we asked for lots of help and when we had a plan our members took it and ran. Thank goodness that is the total capability of my rhyming ability! We were new dancers and newly
elected presidents of our club. We
took the leadership classes at Nationals in It’s a numbers game; the more names you have the more people you can expect to enlist in a class. We badgered, threatened and hammered home to our members that we needed names. We developed a list of where to look for these prospective members and a form for our members to fill in the necessary information. They responded with more that 100 names and contact information. A data base was developed with this information that included name, address, phone, e-mail, comments and referring member. The comments column is used for information specific to the individual. Ask your members why they square dance? The answer, it’s FUN, community, FUN, making friends, FUN, well you get the idea. It’s FUN became our mantra and if it’s not fun we tried to eliminate it! Keep track of why prospective dancers refuse. Develop answers to address these objections and discuss changes in your club that might make a difference in the perceptions prospective dancers have about square dancing. Time is always a problem, For our club it seems to work better to have 2 lessons per week and graduate our students earlier. Overwhelmingly we found ladies did not want to wear the traditional square dance attire. We decided not to require this attire in our club but did ask the gents to wear long sleeves and tell the ladies they will feel more comfortable in skirts when they travel to other clubs. We reassured folks that they did not need to know how to dance and that square dancing doesn’t require fancy foot work. We told them we dance to modern music, not just country. That people with disabilities can dance, that you can hardly be too old or too young and that we have more FUN than a barrel of monkeys. Find out why students take lessons then quit. The leadership classes pointed out that many people leave square dancing after lessons because they do not feel welcomed by “good” dancers and that they really don’t know how to dance well enough to keep up at a regular dance. We tried to address these problems at every step during the teaching and dancing experience.
You now have a place to start a dialog with your members about what your club needs to do to attract and keep dancers. This identifies your target audience and lets you design a more successful product. Someone in your club has to sell the idea that to keep your club healthy and to promote square dancing some changes may be in order. Your members need to be involved in the process. Our members were great! Even if they didn’t agree with the strategy they did their part with a generous spirit. I thank each and every one of them! We had 63 active members but our treasury was dangerously low. We had had a big increase in the cost of our hall and caller’s fees were slowly rising. We were having difficulty finding a teacher who wanted to brave the mountain roads twice a week in winter. We investigated teaching to tapes or CDs but were saved by our Vice President, Dennis O’Neal, when he offered to try and teach the lessons. He spent many hours and a lot of money to acquire the equipment and skill to learn to teach and call. It is wonderful having a club caller. Another thank you to the callers who so generously shared their time and experience in helping Dennis. Dennis presented the material in an easy and enjoyable way and every student felt he was instrumental in making the learning experience FUN and rewarding. Now we needed an EVENT to introduce the potential dancers to square dancing which would be FUN and make them want to try square dancing! We decided on a free chili dinner and an introduction to square dancing with Bear Miller calling. What could be more FUN? This was open to the entire community we asked only that they call and make reservations. We had the product, we had the names and we had the event. We were ready to rock and roll. We mailed out over 100 hand addressed invitations (we didn’t want them tossed out with the ads). We later had our members contact each of the folks they referred several times to answer questions and encourage them to come to the dinner and dance. This time we are going to send an e-mail news letter also. We emphasized how much FUN they would have and that they had nothing to lose except missing a great evening of free FUN AND FOOD. In addition we were lucky enough to get a nice article in the paper and we distributed 100 or so flyers. From these efforts about 80 reservations were returned. Others showed up without reservations but we welcomed them all and barely had enough food. With the 40 or so members who were there to participate in all the FUN, we fed and danced over 120 people. What a joy to see that many dancing and laughing together! Our members signed up to bring chili, or bread and butter, condiments, salad or desert for the dinner and the club provided coffee, ice tea and disposable dinnerware. Everyone helped setup and cleanup. A good place to find food quantities for serving a crowd is the www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/Dummies article. We had 43 people sign up for
lessons. One person quit and 2
couples from We graduated 38 students and 38 dancers joined the club! When we asked each of them why they joined the answer was a resounding “because it’s so much FUN!” and “everyone made us feel so welcome!” The club members made a seriousl commitment to this experiment and I thank them! First and foremost, HAVE FUN! Then commit to supporting the new dancers so they can feel successful every step of the way. Make the students feel welcome and they will be loyal to your club. Include them early and your members will be energized by their enthusiasm.
We provided all single students with a partner during lessons and commit to keeping them dancing after they graduate. We share partners! AND, we are very lucky to have 8 ladies and 3 gentlemen who can dance either part! Our all female squares are really FUN. We are also encouraging our experienced dancers to learn both parts. It really makes a better dancer out of you. We became a mainstream club and decided we would not interrupt the dance with plus tips or rounds because we wanted our new dancers to dance, not sit. We have a half hour of plus at the beginning of each dance and the 5th Saturdays are plus only. We had only 3 couples who danced rounds and they generously gave up rounds between tips. We thank them greatly. Several of our new dancers are showing an interest in rounds and are already taking plus lessons. We invited all our students to come watch the first two regular dances after they started taking lessons to see how much FUN we were having. After that we invited them to join us for the first two tips of each regular dance they immediately felt welcome and a part of the club. We soon found we danced the whole dance at the new dancer’s level because we were having so much FUN! Our invited callers were happy to modify their calling to include only the steps that our new dancers had been taught. Frequently they would also teach a new step or two or do a little refresher if the students (or members) were having trouble. I can’t thank them enough for helping us make our students feel like REAL dancers. We try to split up our new
dancers and make certain they are in squares with experienced dancers so they
have help and feel successful. They
are better dancers sooner because our club is making this effort.
Occasionally we will split couples up if they are learning at different
levels. Dennis understands that
people learn in different ways and at different speeds and he varies the way he
explains the steps. We supply
students with The Illustrated Mainstream Movements of Square Dancing Handbook to
reinforce the learning experience. This handbook is available through Palomino
Records, Inc., We are an isolated club in the
mountains of This experiment has paid off big time for us. The greatest benefit has been the incredible surge of enthusiasm in our members as they became a part of introducing so many students to the joy of square dancing and renewing our commitment to “square dancing being friendship set to music!” We are having FUN! And we don’t have to bring as many refreshments because everyone is busy dancing and having FUN! Janie Briney, Co-President Timberline Toppers Square Dance Club 970 262 0371
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