FSGW Barn Dance
Monthly on 2nd Sundays (as much as possible), 1 to 3 PM. Free admission.
Decide annually any months not to have a dance. In the past, August and December have been skipped due to low attendance. Scheduling consistency is very important, the less skipping or time changes, the better.
Sargon de Jesus and Sarah Foard handle the event on the ground. Lucia Schaefer supports as well.
FSGW dance chair books bands and callers and sound and hall.
Hall: Glen Echo Bumper Car Pavilion (BCP) in the warmer months when it’s available - April-October. November-March in the Glen Echo Ballroom Back Room (BRBR). Emily Crews is point of contact for Glen Echo Park. As of July 2023 when we switched to free attendance, FSGW has an agreement with GEPPAC that the hall is a flat $100, without any Facility Fee. Entire year can be booked at one time. Check for holiday weekends to try and avoid.
Sound: Evenly distribute bookings between Erik Ewald, Jamie Platt, and Dan Kahn. They can handle everything else. Pay is $100.
Bands and callers: Typically arrive half hour before the event. $100 per person. Hire a duo (although we’ve hired a trio or quartet of high school musicians, paying them a total of $200.)
Sarah and Sargon maintain their own email list of past attendees and send out email reminders the week before each dance. Their list is kept outside the FSGW contacts database, in part because there are children involved.
Sarah has created fliers for the dance in the past, with a nice logo that she created.
Dance Chair should send date, time, and booking information to office staff to add to the FSGW calendar and to the publications chair for the monthly newsletter.
List of past and potential future musicians and callers: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ai80Fm9fHH3LxBR_7d0j6LKOHRsuCSWaiabDpLwgtu4/edit?usp=sharing
Administrative stuff to do at each dance
- Arrange ahead of time with FSGW Treasurer to get the checks written and given to those running that dance.
- Record the dancer (include adults) and volunteer (include yourselves) counts. Dancers is everyone who dances at any point, not the maximum number dancing at one time. Don't count those who just watch, not dance.
- Hand out the performer checks at the end: Sound, Caller, Band.
- Fill in the GEPPAC Social Dance Report, take a photo of it, put the Hall payment check in the envelope, and give it to the GEPPAC person on site.
- Fill in yourselves as Presenter Representative and sign as Event Supervisor in lower left.
- Under MUSIC, fill in Caller and Band (band name if any, else individual musician names).
- Do not put anything in Ticketing. It might already be crossed out.
- “Total Attendance” count is: dancers, volunteers, sound, band, caller.
- “Volunteers” only counts those who worked at the dance and don't get paid. Ignore “Volunteer Hours”.
- Paid Attendance and Class Attendance should be “N/A”.
- Minimum should be $100 and “Sales Percentage Due” crossed out, so TOTAL AMOUNT DUE is $100.00.
- Write “Free admission dance” in Notes and check the “Payment is enclosed” box.
- Email the dancer and volunteer counts and photo of GEPPAC Social Dance Report to the Dance Chair and Treasurer.