GDP Proposal Main Page
SCVSDA General Dance Program
Scheduling: Objectives, Constraints, and Guidelines
Objectives
First, some scheduling objectives relating directly to the purposes of this project:
- There should be at least one such dance per month. Any less than that and it will be hard for people to see it as a serious level, especially compared with Plus where there are often two hoedowns in any given month and more if they are willing to drive to other parts of the Bay Area (an option that GDP dancers won't have, unless and until dance organizers elsewhere in the Bay Area decide to follow our lead). Also, having them at least once per month means that anybody who wants to try any kind of fast teaching approach (e.g., a blast class) can go ahead and do that with assurance that there will always be a place for his/her students to start dancing within at most a few weeks.
- As much as possible, the dances should be scheduled for Saturday evenings. That's seen by most people as "prime time" with respect to weekend activities, and that's when the great majority of Plus dances are scheduled. If the GDP dances are always, or mostly, scheduled for some other time, this alone could be enough to brand them as "second class" in the minds of many dancers.
Constraints
At the same time, we need to take into account some constraints relating to other dance activities. It is NOT the purpose of this project to replace or interfere with Plus or any other dance program. We neither want to actually interfere with them nor to be seen as interfering with them. And we very much want people who dance Plus and higher programs to feel welcome at our dances and support them. Of course with so much already going on it's simply not possible to schedule any new dance in a way that won't in some sense be in competition with something else somehow related to square dancing somewhere, but hopefully we can come up with guidelines which minimize that.
- As an SCVSDA-sponsored activity, the GDP dances should not be scheduled at the same time as other SCVSDA-sponsored activities, or ones sponsored by our own member clubs. That includes Jubilee, Whing Dings, and club-sponsored hoedowns.
- As much as possible, we should also try to avoid scheduling a dance in competition with Plus hoedowns sponsored by other clubs and organizations. Obviously this has to be subject to a geographic limitation, keeping in mind that some (though certainly not all) of the people in our target market are probably below-average in their inclination to drive significant distances. So for this purpose we might consider a conflict with a Plus hoedown in Fremont worth trying to avoid -- one in San Francisco, probably not.
- In a similar spirit, we would probably not want to schedule a dance on the weekend of a major festival -- one that includes Plus or lower levels -- held by any other organization anywhere in the Bay Area. Golden State Round Up is the only annual event in this category, but other events that move from place to place could present the same issue (e.g., the recent Weave Your Heart in San Francisco, or if the California state convention or the NSDC somehow ended up being held in our area).
- Finally, there is the issue of newer dancer hoedowns and any other sub-Plus dances that non-SCVSDA clubs or other organizations may sponsor. Again, the main goal of this project is to increase dancing options for people who don't dance full Plus, so in general terms we should avoid doing anything that might discourage others from putting on dances for those people. In particular, some of the traditional newer dancer hoedowns are scheduled and programmed with the needs of particular classes in mind, offering a very basic level during the early part of a class season or an "almost Plus" level toward the end. While we certainly want dancers in traditional beginner classes to take advantage of our dances at whatever point in their learning they know enough calls, our dances won't be an adequate substitute for those specific newer dancer hoedowns. On the other hand, to the extent that anybody else is interested in putting on a dance in the middle of a teaching season, the best approach would probably be to work with them and try to coordinate our efforts. Possibly those groups would be willing, for those dances, to simply use the same list as ours -- which would effectively add to the dancing opportunities for everybody who can dance that level.
Some things that we probably don't need to consider as constraints:
- Dances the primary focus of which is Advanced and/or Challenge. (Note that these are often not scheduled for Saturday night anyway; in particular the monthly PACE weekends don't include a Saturday evening dance. However to the extent that we may want to make use of Friday evenings this point is relevant, as both PACE and Advanced Squares of Fremont hold their A-2 dances on Fridays.)
- Plus-oriented festivals/weekends, even big ones, that are further away (more than one hour drive).
- Holidays - It seems that people have been willing to come to Whing Dings and other dances held on holiday weekends, and there doesn't seem to be any particular reason that couldn't work for these dances just as well.
Guidelines
It will likely be impossible to avoid all of the kinds of conflicts that we would like to avoid while still maintaining a schedule of at least one dance per month. To minimize this problem, we can:
- Schedule dances for weekends when there is a festival/convention of some kind going on outside our area -- the GDP-level dancers won't be able to go to those, and our dance will give both them and people who never travel an alternative without seriously impacting the festival or convention.
- Continuously watch for any "holes" in the hoedown schedule and be ready to fill them. Sometimes it won't be clear too far in advance when the holes are going to be, and sometimes holes may appear when not expected (due to cancellations of other events) but that's not necessarily a problem for this kind of dance. Since almost none of the attendees will be from out of the area, we should be able to reach most likely attendees on fairly short notice. We could have a standing policy of scheduling a dance any time there is no Plus or newer-dancer hoedown within a certain distance announced within a certain amount of time (e.g., two months prior to the date).
- When there are not enough open Saturdays to meet our once per month minimum, there are several other weekend options available. Other groups hold hoedowns on Friday evenings and during the day both on Saturdays and Sundays. Having some of our dances during the day might even be useful in terms of serving people who are unable to drive at night. Friday evenings present a specific additional issue -- that some clubs normally meet Friday evenings. But we might be able to work out some sort of mutually-beneficial arrangement with these clubs for particular dates.
- We could also reduce the conflict of a common date by varying our location. This wouldn't be of much help with respect to other hoedowns held actually within our area, with which we would want to try very hard not to have any direct overlap, but it could be useful with respect to dances outside our area. For example, if we felt that in order to meet our goals we needed to schedule a dance on the same evening as a Plus hoedown in an area north of us, we could hold our dance toward the south end of San Jose; if the other dance were down toward the Santa Cruz area, we might decide to hold our dance in Palo Alto. And as with the use of alternative weekend times, using different locations for some of the dances might actually help us reach some dancers who would not be interested in driving far from where they live.