Recruit and retain
Note from Brian: This is another article from Ken and Dee. Some of what it talks about is about Minnesota square dancing but it will work anywhere.
Recruit and retain? Like any good business, square and round dancing needs to keep its current dancers (customers) as well as attract new ones. As we all know, it is much easier and less expensive to keep current dancers while everyone tries to recruit new ones. Can you imagine how large clubs would be if they had retained all of the members they lost, losses not related to health issues or death? Let’s compare it to church membership. Most people join a church largely because of the friendliness or friends that are there. Many people leave a church because the church no longer seems friendly to them or they switched memberships to a church where their friends belong. If “friendship” is an important factor, then we need to shepherd, mentor or befriend new people, all the while striving to make the atmosphere for current dancers friendlier and more fun. To retain dancers, every enthusiastic dancer needs to help. Call other dancers (it doesn’t matter if they’re in your club), carpool to dances, and make sure everyone who wants to dance is at the dance and on the ?oor. Make everyone feel welcome and needed. The dancers who want square and round dancing to have a bright future need to act now!
• Keep square and round dancing so much fun that dancers won’t want to miss a dance or a convention. Have a theme for dances; ?nd a way to make each dance special, to make each dance “fun,” something that people don’t want to miss.
• Coordinate scheduling of callers and cuers so every week and every month has a variety of callers in every region. Keep the calendars of dances up-to-date on the websites.
• Relax the dress code so dressy casual, prairie or poofy are all acceptable. Be ?exible.
• Maintain an up-to-date, statewide list of “special” dances. Currently the CE Region has a “Special Event Planning List” that is a good idea but under utilized by most CE clubs. Maybe there could be a similar, statewide list in The Roundup. • Keep the websites up-to-date.
• Explore colleges and high schools for opportunities to teach dancing. U of M Duluth has square dancing as a PE class.
• Start classes (or whatever euphemism one can create) more often.
• Make national callers a special treat, not an everyday event. • Offer more workshops for current and returning dancers. • Offer Square Dance ABC to attract people to square dancing.
Let’s all share our smiles, our yellow rocks and our friendliness so the fun and friendship of square and round dancing has a long and bright future.
on 
December 20th, 2009 at 1:40 AM
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