Updated Convention Stats

Yup, it seem to be all I post these days... probably 'cause there's nothing else dominating my life like this convention.

I finished compiling the minutes of our March 12 meeting and sending it to the committee folks for review.

Did I mention last week that our room block was enlarged once again? This is likely the last time: we're now working on reconciling the registrations with the hotel reservations, urging folks to either register (preferably) or cancel their hotel reservations. Yeah, many people are afraid of commitments but there comes a time...

Kent has brought a stack of letters from the post box. We're now up to 742 paid registrations, including three first-time attendees (now 20 total). We've also been sending reminders to various folks who registered online a while back that they still have to send payment. A few of those payments are trickling in now too.

Kent also received a couple of contracts from our prospective vendors. Alas, the Girl Scouts can't commit at this time because of a cookie shortage! The convention is after their regular sales period so they thinking it was a great way to dispose of their overstock but it appears that won't be an issue this season.

The Gay Men's Chorus of Washington has backed out of performing the national anthems; their upcoming regular performances are consuming their spare capacity so we're now investigating alternatives. Frankly, I'm fine with standing respectfully while recordings are played over the speakers... budgets are tight these days.

I'm going to have such a stack of documents to share with the convention planners group when the time comes. I've been carefully making PDF scans of all contracts, documents, bank statements, correspondence and such. I've also scanned the registration forms that come in to help resolve any issues at the door but there's no particular reason I can see that the planners group would be interested in those.

Copies have been made of all of the documentation for the first-time attendees to date so we can get the subsidy funds from All Join Hands. I believe we have 20 first-timers currently and I know of at least one more who will be registering soon.

The Potomac River cruise tour is now closed and the others will be very, very shortly. There's still 25 seats left on the fun badge tour, though...

Tour            Max     Pend    Confirmed
Baltimore       25      1       18
Fun Badge Tour  265     3       237
Dupont Circle   25      4       15
Mt Vernon       53      3       31
Potomac River   50      2       47
Spy City Tour   53      1       25
Monuments       53      1       39

Updated Convention Stats

Yup, it seem to be all I post these days... probably 'cause there's nothing else dominating my life like this convention.

I finished compiling the minutes of our March 12 meeting and sending it to the committee folks for review.

Did I mention last week that our room block was enlarged once again? This is likely the last time: we're now working on reconciling the registrations with the hotel reservations, urging folks to either register (preferably) or cancel their hotel reservations. Yeah, many people are afraid of commitments but there comes a time...

Kent has brought a stack of letters from the post box. We're now up to 742 paid registrations, including three first-time attendees (now 20 total). We've also been sending reminders to various folks who registered online a while back that they still have to send payment. A few of those payments are trickling in now too.

Kent also received a couple of contracts from our prospective vendors. Alas, the Girl Scouts can't commit at this time because of a cookie shortage! The convention is after their regular sales period so they thinking it was a great way to dispose of their overstock but it appears that won't be an issue this season.

The Gay Men's Chorus of Washington has backed out of performing the national anthems; their upcoming regular performances are consuming their spare capacity so we're now investigating alternatives. Frankly, I'm fine with standing respectfully while recordings are played over the speakers... budgets are tight these days.

I'm going to have such a stack of documents to share with the convention planners group when the time comes. I've been carefully making PDF scans of all contracts, documents, bank statements, correspondence and such. I've also scanned the registration forms that come in to help resolve any issues at the door but there's no particular reason I can see that the planners group would be interested in those.

Copies have been made of all of the documentation for the first-time attendees to date so we can get the subsidy funds from All Join Hands. I believe we have 20 first-timers currently and I know of at least one more who will be registering soon.

The Potomac River cruise tour is now closed and the others will be very, very shortly. There's still 25 seats left on the fun badge tour, though...

Tour            Max     Pend    Confirmed
Baltimore       25      1       18
Fun Badge Tour  265     3       237
Dupont Circle   25      4       15
Mt Vernon       53      3       31
Potomac River   50      2       47
Spy City Tour   53      1       25
Monuments       53      1       39

Tonight's C2 Class

The warm-up for tonight's class was infinitely better than our warm-up last week. Last Monday's first tip brought shame up on all square dancers: this week, we were actually pretty good.

The new call for tonight was "sets in order setts in motion." At first, it seemed utterly insane. Later on, we collectively agreed that it was written by someone on crack but dances pretty well at full speed nonetheless.

John then wheeled out the centerpiece of the evening: expanding offset lines/waves to include shape-changing calls and therefore changes in offset and sheer lines.

Suddenly, "sets in order sets in motion" looked pretty tame. Oy.

In general, I see it but I need several seconds to translate the theory into practice on the floor. This too will come with time but it's going to be an uphill battle, possibly the steepest I've had in square dancing. As John reminded us, that's why they call it 'challenge.'

Tonight's C2 Class

The warm-up for tonight's class was infinitely better than our warm-up last week. Last Monday's first tip brought shame up on all square dancers: this week, we were actually pretty good.

The new call for tonight was "sets in order setts in motion." At first, it seemed utterly insane. Later on, we collectively agreed that it was written by someone on crack but dances pretty well at full speed nonetheless.

John then wheeled out the centerpiece of the evening: expanding offset lines/waves to include shape-changing calls and therefore changes in offset and sheer lines.

Suddenly, "sets in order sets in motion" looked pretty tame. Oy.

In general, I see it but I need several seconds to translate the theory into practice on the floor. This too will come with time but it's going to be an uphill battle, possibly the steepest I've had in square dancing. As John reminded us, that's why they call it 'challenge.'