Friendly Takeover in Progress

[bjarvis]

All of our operators are busy with other palace coups and takeovers... please stay on the line for our next available operator.

The Mid-Atlantic Challenge Association (MACA) has been a bit adrift lately. For many years, the same folks have been on the board, and the focus of that board has been limited to running two dances per year and running the Zip Coder magazine. The magazine however has been transferred to a private company so the organization agenda is dramatically reduced. Many of the current board wish to retire from it, and some have begun making noises about winding down the organization.

cuyahogarvr, kent4str and I have other ideas. :-)

The current by-laws include a statement of purpose which clearly outlines several other MACA functions, many of which have been ignored for some time either by benign neglect, lack of interest or lack of human resources to implement them. These include:

• coordinating & promoting Challenge square dancing in the DC-Baltimore area;
  
• assist in establishing a systematic procedure for teaching the Challenge programs, possibly even sponsoring classes;
  
• sponsoring at least one open dance per year;
  
• promote a positive image of Challenge dancing;
  
• foster interaction between Challenge dancers and the rest of the square dance community;
  
• foster cooperation between Challenge callers in the area; and,
  
• promote special events.

In short, we've done the dance-per-year thing pretty well, but the rest of have been left unattended.

We're looking to run for board positions this coming November 2 with our own agenda:

• sponsor at least four dances per year with both local & out-of-town callers;
  
• plan our quarterly dances three years out, with a variety of callers and dance locations;
  
• partner with multi-level clubs, not just Challenge-only clubs;
  
• coordinate with non-MACA clubs to ensure a full booking schedule for travelling callers (and possibly sharing expenses);
  
• sponsor Advanced and Intro-to-C1 sessions at some of our regular events as a feeder to our Challenge program;
  
• modify the mission statement to expand our Baltimore-DC description to truly cover the Mid-Atlantic region;
  
• promote the hell out of MACA and its events with every means at our disposal, including paper flyers, Facebook, Twitter, an updated web site, email, eVite and more.

There are a few other things we'd like to do, but these will do for the first year. With $20k in the bank, the organization has resources to do a lot if we can get the personnel and energy involved and directed into a new action plan.

kent4str will run for a delegate-at-large position while cuyahogarvr and I will run jointly for the vice-president position --the VP does most of the dance planning & coordination. We still need two other people to run for positions which will likely be vacated by retirements: I have a list of people we're approaching for those spots.

This is a mid-range plan covering the next 15 months, but I think we can do good things for the organization. Fresh meat is a good thing from time to time.

Comments

Re: glad to see this!

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

You're on our short-list of people we'd like to have on the board... the delegate-at-large positions are very light-weight with only 3-4 meetings per year, and most of those can be done via telecommute.

If that's still too much (and I know you're up to your ears in other board positions), I'm also planning to create an email list as a circle of advisors, trusted people off whom we can bounce ideas or solicit advice.

If nothing else, coordinating our events and callers with Zig Zaggers is a high priority for us so we'll definitely be in touch. :-)