[SCA-Dance] kwdms wrap-up

[David Learmonth]

On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 1:22 AM, David Learmonth <
david.a.learmonth at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks Urraca for the recap!
>
> Fun event, I learned stuff.  :)
>
> I just wanted to say though, that the website can't do it all for you.  In
> my personal opinion, the reality is that you have to communicate directly,
> set deadlines, and do Personal Followups (via email, and sometimes
> telephone too).
>
> I know we've all been teachers, and that we know that the event is coming
> up.  But you'd be surprised how much direct pushing can help to meet
> deadlines, and encourage submissions.
>
> But I wasn't a teacher this time, so I did not see all the emails.  This
> was just my impression, from seeing delays in posting responses to
> questions, etc.  It is Not an easy job, it is very time consuming, for
> multiple people involved in the event, to manage all the teachers and
> information coming in, and all the questions.  Fortunately, a good number
> of these questions, say, for Germany and onwards, Can be answered
> potentially as soon as possible, at least with caveats of being
> "tentative", if we are waiting for bid approvals and such.  (and the hope
> is that the website will help be this resource for information, with the
> FAQ and such)
>
> Oh, and yeah, I've always felt that with so many classes, it isn't really
> preferable at this particular event to have a Ball List based too heavily
> on the Classes, because people aren't going to be able to make all the
> classes, and many people are going to want to practice dances before hand,
> so that they are prepared.  Really, the Ball Lists are something that could
> potentially be done quite early, even a year in advance, and one could just
> leave a few spots open to be filled in later with a few highlight dances
> from classes being taught.
> (NOTE:  This is something that I learned from 2009.  I know that our ball
> lists were also fairly late in the game, and I realized later that they
> don't need to be.  We just had our delays, and they were lower priority at
> the time, but certainly something that could be looked at way ahead of
> time, before things get even busier.)
>
> Other than that, yeah, there was a lot of info that didn't get out to
> everyone.  I was pleasantly surprised that i Sebastiani was performing at
> the Ball.  However, I was shocked that this was not announced more widely.
>  I think you'd be surprised how many people would have been excited by this
> news, and how it may have drawn in additional attendees!  (I did hear from
> a few people who did find out, and that was part of the reason they came)
>
> Last thing here for now, is that regarding putting together a Class
> Schedule, it can be difficult to have one ready too long before the event,
> as much as one would like.  I am not certain how early previous ones had
> it.  I think we had it within a week before, because of changes with last
> minute cancellations and such.  Perhaps it can be reasonably together, just
> that there will be a few changes that are hard to predict until the day of.
>  I'm glad that they had a board to post changes, that is always useful.
>
> Good luck on the next ones!  Germany, and then Meridies / Ansteorra
> perhaps!
> Darius
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 10:42 PM, Mary Railing <mrailing2 at yahoo.com>wrote:
>
>> These are my (not always coherent) notes from the wrap-up meeting:
>>
>> Good things
>>    The Renaissonics: They were thrilled to come. We were thrilled to have
>> them. Grant money from the corporation was used to pay them ($250 a person
>> plus expenses). There is a grant from Master Christopher Darras [sp?]
>> available for bringing professionals to teach at KWDMS.
>>    The music classes: The coordinator asked for suggestions of what
>> people wanted to learn. Therefore there were good, well-attended classes.
>>    Food:  There was a good food Friday and Saturday, including vegan.
>> Deonna liked that she could tell them what she was looking for, and they
>> knew just what to do.
>>    Pick up bands: Johannes liked being able to play in the pick-up band.
>> He would have liked more practice time, but that was a scheduling issue.
>>    Web site: Gwommy made user-friendly web site.
>>    Most people liked the long breaks between classes. They were necessary
>> to go between buildings. There was some discussion regarding the optimal
>> number of tracks and class periods.
>>
>> Not so good
>>     Lost the  Middle Eastern track.
>>    There was a practice room with sheet music available, but most people
>> didn't know about it. It would have been better to have had the music
>> available before the event, so people could practice it, but Deonna didn't
>> have enough advance info on ball sets.
>>    The ball sets needed modification. Do not need to have every dance
>> that was taught in the ball.
>>    People would have liked more class info on the web sooner. Knowing
>> what classes were on which day would be helpful for someone trying to
>> decide if they should skip work to go on Friday. People liked having
>> aerobic level and complexity level listed, although that had been a
>> controversial suggestion previously.
>>    Proceedings: There weren't a lot of contributions. The editor wants to
>> add class handouts to the electronic version. Important to set early
>> deadlines and then ask people personally. APhillip lot seems to depend on
>> who knows who. Deonna noted that there is only so much one can do to inform
>> people about deadlines People need to read the web site.
>>
>> Drachenwald in 2015: Urraca described Countess Judith's proposal for a
>> KWDMS in Miltenberg, Germany. The site would be the Altes Rathaus (city
>> hall) which has been used for dance events before. There is also a nearby
>> hostel, which could be used for classes as well as lodging. The biggest
>> variable is the date. Their kingdom's dance event is usually held in March,
>> which is when Judith would prefer, but KWDMS is usually in June or early
>> July. People in the room seemed pretty evenly split as to which month they
>> would prefer (although comments Urraca got earlier seemed to favor June).
>> People noted that even mid June can be during the school year for some
>> districts. Both the Middle and the East Kingdom have their big dance events
>> in March, so a March KWDS would kill those events for 2015. A lot of people
>> planned to make it a longer vacation. They said that although they would
>> appreciate knowing what other SCA events would be happening before or after
>> KWDS,
>>  they would not consider going to two SCA events a priority for
>> scheduling. A number of people would be bringing spouses or children who
>> would not be taking dance classes, but they felt that they could find their
>> own entertainment without needed the event to plan activities for them. A
>> lot of people liked the idea of booking beds in the hostel and using it for
>> classes and social space. People said that while they would appreciate food
>> at the event, if it is going to mean too much work, they would be fine
>> without food. A list of restaurants that would be good for people who don't
>> speak German would be helpful. Musicians asked if there would be any
>> possibility of using loaner instruments, rather than having to fly with
>> them. There were questions about the scope of the classes (such as, do
>> Drachenwalders do country dances?) since the class lists for Academia della
>> Danza seem to focus on 15th century. In general, people were very positive
>> about the idea of
>>  having the event in Germany.
>>
>> KWDMS in 2017: Yves said that there is talk in Meridies of either Atlanta
>> or Nashville in 2017.  Atlanta is a major airline hub.
>>
>>    Phillip White suggested we have some sort of ongoing means of
>> soliciting and scheduling classes. Just as Gwommy has been able to set up a
>> web site that can be used in future years, someone could be in charge of
>> classes without being local to the group hosting the event.  Urraca said
>> that running KWDMS like a Worldcon could have some advantages, but deciding
>> who gets to be on the committee controlling it could be a political can of
>> worms. People suggested having a mailing list to talk about KWDMS planning,
>> like the Pennsic Dance list, instead. Urraca suggested setting up a forum
>> attached to the website. Gwommy didn't want to do that. Urraca said she
>> would set up a Yahoo mailing list.
>>
>> --Urraca Yriarte de Gamboa
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