[SCA-Dance] kwdms wrap-up

[Mary Railing]

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