Austin International Folk Dancers

Organizational Manual

Chapter 2.  Elected Officers

President

As the elected leader of AIFD, the President sets the standard for success of the group.  The President leads the Board, presides at AIFD events, serves as liaison with facilities used for AIFD events, plans special events (e.g., workshops, parties), carries out Board decisions and serves as backup Treasurer.  Whenever appropriate, the President delegates these duties to other officers or to members of the group.  Specific responsibilities include the following:

• Meet periodically with the Hancock supervisor to enhance good relations with the City.
• Notify the Hancock supervisor at least two weeks in advance of any planned cancellation by AIFD of its Friday meeting at Hancock.
• Take the lead in managing activities at Hancock during AIFD activities.  All of Hancock's "upper" rooms (i.e., above the golf area downstairs) are included in AIFD’s rental fee.  Board policy restricts attendance to those persons participating in AIFD activities.  However, family members have frequently used the game room rather than participating in the dancing. Board policy prohibits activities in the back room by non-AIFD individuals or groups because those activities drew attendees from AIFD dancing in the main room and also occasionally posed liability issues.  While limiting use of Hancock in this way is difficult to do, since the people involved have frequently been friends and fellow dancers, it is not appropriate for someone to take advantage of AIFD's rental of Hancock, particularly if they could be supporting AIFD.
• For scheduled Board meetings, solicit agenda items and provide a working agenda well in advance to facilitate preparation by Board members.

Vice-President

The Vice-President’s assigned duties are serving as backup for the President, welcoming guests, doing publicity and serving as custodian of AIFD’s “cultural” files.  These duties help promote attendance at weekly dance programs.  In the past, the Vice-President has frequently served as “party planner”.  Specific responsibilities include the following:

• On a regular and frequent basis, offer to assist the President.  Perform those duties in the absence of the President, but keep the President informed at all times.
• Work with the President in recommending and directing special events, both at Hancock and elsewhere.

Program Director

The Program Director is responsible for directing weekly dances, recommending recording acquisitions, recommending guest teachers and safeguarding AIFD’s physical assets.  For many years, the Program Director ran the dance program every week with minimal assistance from others.  Although single-person control did have its problems, there was overall continuity in the programs from week to week.  With the change to a rotating slate of programmers during the 1990’s, the character of the dance program began to vary from week to week and continuity and attendance was affected.  Close oversight by the Program Director of the planning and execution of weekly dance programs is needed to provide an attractive dance opportunity for members and visitors.  Another function that has received inconsistent attention has been AIFD’s physical assets.  The Program Director is responsible for cataloging and recommending changes to those assets.  Specific responsibilities include the following:

• Ask programmers to emphasize dances that encourage participation by the most people.
• Ask programmers to include some challenging dances that catch the interest of those present.
• Ask programmers to include more mixers and trio dances if there are more women than men.
• Ask programmers to emphasize the established repertoire so that new dancers can do the dances the veteran dancers are doing and veteran dancers don’t get bored or left out from too many new and/or easy dances being done.
• Ensure that programmers are able to quickly search the Library, as follows:

• Tune name – if an “alternative” recording, include name of recording artist
• Album Name – include recording label and recording number
• Artist – name of person who introduced the dance (e.g., Yves Moreau)
• Genre – general category of type of dance (e.g., Ballroom, Country, Folk)
• Grouping – dance ethnicity (not necessarily a country, e.g., Rom, Basque)
• Composer – the entity or person who supplied the original recording
• A standard notation should be used for labeling playlists to facilitate finding previous playlists, (e.g., 2007.02.24 instead of February 24, 2007), followed by the name of the programmer.

• Ask programmers to document problems with recordings or equipment in the Problem Log.
• Ask programmers to document missing recordings.
• Subject to Board approval, schedule the last Friday of the month as a non-teaching night and with a special theme to maximize dancing time for everyone and to provide a break from teaching.
• At any dance event at which many AIFD members are present, make arrangements to acquire recordings of the dances that are taught so that they may be considered for introduction into the AIFD repertoire.
• Do an assessment of all recorded music in cooperation with the music librarian.  The quality of some notebook computer tunes is perceived to be less than the originals, specifically those that were transferred from mp3 recordings or cassette tapes.  Reasons could include:

• Poor quality original recordings.
• Problems that occurred during the digitization process or the cleanup process.
• Bad equalizer settings on the amplifier used on Friday night.
• Bad equalization settings used on the notebook computer software.
• Most, but not all, mp3’s were generated using 160 Kbps (compression 8.8:1) and the highest-quality compression setting in Cool Edit 2000.  Differences need to be verified through A-B comparison before concluding that tunes need re-recording.  The notebook computer library needs frequent maintenance to include new dances and replace bad recordings.

Teaching Director

The Teaching Director is responsible for all teaching, teacher training and teacher recruitment.  The Teaching Director did most of the teaching for many years, assisted by a small group of experienced teachers.  Chuck Roth managed teacher training and recruitment.  Over the years, the workload grew with the addition of a beginner’s teaching class and the inevitable growth of the dance repertoire.  As AIFD moved into the 21st century, teaching program planning and teaching quality became very unpredictable.  As a result, attendance for that portion of the dance program essentially vanished.  A pre-planned teaching program and periodic assessment of the effectiveness of teaching efforts is needed to ensure high-quality, well-attended teaching.  Specific responsibilities include the following:

• Reasonable length teachings give everyone, newcomers and veterans alike, a break if they need it and are not burdensome on those who participate.  They also give the programmer some time to adjust his/her program for the crowd.  Although almost any dance can be taught in 15-20 minutes, some cannot be effectively learned in that time.  A 15-20 minute teaching one week and a quick review the next week of a complex or long-sequence dance means that the "finer points" have to be presented quickly and thus won't be picked up by many people.  The Teaching Director should ensure that each teacher takes enough time to make sure 80% of the dancers learn the dance the right way the first time.
• Teachings need to be effectively publicized ahead of time.  This means prominent announcements in the e-newsletter at least a week or two prior to the teaching.
• Ensure that teaching of all easier dances (and some harder dances) focuses on basic steps.  Advertise that focus ahead of time.
• Be very selective on which dances are taught.  Do they reinforce existing repertoire or will they compete with that repertoire for playing time?  Are they accessible to 80% of the regular attendees?  If not, are there other factors that make them worthy of being taught?
• Make sure that the teacher is competent to teach the dance.  A good dancer is not necessarily a good teacher.  Good presentation skills and using a variety of ways to convey the dance (verbal, visual, rhythmic, etc.) must be learned.
• Have dances taught, reviewed and/or played for two to three consecutive weeks to ensure that enough people learn it well enough for it to have a chance of entering the AIFD repertoire.
• Teach established repertoire so that new dancers can do the dances the veteran dancers are doing and veteran dancers don’t get left out due to too many new dances being taught which the veteran dancers aren’t there to learn.
• After Texas Camp, take a poll of AIFD members who were at camp to determine which Camp dances they would most like to see in the AIFD repertoire; limit teaching to the top few.
• Consider a monthly theme to highlight a particular ethnicity or country to introduce or re-introduce a number of dances from one area.  This would reinforce dancers' skills and increase "dance competency", thus making dancers feel better about their dancing and increasing their "pleasure quotient.”
• Encourage use of "watch, then follow me" walkthroughs of 1-2 minutes, in which questions from dancers are very limited.
• Closely monitor the teaching.  If people aren't attending, the quality and/or content don’t meet the membership’s needs.

Secretary

The Secretary is responsible for AIFD correspondence, Board meeting minutes, written records and the address file, as well as publishing a newsletter.  Dena Houston published the most recent “mailing roster” in 2000.  She also initiated an e-newsletter in 2000.  Secretaries of the Board have continued the e-newsletter to the present.  Specific responsibilities include the following:

• Take minutes at Board meetings and general meetings.
• Maintain AIFD correspondence and other documents for ready access by other Board members and the general membership.
• Publish the weekly e-newsletter regarding AIFD regular dancing, special events and other AIFD-related activities.
• Maintain a roster of persons interested in AIFD activities.

Treasurer

The Treasurer is responsible for receiving money collected at weekly dance programs, maintaining AIFD accounts, signing checks, issuing a financial report every three months and filing required tax forms.  Specific responsibilities include the following:

• Collect and deposit money paid at weekly dance programs.
• Issue a financial report every three months or as directed by the Board.
• File required tax forms each year to the Internal Revenue Service.