Newcastle University Scottish Country Dance Society Presidents File

These are some thing that I've picked up over the year I've been President of the society, and also over the previous years I spent as Treasurer. These instructions are organised by activity, but I've also done an events calendar. Many of them are not specific to the president and are just things that need to be done for the society as a whole to run well. I know I won't have covered everything here and that there is duplication with the secretary's file, any suggestions and additions are welcome.

Good luck ! I hope you have a good time as President.

Ian Thompson
NUSCDS President `94-95

First Year Conference Societies Fayre and Start of First Term

Booking a FYC Stall

We normally have a stall on the First Year Conference (FYC) Societies. This must be booked, in advance, before the end of the last term in the previous academic year, with the Societies Officer (Anne Guest) and the FYC organisers, who have offices on Level 6 in the Union. In the past we have had a choice of where to have the stall, especially when we got the booking in early, if possible we should get a stall on one of the main areas eg. Level 6 or Room 27 on Level 5. The best place to be is near someone like the Labour group who tend to attract a lot of people, or on a main thoroughfare where people have to walk past to get through. I believe that last year we were just allocated a stall and had no control over the location, it will probably depend on the FYC organisers, in some cases you may have to keep asking them till you get response.

Running the Stall

If possible it's good to have two people on the stall all the time. The fayre lasts for two days from 10am until 4pm each day, usually the Thursday and Friday of the FYC week, so make sure you get enough people to cover this period. Ask people to commit themselves in advance (i.e. before they leave for Summer vacation). Ensure a mix of genders manning the stall or you may end up attracting a biased group (i.e. more men than women or vice versa). We usually have a photo display of what the society gets up to; this should include social events, pictures of "normal" class sessions, our and other Universities Dances, Highland Balls, Demonstrations, Festivals (especially IVFDF). The point is to emphasise that Scottish Country Dancing is FUN and you don't need to be Scottish or have to wear a kilt to do it.

Club T-Shirts also act as good adverts so get people to wear them if they have them. You'll also need some good posters, though you may wish to use the society banner. We often have some tartan stuff as well.

Ceilidh

Last year we did a demonstration in the interval at the FYC Ceilidh on the Saturday of the FYC. Marion Garrett also called dance, which got people up and gave them some idea of what Scottish Country Dancing involves. Having a visible presence, i.e. people in club T-Shirts, at the Ceilidh is a good advert. Take a load of flyers to give out; and make sure people get to know when and where the club meets.

Posters

Advertise the club as much as possible, get posters up in as many Halls of Residence as possible as soon as possible in the week of the FYC. Also get posters up all over campus in as many departments and buildings as possible, but make sure you get permission to put up posters so that they stay up, this usually means getting the departmental secretary, or such like, to sign and date the poster. If departments say that you don't need such permission check that they won't go changing this half way through the year, as has happened in the past were posters where taken down part of the way through the year.

First few classes of term

You will need to arrange with the Athletic Union office for the to allow `Free Entry' to the AU building for the first few weeks of term, or people will get turned away at the entrance. It's probably a good idea to get someone to sit downstairs and direct people up to the small gym for the first half hour of class on the first couple of weeks. Polly Ashworth started the idea of having a Chocolate Cake event as the second or third class in term, this has gone down very well, only be careful as the regulations for using the AU building state NO food or drink, so don't make it too obvious to the porters !

Dances

The club holds two dances a year on the second last or last weekend in November and last weekend in February or first weekend in March. These are just a few points about running them that I can think of, I'm sure I've missed something. More details are to be found in the secretaries folder.

Hall

There are a number of local halls where we could hold a dance, the Guildhall; Emanuel College, Low Fell; Kings Hall; Blackfriars Hall; etc. - more details are in the secretaries folder. Considerations as to which to choose include, You will need to book the hall around 6 months to a year in advance (the sooner the better !)

Band

Again more details to be found in the secretary's folder in a guide by Marion Garrett, including a list of bands and some suggestions on who to get (and who NOT to get). Remember a good band can really make a dance, not only in terms of providing an enjoyable time for those who are there, but it can also attract people who will come to dance to that band. The band needs to be booked at about the same time as the hall, i.e. around a year in advance. Once a programme has been decided, see next section, a copy should be sent to the band so that they can plan which tunes to play. At the very latest this should be done two months in advance of the dance.

Programme

The details of How to compile a dance programme are covered elsewhere[1,2], so I won't say anything about that here. A programme needs to made up well in advance, usually in the term before so that you have plenty of time to sell tickets, see next section, and you can give sufficient notice to the band and whoever is making up the recap or crib sheet.

Advertising & Tickets

Once you've got a date, band hall and possibly also a programme sorted for your dance you need to Tell people about it ! Some of this can be done via e-mail and the Scottish Country Dance World Wide Web Pages[3].There is a list in the secretary's folder and there are some addresses in the treasurer's folder. These should include the following people;
Bill Murry (South Shields/Sunderland), Mary Duffy (Kenton), Shona Harper (Gosforth and Alnwick), Sheila Trafford (Morpeth), John Hutton (Sunderland), Peter Quince (Tynedale), Norman Churnside, RSCDS Branch Class (Andrew Turnbull), Ponteland - Mike Barlow or Ian Thompson's Parents, John Cass, Richmond - Andrew Turnbull's Parents, Joy Bradshaw, Terry Chater (Darlington),other University Scottish Dance groups.
Tickets for the dance should be printed and ready to distribute before the first dance of the term. I (and subsequently Pam Goodwin) give tickets out to the following people and groups,
Shona Harper (Gosforth and Alnwick), Sheila Trafford (Morpeth), John Hutton (Sunderland), Peter Quince (Tynedale), Norman Churnside, RSCDS Branch Class (Andrew Turnbull), Mike Barlow or Ian Thompson's parents (Ponteland), John Cass, Andrew Turnbull's Parents (Richmond), Joy Bradshaw, and the other University Scottish Dance groups.
The best way to get people to come especially the other University groups is to give them some tickets to see if anyone from their groups wants to come, this is more likely to make people come than just telling them about if on e-mail or WWW. This means that you have to get to a university dance early in the term to give tickets out to the other club secretaries.

You can also get the MC at other dances (eg. Local RSCDS or other Universities Dances) to announce your dance an point who to get tickets from. This is often one of the best ways to advertise the dance.

Running things on the night

See the separate document `Some Instructions for running a Scottish Country Dance'.

Festivals

The club usually goes to the following dance festivals throughout the year, I've written a little bit about what is required for each.

Scottish Universities Scottish Country Dance Festival (December)

This is very much like just a normal Scottish Dance except that each university group does a demonstration at some point during the evening. The Dance rotates around the SUSCDF Universities[4] with it being held in a different location each year. You will be asked about a month or so in advance by whoever is running it if you are doing a demonstration and what it will be, specifically details of the music for them to pass onto the band; so this needs to be sorted out enough in advance to tell the organisers. We often try and get the band to play a Medley of Geordie tunes eg. `The Blaydon Races', `The Keel Row', `Keep you're feet still Geordie Hinny', `The Lampton Worm' etc. It is frowned upon to say you're not going to do a demonstration and then turn up with enough people to have done one (as we did at Aberdeen in 1993 ) so make sure that the club has practised one in advance.

Newcastle RSCDS Festival (February)

We usually enter teams in the Ladies, Mixed and Demonstration sections of this, check with David Hind and Debbie Lees about this as they usually organise who is doing what for this. The entry form needs to be sent in before Christmas?

Inter Varsity Folk Dance Festival (February/March)

The club usually does a demonstration on the Saturday afternoon of the festival. Fairly obvious really, organise to practice in advance and tell the organisers that you're, a) coming to the festival and, b) going to do a demonstration.

Leeds RSCDS Festival (July)

Massed dancing on a sports field with several individual groups putting on their own demonstration. Followed by a Dance in Leeds University somewhere. Always an enjoyable day. This is usually just outside of term time so we often don't go down with enough people to provide a full set, we usually manage to scrounge enough bodies from other groups to make up the set, this is all part of the fun ! The club has been attending for the last 17 years or so. We should get an application from to take part some time in February, which should be returned before March, or something like that.

Other Universities Dances

This is probably fairly obvious, you need to persuade and organise people to go to these, especially in terms of transport and hiring a minibus where appropriate. Also the club needs to tell the other university club secretaries if and how many people are likely to go to their dance. They will usually ask for numbers by e-mail on the `scottish-dance' list.

Demonstrations

The club does a number of Demonstrations throughout the year, for each of these the club must confirm they can do it well in advance, which means getting members to say the will do the event. Also fairly obviously people will need to practice in advance. For both of the Wallsend demonstrations we are expected to get people up and dancing doing things like `Dashing White Sergeant', `The Christmas Tree', `Gay Gordons' etc. That's all ! As I said at the beginning this document doesn't cover all aspects of the society and I've probably missed out some things that should be put it. If you find anything that needs adding let me know and I'll add it to the original document and print out a new one for the file.
(If or when I leave the club I'll be sure to leave an electronic version of this text behind).