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Mark Your Calendars for Affiliation Renewal

Over the past year, we've worked hard to provide you with better customer service, in-depth resources, regular online programming, and the trusted affiliate benefits you rely on.

Your CDSS affiliation is valid until April 30. We are pleased to invite you into another year of strengthening our network of 275+ affiliates across the US & Canada.

Online renewals will open at the start of April, with renewals taking effect on May 1. You'll receive email reminders in the coming weeks (and after, if you're expired). Thanks for doing the good work of organizing joy, music, and dance!

Create New Leaders at Camp

Registration is open for our summer camps in Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Pennsylvania! Camps provide high-quality instruction for new and experienced callers, musicians, and organizers from some of the best teachers we know. We aim for participants to go home feeling inspired and bringing new skills back to their local communities.

We match contributions made by CDSS Affiliates sending their members to camps and intensive courses. (For example, if your group offers $200, we will offer $200, and the camper will receive $400 total aid.) We guarantee matching for up to 50% of the camp fee, so if your local group can cover half of the fee, then the camper's fee will be covered! Find more information and the application at our Affiliates at Camp page.

Intensive Courses at Camp

All of our camp programs provide an immersive and educational experience. We also run special courses for more intensive instruction in a smaller group.

Apply by March 8 for the best chance of getting a spot in an intensive!

NEW! Community Contra Lab

at Dance, Music & Spice

June 13-20, Lexington, MI

Three specially designed intensive courses—for callers, musicians, and sound operators—woven together through shared labs, practice dances, and cross-course exercises designed to show how each role supports the others.

Participants will gain practical insight into the whole ecosystem of a contra dance, learning how great communication and teamwork elevate every role on the floor and on stage.

Square Dance Callers Intensive

with Will Mentor

at American Dance & Music Week
August 17-23, Plymouth, MA

Advanced English Dance Leaders Course

with Joanna Reiner Wilkinson

at Cascade of Music & Dance
August 17-23, Schwenksville, PA

English Dance Musicians Master Class

with Dave Wiesler

at Cascade of Music & Dance
August 17-23, Schwenksville, PA

CDSS Archiving Toolkit: A Quick Start Guide

Want to preserve the legacy of your organization or team?

On March 3, join Pat MacPherson and Susan Creighton, architects of the new CDSS Archiving Toolkit (coming soon!), for an overview of this new guide to help your group gather, process, and archive the history, personal anecdotes, and material culture of your unique corner of the folk world.

Learn from the experiences of multiple morris teams who were test subjects in the piloting of the toolkit and start your archiving journey today! Register here.

Hiring Resources for Organizers

The Default Contra Dance Weekend Deal

Jeff Kaufman takes an inside look at the common practices associated with putting on a dance weekend, from both the musicians' and the organizers' perspective.

Diversity Choices in Hiring Spreadsheet

Looking to expand and diversify your pool of musicians, callers, sound operators, and workshop leaders? Check out this crowd-nominated list of women, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and disabled folks that are championed as leaders in our folk community.

Contra Tour Routes

Want your dance series considered when musicians and callers are planning upcoming tours? Enter your event's details and your contact information to this open-source spreadsheet categorized by region. If you choose to use this resource, make sure to stay on top of keeping your organization's information up-to-date!

Painless Payment Processing with Zeffy

By Ruth E. Runeborg

Treasurer, Chicago Barn Dance Company

Zeffy is an e-payment platform specifically for nonprofit organizations. The major benefit of Zeffy is no fees are imposed to either the nonprofit or the individual paying. Payments can be accepted by debit/credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. While Zeffy invites users to donate a surcharge to cover processing fees, they are completely free to decline, and it doesn’t affect the organization in any way if they do. Chicago Barn Dance Company uses Zeffy in three ways: weekly events, one large annual event, and donations to our organization.

In the past, Chicago Barn Dance Company had been using Venmo through an individual organizer's account, which accepted the payments and settled up with cash after the fact. One person bore all the responsibility (and the cash), and tracking payments was a pain. 

Now, at our welcome table, dancers scan a QR code which takes them to our campaign on Zeffy’s website. There, they enter their payment info and get a quick response from Zeffy saying, “Thank you for your contribution! You’re amazing!” We record their first name, how much they paid, and ask them to show us this confirmation screen. Then we respond with a smile, "Thank you! You’re amazing!" Zeffy sends an email showing the donation amount and payee information. We transfer the money we receive each week to our checking account. 

Chicago Barn Dance Company sponsors a regional music and dance weekend called Breaking Up Thanksgiving. Zeffy helped us register folks for eight different categories of activities associated with the weekend. A few days before the event, we easily exported the data into Excel to make a registration list for the organizers—the data showed each event the attendee had paid for (and the cost), as well as any other people who had been signed up and paid for by the person registering. 

We also use Zeffy for individuals who would like to make a charitable contribution to the Chicago Barn Dance Company through our website. Zeffy can also do a number of other tasks that we don’t currently use, such as generating and sending tax receipts and making an attendee check-in list for an event, and it can translate into Spanish. Zeffy offers solid customer service including phone appointments for specific issues, online videos on every topic, etc. 

How is Zeffy working for Chicago Barn Dance Company? Excellently! 

Celebrate Your Community!

Does your community have a special success story, big anniversary celebration, or new organizer insights to share?

All of our affiliates benefit from the shared stories of folks putting in the good work to keep our wider community vibrant and healthy. Share your insights and anecdotes with us at mreyna@cdss.org.

Help Spread the Word

Request CDSS promotional materials for display at your music and dance events! Fill out our promo materials request form, and we'll mail you a selection of items with info about our community calendar, camps, upcoming online programs, and more!

Submit a Song of the Month!

The first “S” in CDSS stands for “song”—specifically the participatory singing that happens at pub sings, song circles, and other community singing events. We offer our volunteer-curated Song of the Month to help broaden your repertoire of traditional (and traditional-inspired) songs.

Song of the Month is now crowd-sourced! Have a favorite song that works at pub sings, song circles, and other community singing events? We’d love to share it!

Affiliate Quick Links

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Want to share the Affiliate eNews with your community? Use this link to share a web-based version of this newsletter.

CDSS at Pinewoods welcome photo by Matt Reyna; soundboard photo by Ben Schreiber; square dance basket photo by Jeff Bary; Narratus photos courtesy of Pat MacPherson and Susan Creighton.