September 2021

Social Digest: The Chapter Chatter

Welcome to Chapter Chatter - September 2021. Summer is ending and fall is beginning...and there is lots of dancing news! Have a safe and happy Labor Day!

National Chapter of the Year: Heartland Chapter #2022 Congratulations to the Officers and Members of the Heartland Chapter # 2022, based out of Indianapolis, Indiana, on being recognized as the USA Dance 2020 Chapter of the Year. Social Dance VP Jean Krupa made the announcement as part of the 2021 Annual General Meeting. The Heartland Chapter officers worked throughout the year to keep members connected through virtual dance socials, including theme costumes, regularly publishing their newsletter, posting on social media, and coordinating efforts to support local charitable causes including raising money for Masks Indiana, local youth dance troupes, and dance teachers facing medical debt without income. Once Indiana allowed dance socials to restart, they implemented safety protocols to allow them to bring the community together again in a safe and healthy manner.  Honorable mention was given to Southeast Florida Chapter # 6049 which kept their chapter together via online dance classes - with over 20% of the chapter members regularly participating.

USA Dance Announces New Cooperation Agreement with Dance Vision Means New Benefits for Members

During the AGM, the Board of Directors announced a new agreement with Dance Vision to strategically align the two organizations. Dance Vision, also known as DVIDA, operates one of the largest ballroom dance teacher certification programs and provides instruction on syllabus dancers for competitive and social dancers via online and app formats. While more benefits will be included in the formal announcement later this week, one of the benefits of the new agreement includes a one-time 20% off coupon code for a new monthly or annual membership for USA Dance Social Dance members. To take advantage of this membership benefit, please email Margot Garnick at membership-dir@usadance.org. In order to maximize the benefit we strongly recommend the annual membership.

Dancing Universities Video Library Coming Soon Thanks to the support of a private donor, USA Dance’s Collegiate Network was able to provide a semester's worth of online syllabus and social dance video instruction to collegiate clubs during the Spring of 2021. In September USA Dance will be launching a new video platform, accessible via our website, to provide over 30 hours of instructional videos to social dance members as a benefit of membership.Once uploaded the videos will be accessible on the Dancing Universities Archive page. Please note that these are only available to members so you must be logged into your account to access them.

Thank You to Central Oklahoma Chapter 5056 In July the members of the Central Oklahoma Chapter 5056 once again supported the running of the OKC Dreamcatcher DanceSport Championships which annually runs National Qualifying Events for our DanceSport athletes. This year the event became the location of the 2021 USA Dance National DanceSport Championships for Junior 2 and Youth Pre-champ and Championship competitors. The support shown by the chapter members is a great example of how the various divisions within USA Dance can work together to achieve our core mission to improve the quality and quantity of dance in the United States.

Quarterly Event Music Reporting Compliance With most chapters now running events, we would like to remind you that in order to comply with our music licensing we need the chapters to track and submit the Quarterly Event Attendance Reporting Form, which is available on the MUSIC page of the Chapter Admin section of the website. This important spreadsheet is used to provide information to comply with USA Dance music contract reporting requirements and ensures that USA Dance is not overcharged. Please fill in the spreadsheet using one line for each separate event. If an event occurs over multiple consecutive days (e.g., a competition) it is one event. If you have multiple activities occurring at the same venue on the same day you may count it as one event. Be sure to enter the total number of unique attendees to an event. In other words, do not count individuals multiple times.

Membership Recruitment Drive As previously announced, in order to help chapters with retaining current members and recruiting expired and new members, the Board of Directors has created two incentive programs for Social Dancers. The first is for individuals who join or renew by December 31, 2021 will receive 13 months of membership instead of 12. This free month applies to all social dance categories and is retroactive to January 1, 2021. The second is for chapters - which will receive $5 for all Social Dance Adult or Suporter level members who join or renew before December 31, 2021. This rebate is retroactive to July 1, 2021 and checks will be sent out at the end of the 3rd and 4th quarters of the year. If you have any questions about this program please contact Todd Kirrane at senior-vp@usadance.org

National Ballroom Dance Week National Ballroom Dance Week is September 17 - 26, 2021. Please remember to document all your dance activities and send us your photos and videos for potential use in American Dancer and social media to our marketing chair.

Creative? Got good ideas? We need you! Photographers, designers, writers, editors, and social media stars needed for upcoming projects. Contact the Communications and Marketing Chair.