Meraki Sunday April 6, 2025 After Dance
Attendees: Parks (ingatherer), Deb (facilitator), Lily (timekeeper), Kari (vibe checker), Tasha (notetaker), Deb, Parks, Nathaniel, Kari, Jimmie, Jules, Traca, Nate, Andrew, Sunshine, Lily, Steve, Jenn, Bart, Rebecca, Adrianna, Ben
Meeting format
- Choose roles (Ingatherer, Facilitator, Timekeeper, Vibe Checker, Note Taker)
- Ingathering
- Briefly review How We Roll
- Summarize previous meeting notes
- Gather new agenda items
- Set order and time for items
- Attend to agenda items
- Schedule future meeting(s)
- Evaluation
- Outgathering
Agenda
- Recommendation for Dancing at Temple Beth El - Nate 5 min
- Capacity Committee Recommendations - Rebecca 15 min
- DJ Monitoring Speakers - Tasha for John 5 min
- DJ Update - Deb 20 min
- Retreat Committee Update - Tasha 5 min
- Shadowing Secretary Position - Tasha 5 min
Recommendation - Nate
Nate: We should recommend people wear shoes, it's a cement floor so there's zero give. It's bad for your body.
Bart: We shouldn't recommend it because the tradeoff of dancing with bare feet might outweigh.
Jason: I wouldn't make it a recommendation but rather a suggestion. Has anyone asked Temple Beth el about putting in a sprung floor?
Kari: Yes and it could be discussed.
Rebecca: They should be indoor only shoes.
Deb: Let's make an announcement at closing circle and put it in our next email to let people know it's a cement floor and suggest wearing indoor shoes. I'll ask Mellen to add it to the email.
Steve: If people are experiencing bad effects, it might be from that.
Brian: Ill make an announcement at next dance and a couple after that.
Agreed: Make announcement at closing circle for the next couple dances and include in next dance announcement email letting people know it's a cement floor and we suggest wearing indoor shoes to protect your body from injury.
Capacity Committee - Rebecca
Rebecca: Our document last month was a bit of a Pandora's box. I hope it will yield some creative ideas of how to address capacity while acknowledging the tension between allowing for growth in our community while holding a container that reflects our values. There was a lot of feedback, so our plan moving forward is:
Wiz is going to monitor attendance over the next few months.
Membership and Registration committees will continue to meet and present their ideas over the next couple months. If you want to join, talk to Jimmie or Rebecca.
We leave it up to the DJs to decide on how many dances they can accommodate.
Advertising, no more outside advertising, website and word-of-mouth, and PCD emails.
We put it in the Wiz's domain to determine when or whether to stop admitting people to dance after a certain time. We currently stop monitoring the greeter table at 1:45. Since the door is locked, people can't get in unless someone happens to be in the lobby.
Bart: I have concerns about limiting attendance. We shouldn't be discouraging dance. I have concerns about removing PCD from Jeff's email. If safety is an issue, we should discuss it specifically.
Nathaniel: What are the main concerns around capacity?
Rebecca: Some people feel it's too crowded for freeform expression. Also how do we create a container when people arrive late and leave early before closing circle.
Deb: We've been cultivating a PCD culture for ten years. After covid, we grew back much bigger than we were before, so there's been change in culture.
Parks: To be clear, we're not making a decision about capacity today.
Rebecca: Correct. We're exploring options so we're prepared, keeping in mind culture and capacity.
Brian: The methodology for monitoring capacity sounds awesome. I'm also interested in talking to people after dance about their subjective experience of capacity to correlate with the numbers.
Rebecca: We usually add 10% to the numbers at closing circle, but today we probably lost 20% before circle. Maybe we form another subcommittee to take the temperature of the experience. How do we collect data about what people's experience is?
Brian: The question about culture has to to with consent and all the stuff that was published in the small flyer.
Jen: I've been coming for 7 years and definitely feel that there's many more people and sometimes it feels overwhelming. What do we know about other dance and how they handle it?
Steve: One Dance is starting to face similar issues of capacity.
Kari: From way back, we experienced a dance that felt sacred. A whole new group of people are coming that feels more like going out to a club to dance. There's a broader scope of people now.
Jason: We did a survey in the past. I would say do that asap. Curious to know what the contingency plan is and what is the threshold so we're prepared. Once this is identified, please share with Meraki.
Parks: There are differing opinions about the change of culture, so it's definitely a discussion.
Agreed: Wiz will monitor attendance and report back to Meraki. Brian will form a committee that gets some data on people's subjective experience of dance to correlate with the numbers. Capacity Committee will keep discussing recommendations and report back to Meraki with a plan over next couple months.
DJ Monitoring Speakers - Tasha for John
John purchased a set of purpose-specific monitor cables. I am working with DJs to use the existing portable speaker. I hope to transfer knowledge to setup crew members. I wanted to write up a short procedure, but so far was stymied by how to troubleshoot and account for corner cases.
Jason: The monitoring speaker works great. Recommend making a short video that can be shared.
DJ Meeting - Deb
Deb: DJs had a great meeting where we discussed a variety of things:
Cohesion. What are our values as DJs? Following a 5Rhythm wave structure. Holding a container. Being onsite vs recorded sets. Honoring artists who made the music. Managing closing circle well. DJ training process.
Recorded sets. Across the board we had low enthusiasm for playing recorded sets. PCD culture is holding a container with live music.
Because people want to dance more often, we determined that we can commit to holding one more dance a month starting in June.
Kari: Thank you for coming together and deciding to make this happen.
Rebecca: It's better to have you live.
Nate: At first I though recorded sets would be fine, but hearing your reflection as DJs makes me agree that having live sets is way better.
Lily: I want to acknowledge that you're doing that for us is a gift for your community.
Nathaniel: What are the obstacles to more dances?
Deb: It's been quite difficult to bring on new DJs. Partially it's because of our standards. It's common to spend a lot of time training DJs and then they disappear. Last year we had 3 our of 5 who we trained. Our next round of discussion is about how to train the DJs without draining the existing DJs.
Jason: While there are best practices, it's still hard to train DJs while also allowing for creative expression.
Brian: Dena my spouse is a DJ and yes, it's a lot of work. As for training, it takes a lot of time to listen to a set and giving feedback.
Adrianna: Have you discussed small group training?
Deb: Yes, and also it's hard to express how much work it is and what the standards are. We want to encourage people to become DJs but we also don't want to invest in training them if they're not committed.
Bart: DJs are consistently good. Appreciate that there's consistency. Compensation should be as much as possible. How much money can we give DJs to keep it going? Maybe we could announce after dance who is interested in DJing.
Tasha: What about the idea that was presented last time about compensating DJs for their time in training new DJs?
Deb: One idea is that trainees should pay to participate in their training so they're actually invested.
Adrianna: I love that idea!
Kari: It's a partnership between DJs and dancers, and we're so lucky that we can create a balance.
Also want to note that June 22 we start dancing in the morning 10 - 12.
Brian: I like the idea of investing in training to incentivize commitment. And you get your money back over time. (???)
Jen: I would love to be a DJ!
Traca: It becomes a virtuous cycle. Love incentivizing the DJs.
Jules: Thank you for your efforts.
Steven: DJs are the axel in the wheel of this community.
Jason: We have to be creative in how we incentivize.
Deb: We will write something up that shares our values and share with members.
Agreed: Our awesome PCD DJs will offer 3 dances a month starting in June. They will continue to discuss how to bring on more DJs in a way that's sustainable and incentivizes DJs to participate and new DJs to remain committed.
Retreat Committee - Tasha
Tasha: Retreat is full. Some people on the waitlist have been added because some dropped out.
Some people didn't get emails announcing the retreat. We looked into some of the issues and determined that some people weren't in fact members. Others it's unclear what happened.
Jen: Didn't get email about retreat.
Jimmie: The membership committee recommends that we should start from scratch for membership. And potentially tie membership to some level of volunteerism so that being a member has some value and responsibility associated with it.
Nathanial: PCD doesn't actually track the five times dancing to become a member?
Deb: No, it's honor system.
Jason: We should have a timestamp on when a member joins so we can track.
Tasha: I will talk to John about why people aren't getting emails.
Shadowing Secretary - Tasha
Tasha: I'd like someone to consider shadowing the job of secretary in upcoming months when I might be away a lot.
Nathaniel: I'm willing to do it!
Tasha: Much appreciation!!!
Next Month's Agenda Items
Jason: Potentially having four speakers.
Deb: Lighting decision during dance
Brian: Data collection around dancers' experience
Membership Committee: How to identify active members
Next Meetings
Tues May 6 in person Kari and Jimmie's
Mon Jun 2 zoom
