CDSS Community Culture & Safety Toolkit
Country Dance & Song Society > Programs > Online Workshops > Unpacking the CDSS Community Culture & Safety Toolkit

Unpacking the CDSS Community Culture & Safety Toolkit

With Diane Silver

This free three-part online workshop centered on building community culture and safety guidelines for your local events. Our discussions primarily focused on dance communities; organizers of other music and song events were also welcome.

Unpacking the CDSS Community Culture & Safety Toolkit

Tuesdays
October 28, November 4, November 11, 2025
8:00–9:00 p.m. ET (5:00–6:00 p.m. PT)
Taught by Diane Silver

Register here

Join us for a free three-part online workshop on building community culture and safety guidelines for your local events. Our discussions will be primarily focused on dance communities; organizers of other music and song events are also welcome.

Using the CDSS Community Culture & Safety Toolkit, we’ll explore how to open and lead discussions with your community to develop and implement community standards, safety policies, and reporting procedures.

Oct. 28: Quickstart Guide to the Toolkit

In this opening session, Diane Silver will walk us through how the Community Culture & Safety Toolkit was created, how to use the document, and a quickstart guide for organizers.

Video Transcript

Nov. 4: Shaping Culture

Our second session is a deep dive into guiding your community in discussions around culture, courtesy, and etiquette. Using provided resources, learn to set expectations at your local dance to help keep everyone safe.

(We had technical difficulties this week and didn’t get a recording!)

Nov. 11: Maintaining a Safe Dance Space

In the third session, we’ll use the toolkit to discuss establishing clear community guidelines for organizers and dancers. We’ll also work on developing and implementing reporting procedures for when safety infractions happen.

Video Transcript

Diane Silver

Diane SilverDiane Silver has been a contra dancer, swing dancer, caller, clogger, and dance organizer for nearly 30 years. She served on the board of the Old Farmer’s Ball, in Asheville, NC, for seven years, including several as president. During those years, she was deeply involved in policy making and problem solving around issues of community safety, hot-shot-line syndrome, and other social issues that were common in the 2000s.

In the 2010s, she served as chair of an OFB committee to develop clear policies and procedures for responding to complaints, working to ensure protection and action for complainants as well as due process for targets of complaints. Diane brought her training and experience in conflict resolution to this work, guiding a process of positive problem solving with transparency and accountability.

In 2019, Diane joined the CDSS Board and served two terms, rolling off this past May. During her time on the board, she chaired the CDSS Community Culture & Safety Task Group. The task group’s resulting toolkit was a five-year process, developed by a dedicated group of board and community members on the task group, with consultation from dozens of dance leaders across the country.

Diane continues to call for dance weekends and festivals across the country and overseas and is a member of the Green Grass Cloggers. In her day job, she works for FairVote, a non-partisan, non-profit organization that promotes ranked choice voting to improve fair representation in public elections.