Country Dance & Song Society > Equity

Tag: Equity

Dancers taking hands across a line

Succession Planning for Dance Organizations

December 5, 2024

  • Does your group want to change from having a single organizer to a committee-run model?
  • Have you noticed burn-out among your volunteers and are wondering what to do about it?
  • Are you wondering how to attract new people to the organizing team of your group?

In this panel discussion, dance organizers shared their experiences with leadership and volunteer changes in their local groups.

With special guests:

  • Jenny Beer, Germantown Country Dancers, PA
  • Lisa Faryadi, Charlotte Contra Dancers, NC

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Example Codes of Conduct

Here are some of our favorite codes of conduct from other dance and music organizations to use as inspiration for your own!

Chicagoland English Country Dance
Chicago, IL; English country dance

Olympia Contra Dance
Olympia, WA; contra dance
(links in the “Community” paragraph under “The Details”)

DanceFlurry Organization
Albany/Saratoga Springs, NY (and surrounding areas); several types of monthly dance series and workshops, educational programs in schools and other organizations

Portland Country Dance Community
Portland, OR; contra dance, English country dance, music sessions
Code of Conduct
Community Standards
Guidelines for Event Coordinators Addressing Incidents

Ottawa Contra Dance
Ottawa, ON; contra dance

John C. Campbell Folk School
Brasstown, NC; contra dance, English country dance, community/family dance, many other music and craft workshops

Raise the Rafters
Rhododendron, OR; singing

Have a great policy you’d like to share? Submit it here!

Women/Black/Indigenous/POC/LGBTQIA+/People with Disabilities Music Instructor Nominee Directory

This spreadsheet shows a list of recommended music teachers from marginalized communities. The list is the result of a survey form created in 2019 by A’yen Tran with the intention of making it publicly available, particularly to music camp directors. The goal is to increase representation for women, people of color, people with disabilities, and gender-diverse people in music camps and other musical learning opportunities.

Dancers taking hands across a line

Communities in Conflict

May 30, 2023

An online discussion to support organizers of dance, music, and song groups

From disagreements about COVID protocols to strong feelings about role terms on the dance floor, dance leaders and organizers have been in the middle of passionate community discussions the past few years. As an organizer, what approaches and techniques can you use to help your group through these rough patches? And what can you do to keep your own balance along the way?

CDSS Executive Director Katy German joined Jenny Beer, Dana Dwinell-Yardley, Sue Songer, and Kathy Story for a conversation about working through conflict as a community.

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Dancers at Tapestry Folkdance Center in Minneapolis

Recruiting and Keeping Volunteers!

March 7, 2023

An online discussion to support organizers of dance, music, and song groups

In our mostly volunteer-powered community, we’ve long faced challenges when it comes to finding and keeping the people who make our organization’s dance, music, and song activities possible. The COVID pandemic exacerbated those challenges and impacted both our organizations and the environment in which we work.

CDSS Executive Director Katy German hosted this Web Chat to discuss volunteer management and address key volunteer-related questions, such as:

  • Where do we find new volunteers?
  • How do we appreciate the volunteers we have and help them avoid burn-out?
  • How do we create processes for training volunteers and planning for position turn-over?

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Dancers taking hands across a line

Building Cultural Equity in Communities

October 25, 2022

An online discussion to support organizers of dance, music, and song groups

This Web Chat provided firsthand experiences from organizers who have used CDSS grants to provide diversity, equity, and inclusion training for their groups. We heard about ways they have been applying what they’ve learned from these valuable workshops, and what’s next for their groups. We also included plenty of time for Q&A. Our special guests were:

  • Cindy Culbert and Rich Dempsey: Country Dancers of Rochester (Rochester, NY)
  • Janet Yeracaris and Vince O’Donnell: New England Folk Festival Association (New England region)
  • Lauren Keeley: DanceFlurry Organization (Albany, NY)

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Shared Weight: Positional Calling Discussion List

This list is for anyone interested in exploring positional calling within traditional dance (contra, squares, ECD, community, family dance, Irish ceili, Scottish ceilidh, etc). 

Our goal is to support each other by discussing topics of interest to callers specifically in relation to positional calling. We encourage callers to also join some of the other Shared Weight lists as those communities are valuable resources for other aspects of calling.