Proposed Ideas for the inter-collegiate social

Logistics

Hold the event in Pittsburgh on Labor Day Weekend

See Initial Proposal link for a better explaination of the reasons
-Drew Shefman

Comments: I fully recognize that scheduling is not easy, and I don't mean to criticize your choice. But I just want to let you know that with schools like Princeton, where semester starts after the labor day weekend, most students spend the weekend to move back in and get settled. The likelihood of getting them to come earlier and go to a dance social is not very good.
-Aria Nosratinia

Schedule with a big event

Schedule the social with a big event that the host city is having to hopefully increase attendance
-Ted Sun

Schedule w/ workshops

I would think that something like this would have to be connected with a workshop or something that lasts longer than an evening to have an extra motivational force to get people together. There are tons of great coaches around, and I am sure that one, two, or more would be interested in doing something.
-Stephanie Kong

Hold the event in Boston

[Actually MIT has a ton o' space gymnasium wise as well as an ok ballroom... and if I were to get some help in organization... Boston would be a reasonable option for the thing with BU, Northeastern, Harvard, Brandeis, Tufts all around with ballroom groups and potential-host-homes.... and if we did this duing [whoops!] during the Yankee Classic, we could watch some incredible dancing on the professional level.
-Stephanie Kong

Cost cutting idea for travelers

This one is a little different. I think that the price for registration,etc should depend on the distance that you have to travel. I think that If you are closer you should pay more then someone farther away. I know that this is slightly not in favor of the people close by, but it gives the people farther away more incentive. It would be nice if everyone paid about the same price (gas included)
-Drew Shefman

Comments: -Although the underlying reasons for having a variable-rate registeration merit attention, I believe it is best to keep things simple and have a fixed rate. This is the first time such an event is planned, so the fewer things there are for people to worry about (and potentially disagree upon), the better. Note that I say this even though I have a long distance to travel myself.
-Aria Nosratinia

Crash Space

I would also like to cut costs by getting crash space for everyone. One of the reasons why I want to hold it in Pittsburgh, is that we have a fairly large team and most I think would be willing to hold people. I want people to spend as little money as possible.
-Drew Shefman

to help with housing, you could try to get your local usabda group involved. i am doing this for the workshop i am putting together. i'm sure they would be more than happy to help since usabda is dedicated to encouraging people to dance and become involved in dance events.
-Elaine Barrett

Actual Organization

Comments: The other problem is that, if you spread the responsibilty for an event out over several people, especially if they're at separate schools, then no one feels (a) that something is actually their responsibility and/or (b) that they can make any decisions without consulting the rest of the group. So probably a better approach would be for various schools to volunteer to host certain events, and for the other schools to volunteer to be available to help on request. That's similar to how Teri and I did things with Buddy: we made all the decisions between just the two of us (we saw each other every day (8-), so it was practical to discuss things "in committee," since we could discuss and act in minutes), but we asked other club members to help when we needed it (for example, when we got volunteers to call all ticket holders about the change of venue, a few nights before the event). Of course, the flip side is that running such an event is a *lot* of work. So it may also help to have a pool of volunteers to delegate tasks to. For example, the president of the club that's hosting the event could say to the presidents of the other clubs, "I'm mailing you a copy of the flyer; please copy it and distribute it to all your members and anyone else you'd like to invite." And be able to expect them to do so (8-).
-Henry Neeman

Events / Activities

Fun Team Matches

Choose from a hat random partners and compete in things like Salsa, Hustle, Argentine Tango, Night Club Two Step (or Texas Two Step)
-Drew Shefman

Comments: Regarding team matches, intercollegiate all around competition, etc. while some competitions (perhaps in Jack-n-Jill format) can add spice to the event, I'd really like to see this as an event that is not competition oriented. After all, many of us go to many competitions each year. Having another competition-oriented event (albeit with a different format) is not what we're aiming for. Having a mainly social event will also help bring the beginners of our clubs into the intercollegiate circle, and spark their interest in competitions and other activities. I suggest we make a serious effort to have at least 75% of the time of this event consist of social events. I include dances and workshops as social events. I do *not* count any kind of competition or performance as a social. I don't want to get into a semantic argument of whether Jack-n-Jill is a social event: it depends very much on how it is run, but as long as there is a competitive atmosphere, the social factor is diminished.
-Aria Nosratinia

Get dance team / formation team performances

Some clubs have performance teams as well as dance teams, possibly get these groups to come out from the different schools and put on a show

How about a formation team competition, one like those on ESPN for the National Dance Team competition. That would get a lot of teams interested and motivated to come instead of just a few people from a team. The attendance of an entire team would definately be positive. Like the cabarret team matchees, this could be more focused on Ballroom formations or just Formation Dancing (jazz, hip hop, no acting). This competition would attract entire teams to come, while the all-around mixed partner competition would maximize the developement of intercollegiete relationships.
-Ted Sun

Comments: Performances are good, and would provide some incentive for teams to show up. But let's not overdo it. If I go to a social (intercollegiate or otherwise), I go to dance, not to watch other people dance. I would discourage more than 3 or 4 performances, total.
-Aria Nosratinita

Intercollegiate all-around competition

Maybe an intercollegaite all-around competition - there would be two categories:Smooth and Latin. The men would draw a different name for each dance. For example: I would dance with lady A in the Rumba; Lady B in the Cha; and Lady C in the Swing. These dances would be judged as a group and the winners would include 1 male and 3 females. Wild? A bit, but it'll definately get people around dancing with people from different schools. Off course this idea will need to be better organized, but let me know what you guys think?
-Ted Sun

Social Workshops

Lots of people have been saying that there needs to be some workshops or something else, rather than just a social... We could do workshops, but the focus would have to be social. Maybe we could teach dances like Texas Two Step, Nightclub 2-Step, Salsa, Hip-Hop. Maybe teach some dead dances: Peabody, Bossa Nova, Charleston. Or even some line Dances. This could definately be do-able... just nothing that people could use on the competition floor.
-Drew Shefman

Bring in a band

Maybe we could bring in a band... or at least try to go dance to one at a club
-Drew Shefman

Mixers

Word Mixer

Initiate situations where if you're dancing, you have to switch partners in the middle of the dance. Example: a game our studio uses goes something like this:

Caller:

shouts out 'Whiskey', 'Rum', 'Soda' (make up any words)

Dancers:

Whiskey - Switch partners

Rum (optional) - partner is supposed to sit in partner's lap (or facsimile since standing)

Soda - Freeze

Judges:

Any dancer that does the wrong thing is out. Remaining dancers continue.

-Michael Chin

Dance Police

a suggestion: the usabda group here has started having the first half hour to hour of their dances as bronze level dancing only. in fact, they had "dance police" at the first one to make sure people didn't dance above bronze level. (all in fun, of course, but they did pull people off the floor, i think.) you might want to have "dance police" at your dance to make sure that people are actually intermingling and not just dancing with a few people or with people of their own team. you could use your team match colors and put them on all the members of one team (even the women) so you could tell which teams were intermingling. then everyone else could tell who was from which team also.
-Elaine Barrett

Same Sex dances

Maybe have a set of dances that you have to dance with a member of the same sex. You can work it out between you who leads and follows. Just to encourage EVERYONE to mix.
-Drew Shefman

Comments:Same sex dances: Ok, but don't bet too much on it. Especially on the male side, I can easily see this idea landing flat on its back. Suggestion: at least for the first time, try as much as possible to stick to things that are sure bets. If there are too many activities that fizzle and die, it may reflect on the quality and success of the whole event.
-Aria Nosratinia

Wall Flower Mixer

This is a passive mixer. The idea is that you give everyone a number. Give them lots of buttons/pieces of paper with that number on it. Everytime you dance with someone different, exchange numbers. The people with the most number of DIFFERENT numbers, wins a prize.
-Drew Shefman

Crazy Dances

• Things like Robot-Cha:: Have to Cha-Cha w/ straight legs (no bending ever) and a totally dead-pan (no smiling) face
  
• Mirror Image Dances:: One these dances reverse everything. Right arm leads for the gentleman and you start on the right foot. You have to travel around the line of dance in the opposite direction (this one is a VERY fun one)
  
• No hands dancing:: everything must be lead/followed, but no hands are allowed - neither is talking
  -Drew Shefman
  
• Man follows - Lady leads
  -Aria Nostratinita
  

Give prizes to those that do the crazy dances the best
-Ted Sun

Non-dance related

T-shirt Exchange

Maybe for prizes people can bring their schools ballroom T-shirts and we could exchange those either as prizes or as a drawing in itself.
-Drew Shefman

Address book

Have everyone who shows up give their name,address,email,and phone and publish an address book that weekend so that people can keep in contact with everyone.
-Drew Shefman

Things to work on / Problems

Getting people to go the distance

I think that the this is the biggest problem that we are going to face. We all need to figure out a way to make it worthwhile for people to come.What would make it worth while for you to travel 5-7 hours for a social dance. (Granted that alone should do it, but I'm going to assume that we need more :))
-Drew Shefman

as for the problem of getting people to travel long distances, i think that is a really big problem. i wouldn't expect people to drive to a social dance that is farther away than the farthest competition they go to, which is probably around 8 hours, and that might be pushing it. you could try setting up leagues and having each league attend a social dance on the same day, and that way we could get the whole country to be at a social dance on the same night, so we would all be dancing together. of course, that might be really hard to coordinate. if you do think that peole will come from far distances to the social, i would suggest trying to have the dance as far away from other dance and school activities as possible, so people don't have to do things three or four weekends in a row. you would have to watch out for semester school finals, quarter school finals, vacations, competitions, etc.
i think a bigger draw would also be haveing the whole weekend filled with events. you could do a friday night social party, saturday afternoon non-dance-related events, saturday evening social dance, and sunday workshops. that way people wouldn't just be coming distances for a four hour dance on saturday night.
-Elaine Barrett

Comments: it'd have to be an *incredible* dance opportunity to make it worth the trouble, and there are as many definitions of an incredible social dance as there are dancers. For example, a lot of people prefer live music to recorded, and a lot of other people prefer recorded to live. So I think a workshop, maybe with a social dance after it, would be a better draw.
-Tania Banak

Mixing same sex people

A potential problem is that people of the same sex, don't mix well in a situation like this. All of the men will meet all of the women and vice versa, but few of the men/women will meet other men/women. We have to figure out some way to get more same sex mixing.
-Drew Shefman

to try to get more same-sex introductions, you might try something that is non-dance related, i.e. have a social dance in the evening, but schedule group trips to other places during the afternoon. here in minnesota that would be something like going to the mall of america, visiting the capital in st. paul, going to the science museum, a canoe trip (weather and time permitting), etc. you could make these events "women's events" and "men's events", or simply have people sign up for first, second, and third choice and keep track of how many from each school sign up for each one and re-assign as necessary.
-Elaine Barrett

Keeping costs down

i think a bigger draw would also be haveing the whole weekend filled with events. you could do a friday night social party, saturday afternoon non-dance-related events, saturday evening social dance, and sunday workshops. that way people wouldn't just be coming distances for a four hour dance on saturday night.
-Elaine Barrett

Non-ICS related

Smaller intercollegiate socials amoung close schools

I think that while the idea has merit, it does pose a problem for schools at great distances, i.e. I dont think I could convince Rutgers to justify an eight hour trip to pittsburgh just for a social. I do have an idea though which if passed on might be a little helpful. I know that alot of the schools have regular socials.(here at rutgers they are held every second saturday of the month) If we could get all the schools on CBEN to write in when their schools socials are, we would all have an opportunity to go to those socials that are not to far away for it to be infeasable. We could send such a posting either bi monthly or semi annually. At current this type of thing is goin on between Rutgers, Priceton, and U Penn, and it has been working quite well. If we can spread this kind of info between more groups I think it would be just as sucessful.
-Julio DeJesus

So, you might want to have a bunch of events in, say, Boston or New York City, D.C., Atlanta, Illinois/Indiana/Wisconsin, San Francisco. At a guess, I'd say that for a really good (and cheap) workshop, students might be willing to travel about eight hours, but not much more than that. (Most will travel much less far for a comp; for example, we couldn't get Wash U to drive three hours to come to ours.)
-Tania Banak

Emailling dlists:

Finally, I suggest everyone send their ideas to you, and you post to the mailing list, rather than everyone posting to the whole list themselves.
-Aria Nosratinia