IN THIS ISSUE:

Appealing Stories
12.12.12
Director’s Report
In Memory of Nat Hewitt
What Are Your Group’s Web Needs?
Dance or Sing While You Work—Camp Jobs Available
Award Recommendations Sought
Outreach Grants
Dare to Be Square Syllabus CD-Rom
Member Dues Going Up
Upcoming in the CDSS News
Stay in Touch Online!
Email or Members Directory
Not A Member? A Special Holiday Offer
Shop at the CDSS Store

Have you read the marvelous stories in our Annual Appeal? By supporting CDSS, you make these stories possible. Please make a donation this holiday season. You make a difference. You change lives.

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By scheduling your gift, you may increase our overall fundraising that day — grants from Western MA funders will be awarded to organizations who raise the most money and to those who receive the most donations on 12.12.12, and, through the generosity of local funders, randomly-selected organizations will receive grants.

What are we asking you to help support? Arts-in-Education!! Americans for the Arts reports that instruction time for the arts is decreasing across the nation; meanwhile, the benefits of arts learning are well-documented and positive. The CDSS Education Department is responding by envisioning the creation of online courses and toolkits for the busy public school teacher using participatory dance, music and song with roots in English and North American traditions. Our goal is to give classroom teachers the basic skills to easily incorporate these traditional arts into the contemporary classroom.

By scheduling a gift now for Valley Gives Day, we are leveraging that gift to attract more funding from the Western MA funders. We’ll be showing off a bit occasionally for the next two weeks leading up to 12.12.12, so stayed tuned to our blog and Facebook.

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It’s been an exciting year at CDSS. My visits to camp this summer, and my ongoing work with the Board and staff, has confirmed for me the importance of the job we do supporting traditional dance, music and song. As we continue to plan for Centennial events in 2015 and look at opportunities to strengthen our work by creating strategic partnerships with other national organizations, I’ve been doing some reading and research, and have found an exciting report from the James Irvine Foundation. In part, it says:

“People are engaging in the arts in increasingly active and expressive ways. There is a growing awareness in the arts field of what has come to be known as participatory arts practices. Arts funders and arts organizations are examining this seismic shift toward a participatory arts culture and figuring out how to adapt in new and creative ways that will have long-term benefits to arts organizations and the people they serve.” (Brown, A. S., Novak-Leonard, J. L., and Gilbride, S. Getting In On the Act: How arts groups are creating opportunities for active participation (Report, 2011, October, page 2; The James Irvine Foundation)

That’s just the beginning of this phenomenal report. You can access it here. I am so very excited with it because it is a great model to discuss what we instinctively know in our participatory art: we are the audience and the artists. What we do is not spectator art — it is collaborative and creative. I agree with the report’s authors “that the arts organizations that will thrive in our current environment will be the ones who create new and meaningful opportunities for people to engage.” Our collaboration with strategic partnerships, and with you, will support what we do into the next generation and beyond.

Speaking of strategic partners, as a first step, we’ve teamed up with Fractured Atlas, a national nonprofit organization that provides a range of support services for the independent arts community. I’m a big fan of this organization and I am thrilled that we’ve developed this relationship. Through the Fractured Atlas’s Open Arts Network we can offer CDSS members services such as health insurance and online courses. Simply fill out the online Associate Membership application. You will instantly become an Associate Member of the nation’s fastest growing arts service organization. And it’s all free! Thanks to Jeff Martell, CDSS Store and Services Manager, for making this happen.

Finally, please support our year-end Annual Appeal. If you have not already received a copy in the mail — and even if you have — you won’t want to miss the expanded stories online. Between now and the end of the year, we’ll be highlighting personal stories on our blog — stories that illuminate the wonderful work your support makes possible, through our scholarships, grants, conferences, strategic partnerships, teacher training and educational resources. We’re absolutely counting on your year-end giving to fund these programs in the coming year, so please give generously!

As we approach the holiday season, I have so much to be thankful for in my first six months with CDSS. I am thankful for a dedicated Board and staff, but most of all, I am thankful to YOU, our members and friends, for your continued passion and support of our work.

My heartfelt thanks,

Rima

P.S. Feel free to email your thoughts to me at rima@cdss.org after reading the Irvine Foundation report.

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New England fiddler Nat Hewitt died on November 23 from complications from cancer. Friends and family will gather for a memorial at the Nelson Town Hall in Nelson, NH, on Saturday, December 1. Should you wish, the family suggests gifts in Nat’s memory be sent to CDSS, 116 Pleasant St #345, Easthampton, MA 01027-2759. Please include a note with your check directing the gift in memory of Nat Hewitt. You may also make a memorial gift online at www.cdss.org/appeal.

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Who loves your group's website? Is it colorful, informative and inviting? We are exploring tools and templates that can help groups devise and maintain dynamic websites. What features would be most useful? How can we make routine website updating easy and manageable? Do you need to start from scratch? Please take 60 seconds (now!) to click this link and let us know your needs, your ideas and how we can be most helpful. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! (David Means & Scott Higgs, CDSS Web Technology Task Group)

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Each year we need help running our summer dance and music camps; if one of the jobs below appeals to you, write to Steve Howe, Director of Programs. By the way, we’ve recently added two more mini-courses to next summer’s programs; see our 2013 schedule

Sound system operators are needed at all weeks, with compensation ranging from full scholarship to paid staff, depending on the session. Office positions are available at Pinewoods from June 27-August 31, at Timber Ridge from August 10-18, and at Ogontz from August 2-10. These include bookstore and auction management as well as other logistical tasks

In exchange for full scholarships, we need lifeguards with CPR/First Aid certificates for all sessions, dining hall managers for all sessions, and a doctor or nurse for Family and Campers’ weeks. Some partial scholarships are also available at Ogontz for kitchen and/or grounds work, at Timber Ridge for setup work, and at all Family and Campers’ weeks, for evening monitoring of sleeping children as well as for assistant lifeguards.

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Nominations for the next CDSS Lifetime Contribution Award must be received by January 2, 2013. Send your recommendations to the Awards Committee or to Committee chair Mary Devlin. If you prefer snail mail, send information to Mary at 2230 SW Sunset Drive, Portland, OR 97239.

Your recommendation must include the name, address, phone number and email address of the person you are recommending as well as your own name and full contact information. NEW: Recommendations must be for living persons. Please include a one-page explanation of why the person deserves the award. For additional criteria, please visit our website.

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For the October 2012 quarter, CDSS support totaling $2,300 was offered to eight events and projects in MI, CA. NC, FL, OH, and AK. See the Outreach part of our website for more about these and earlier projects.

Want to support traditional music and dance in your community or region? CDSS can help! Contact Linda Henry or click here to apply for funding. Application deadlines in 2013 are February 1, June 1 and October 1. And you can help grow our Outreach funds—donate to Outreach and Scholarships.

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We’ve just produced our first CD-ROM: the Syllabus for the Dare to Be Square held at the John C. Campbell Folk School in November 2011, which was made possible with major financial funding from CDSS.

Nils Fredland, a member of the CDSS Publications/Education Department, led the Syllabus project and he and California caller and CDSS Board member, Lynn Ackerson, took on the mammoth task of transcribing the dances and discussions. As Nils writes in his introduction “square dance descriptions on a page are elevated by the skilled calling of a master” and this makes this Syllabus/audio package an invaluable resource for dance callers, musicians and historians.

Each of the six master callers at the weekend brought a unique approach to square dancing: Bob Dalsemer, who produced the event, taught dances from Maryland Line, MD; Bill Litchman taught traditional Western squares; Tony Parkes showcased New England squares; Phil Jamison’s specialty is Southern Appalachian squares; and Larry Edelman taught the dances he learned from Jerry Goodwin, a caller in rural southwestern Pennsylvania.

The CD-ROM includes the 80-page Syllabus PDF, with a transcription of every dance presented during the three-day event plus valuable teaching tips and background information, and 158 audio tracks, with the walkthrough and calls for each dance (a total of 10.2 hours of music and calls) plus an index to the video clips of each dance.

The six callers at the workshop are also consultants for the Square Dance History Project, directed by CDSS President David Millstone and the Dare to Be Square event was their first opportunity to meet face to face for discussions and interviews. See the 24 taped interviews as well as the massive archive of square dance materials which is being built.

Many thanks to the musicians at the workshop: veteran performers Steve Hickman, Claudio Buchwald, Jim Morrison and Sam Bartlett.

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The Governing Board has approved an increase in Basic Membership rates for the first time in seven years. Basic Individual membership will change from $45 to $50; Basic Family membership, from $65 to $75. All other rates, including those for Limited Income and Groups, will remain the same. The new rates will take effect on March 1, 2013.

Raising our membership rates will allow us to keep up with rising costs and strengthen our organizational capacity. At the same time, we’re continuing to find ways to enhance the value of membership, offering more services and resources specifically for members like our new partnership with Fractured Atlas (see the Director’s Report above).

If your membership expires between March and July of 2013, you may choose to renew early — before March 1 — at the old rates. If you take advantage of this offer, please include a note letting us know what your payment is for. Thanks, as always, for your support of CDSS through membership!

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The printed edition of the newsletter (Winter 2012-2013 issue) will be arriving in members’ mailboxes shortly; the online version of that issue will be posted by mid-December. Included are reports from the director (or read it above) and president, articles about Sacred Harp singing across Europe, Lovett Hall and its history with Henry Ford, the importance of “shoulders back,” plus an essay about dancing, a poem, and last summer’s camp scholarship recipients. Letter and article deadline for the next issue is February 1.

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Upcoming Events---lots of special events throughout the country.

CDSS Blog--- a few recent ones include Rockets, Dancing and a Welcoming Community, Dancing in Zurich, A Festive Celebration for George Fogg, Youth Trad Song: A New Weekend, CDSS’s New Logo, Social Cohesion and Our Role In It, and more!

Facebook---news of the organization, your news, and whatever comes into our head.

E-news---past issues are on line too.

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CDSS membership makes a great gift for students, young families, new dancers, the musicians or organizers in your community…or yourself. Take advantage of our special holiday discount -- now through the end of the year, Gift Memberships (individual or family) are available at the incredibly low price of $20 each.

SPECIAL HOLIDAY OFFER—We’re also offering an amazing package deal: for $40 ($36 + shipping) you can purchase a Gift Membership PLUS Contra Dance Calendar, a savings of $49 off the regular combined price. This offer extends through December 31, 2012. Orders must be received by December 17 for delivery before Christmas. (For new or lapsed members only; not intended for current members.

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We have lots of lovely books, recordings, DVDs, t-shirts, bags, water bottles and more at our store. Drop by during business hours (Monday-Friday, 9-5) or shop online for excellent gifts for your friends or yourself.

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