barefoot dance, exeter

"you never know"

notes of meetings

• accounts for 2009

• 19th July 2007

• finances at 19/07/07

•  29th Mar 2007

• finances at 31/03/07

•  3rd Jan 2007

• our leaflet March 2007

• 31st July 2006

• accounts for 2006

Exeter Barefoot Dance Accounts for 2009

Balance over from 2008 = £160.27

Income

Door Takings             £3,925.40

Donations                £        10.10

Total                           £3,935.50

Outgoings

Hall fees                    £1,365.00

Teachers                   £1,898.00

Website                     £      40.00

Lights                         £     71.00

Total                           £3,374.00

Balance at the end of 2009 = £721.77

Karen Dudley (Treasurer) 14.01.10

Fourth Barefoot Dance Planning Meeting 19^th July 2007

 Present: Alex, Cathrin, Karen, Laurence, Lucie, Mark.

 Michelle has decided to temporarily step back from being involved in the planning group for now. Everyone felt sorry about this and grateful for everything she has given.

 Last Meeting

 Update on inviting teachers

Izzy – is not available on Wednesdays

Joanna – Lucie has emailed her but as yet has not had a reply

The group feels that there are enough teachers booked for the autumn term.

There are a number of people who may be interested in dancing without music – the group wants to respond to this if possible and Lucie will ring Joanna.

Bernadette – has been contacted and may come back with some dates in the future.

Kay – awaiting dates, possibly for the New Year given current bookings

The group felt there were sufficient teachers booked for the autumn so new bookings are now for the new year.

 Costs

Teacher led sessions are currently running at a loss, there was some discussion as to how much was reasonable to charge, £7 was agreed upon.

 Finances

Total in bank £191.26

 Bank

Further discussed process of opening a bank account, forms were completed.

 Welcome to the dance

Karen has put together a leaflet to welcome new people to the group, this was felt helpful and how to best present this information was discussed.

 Publicity

Discussion took place as to how best to publicise our autumn programme.

Mark offered to put a poster together to publicise the teacher led sessions, presented by Barefoot Dance.  Cathrin will investigate the possibility of advertising / writing a short piece in Breathing Space and Connect.  The group will meet again in September to put up posters and leave leaflets in public places.

 Hall

The church has decided to sell the hall, we are guaranteed our bookings until Christmas 2007.  An alternative venue will need to be explored in the coming months.  Some initial thoughts included dance space at Exeter College , the university, the Phoenix – implications of costs and storage space? 

Holding the space

Helena raised some issues about what this means and what we are asking of a person when they hold the space.  There was some discussion and a general desire to be aware and sensitive to each other’s different needs and to create and hold a thoughtful and caring space. 

 End of meeting

Third Barefoot Dance Planning Group  - 29^th March 2007

Present: Cathrin, Lucie, Michelle, Karen, Alex and Laurence

 3.1 Structure of evenings

We talked about the structure of the evenings.  After some discussion we decided to change the end slightly.  The music would always finish around 10pm (Wednesdays).  Then people could move and get warm stuff on and we would then sit in a circle have 3 or so minutes silence before the final bit of circle time.

As a reminder to us all and for new people who came along we need a list of ‘guidelines’ which people can read as they come in.  For example to let people know there’s no talking in the dance space.  Karen will do this …. Please e-mail suggestions to her.

3.2 Folder of contacts

Laurence has a folder with contact information for teachers.

3.3 Inviting Teachers

We all thought we would like teachers more often say every 3 weeks or so.  

Anyone from the planning group could invite a teacher.  The programme would be kept up to date on the web site.  As soon as anyone had been invited an e-mail should be sent to Laurence who would update the site.  Please remember to 'refresh your browser' in case you are storing old web pages if you are booking teachers.

Izzy had just contacted Karen and she would like to come and do a session. Karen to follow up.

We were aware of some people being interested in working without music – what about a session with a teacher which could lead to the development of a different group? Lucie to contact Joanna who was already trying to set something up in Exeter.

Other people to invite, 

Bernadette – Karen; 

Chris De Graal, Lorna and Ben – Laurence; 

Kay – Alex; 

Susanna or Yakov – Laurence; 

Dilys - Karen

We probably needed to think about autumn programme now.

3.4 Payment to Teachers

Generally the Barefoot Dance sessions subsidised the sessions where we invited teachers.  We agree that any one of the planning group was authorised to agree a maximum payment of £120 for any session and if more was requested this would need to be referred to the rest of the group.

3.5 Heart Space

Michelle is happy to continue to do the heart space at the moment.

3.6 Finances

Balance as at 1^st Jan 2007                     £82.75

Income 1^st Jan – 31^st March 2007

admission           £924.81

other                    £4

Expenditure 1^st Jan – 31^st March 2007

hall                     £412.50

cupboard           £20

bits                     £87

teachers           £200

Cash as at 31^st March 2007            £297.11

Karen proposed opening a Co-op bank account.  We all agreed.  Karen and Lucie to be signatories.

3.7 Decision making

We discussed how we made decisions especially when we sometimes had to do this by e-mail and this could be difficult. 

We agreed that when decisions are needed it is important to put a deadline on the time by which people have to reply, as some decision just do have to be made within a reasonable period of time.

We acknowledged it was sometimes hard to make a decision in isolation and the importance of meeting up sometimes.

3.8 Meeting in August

We agreed not to meet in the hall in August.

Michelle offered to hold space on the beach at Exmouth.

3.8 Insurance

Broker (Colin Hardy in Queen Street) said we didn’t need insurance for what we were doing, as any public liability issues would be covered by folk’s  contents insurance ……. Strangely!!!!

The Hall has public liability insurance.

We agreed we would like a second opinion about this and Karen would ask Robert from ‘Dance At’ what he did.

3.9 Kids Session

Adam had suggested this and several people were keen – It needed considerable discussion and a group of people to organise.  No one in the planning group wanted to take this on at this stage.

 Laurence to e-mail everyone to say it needs organising and ask for volunteers.

 3.10 Purchasing

 It was agreed we would spend up to £50 on new lighting for the hall.  Karen and Lucie to purchase.

 3.11 Setting Up and Putting Away

 We needed clear instructions on the music equipment to enable anyone to be able to set it up or put away.  Agreed we would invite other people to set up or put away. 

3.12 Overall

 We were really pleased with how it was going.  It had only been 3 months since we had taken on doing something every Wednesday and so far so good!

Second Barefoot Dance Planning Group

 Cathrin, Lucie, Michelle, Karen, Alex, Laurence met on the 3^rd January 2007

 2.1. What is Barefoot Dance?

 Essentially we agreed we were a peer group that was interested in dance. The planning group would try and reflect the views of the wider dance community who came along on a regular basis.

We thought it was important to have some focus and boundaries to what we were about.  We thought the following, which had already been circulated expressed it well:

 "We decided to call what we do barefoot dance.  There are no steps to learn it is very much about expressing yourself with movement. It is about being true to yourself and expressing what arises.  It is not about looking good or performing.  People will dance on their own or with each other.  No one speaks during the dance sessions.  I think of it as a moving meditation but everyone has their own ideas.  There is no instruction; you become your own teacher!  You do not have to do what everyone else is doing- it is most important to listen to yourself and your own body and do what is right for you.  People of all ages and all fitness levels are most welcome.  We have decided that the group is open to members only - though anyone can be a member!  We do want people to know what they are letting themselves in for and therefore wish to talk to people before they come along and explain what it's all about."

 We agreed we would invite ‘teachers’ if they can work within the terms of the group. 

 We agreed we would ideally like to have a core group of people who attended regularly and created a safe dance space, which others could join in with. We would continue with the first Sunday of each month and every Wednesday and see how many people attended each.  If Sundays were not well attended we would focus on the Wednesdays.

 2.2 The ‘structure’ of the evening.

We agreed the evening sessions would generally follow the following format:

45 mins. Warm up

15 mins circle

75 mins main music

5 mins silence

10 mins closing circle

 Anyone could volunteer to do the music.  We did not necessarily need to follow the wave format.  However, starting off slowly and finishing with at least 5 minutes silence was expected. People could offer to put together either the warm up or main music.  Anyone doing the music would get feedback from the group.

 Teachers would obviously have their own structure which may not follow the above.

 2.3 Holding the space

 The person holding the space might give an invitation to people to explore a particular theme or aspect. E.g. following up from a previous session, try and dance with everyone, build in pauses to the dance. We agreed it was essential to let the group know that an invitation to do anything is voluntary and this would be explicitly stated at the outset.

2.4 Inviting Teachers

 We agreed we needed to put together a folder of contacts.  Lots of info on web.  Laurence will co-ordinate.

We thought that we would invite teachers about once a month to begin with.

 We talked a lot about how much to charge for admission.  There were a lot of unknowns such as how many people would turn up and how much teachers would charge.  We agreed the following:

£4 – £6 peer group – People would decide for themselves how much they could afford.

£6 – teacher led – We expected these sessions would probably be subsidised by the peer group sessions.

 We did not want the cost of admission to prevent anyone from coming along so Laurence agreed to e-mail this message to everyone and invite people to contact him for concessions.

Teachers would be invited on a Wednesday only.

First: Karen to contact Izzy. Then E-mail the planning group with availability and price.

Second: Cathrin to contact Jo Hardy. Then as above

Third: Laurence to contact Lorna

Fourth: Alex to contact Kay.

 Michelle is happy to offer dance work on the beach in the summer.

2.5 The cupboard at St Matthews Hall/speakers

We agreed we did not want the speakers which Fiona was offering for sale.

Michelle to talk to Fiona about handing over the cupboard.

Alex agreed to drop speakers round to Fiona’s if she wished.

2.6 Heart Space/Focal Point

Michelle suggested that it would be good if there was a collective heart space/focal point to which everyone could bring offerings.

2.7 Money/Finances

Karen and Cathrin to take it on together.  As a general principle we agreed we wanted transparency with all financial dealings.

2.8 Insurance

Do we need this? (The hall comes with public liability insurance for any incidents connected to the building).  Alex will check out.

2.9 Sunday 7^th January

Live music for warm up and main music

Alex holding space

2.10 Wednesday 10^th January

Alex holding space

Cathrin warm up

Lucie main music

And that was about it….

Michelle, Karen and me (Laurence) met on the 31st July 2006 to discuss how to take the Sunday Dance Group forward.  We talked about the following:

 1.1) Why were we doing this? What was our motivation? 

We had all appreciated the experience of a peer dance group.  We felt that if there were teachers at the 5 Rhythms group every Wednesday evening there was less of a sense of community which we valued.  The more stability there was within the group the safer it felt and the freer we were to explore ourselves (be our own teacher as some of you have already said so very well in various e-mails).  We also acknowledged that it cost less if we were not paying a teacher.

 There was a feeling that in the past there was a group of people who got together on a Wednesday evening who invited in teachers from time to time but more recently it had changed so that it felt like the opposite.

 We discussed the importance of the group being 'held' in the absence of teachers or anyone else formally taking on this role.  Fiona had clearly done this for many years in the past and this had undoubtedly contributed to the success of the Wednesday evening group. 

 In the Sunday group we do have a role for someone to 'hold the space' but we're not very clear what this involves.  It is maybe inevitable that some people will take on more of the responsibility than others.  This can be formalised or at least recognised and various tasks shared around.  However, we also acknowledged this will require further exploration if an 'us' and 'them' is not to develop.

1.2) What did we want to do?

 We liked the current format.  We could not and did not want to offer 5 rhythms practice as this was why we have 5 rhythms teachers. We thought that meeting once a month, having recorded music, not talking during the dancing, having time to share was all important.  We like the wave format to be the main music but were not necessarily committed to that.  We said we would be open to live music now and again and the group had already made a commitment to something live possibly in December, however this would be exceptional.

 We did want to eventually advertise the group and therefore needed to develop a clear identity for ourselves.  We thought about names and decided that we would not include meditation or peer group in the title even though there were elements of these in our practice. We especially liked 'barefoot' and looking up 'barefoot boogie' on the internet we became aware of a huge community of people who were doing something similar across the world!  However it is not quite the same as what we are up to and although we were tempted by 'Exeter Barefoot Boogie' we have subsequently decided to go for 'Barefoot Dance'  or even 'Exeter Barefoot Dance' subject to your approval.

 These are all decisions for now.  It can all change as circumstances change.  The group could do a lot more if it wished - more sessions, different days, whatever .....

 1.3) Who can come?

 We thought it would be best if what we offered was for members only, however, anyone could become a member! ..... we would like to talk with people before they joined in and explain the set up so they understood what was going on.  We would collect some basic details such as name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, previous dance experience? - tho' none needed!  Membership would be free.  Anyone on the existing e-mail list would automatically be a member.  We would ask you for your contact details.

 Michelle agreed to be the contact person for potential members and make her telephone number available.  If new people turned up on the evening we would need to ensure they were properly welcomed and 'briefed'.  This would need to be a definite responsibility of someone, usually Michelle, though other people could also take this on.

 1.4) Practical Issues

 Karen was holding the collective kitty.  We have over £50 at present.  We agreed we would need some lights for our autumn sessions and Laurence agreed to purchase 7 suitable fittings.

 The sound equipment belongs to Laurence and Lucie and is designed for home use so has its limitations.  However we all thought it was ok for now and L and L were happy for it to be used by the group.  If anything should go wrong with the equipment some alternative arrangement would need to be made and there could be a cost associated with this.

 We wondered about insurance - do we need it at all?  Do we need to investigate this issue further?  Lucie, who joined us at this point, agreed to look into it. 

 As for September Michelle agreed to do the main music and hold the space, Laurence agreed to do the warm up.

 and that was it ..........

 we think this is a true enough record ... Love K, M & L x