Agenda Items:
- Tuesday night demo/teaching @ International Dance
- May Day morning - who is available?
- May Day weekend w’ Hicks with Sticks - who’s interested/available?
- Dog Days Ale (July 24-26) - who’s interested/available?
- Bucknell Workshop details — who will be in charge of a) Saturday breakfast, b) Saturday lunch, c) Saturday dinner, and d) Sunday brunch; e) who can put people up?
Decisions that were made:
Re: #1:Yes: Karin and Tory; Maybe: Barbara; If-necessary: Dorolyn; No: Tom
Re: #2: I failed to write stuff down. :-/
Re #3: Yes: Karin, Tom; Intrigued: Tory
Re #4: Yes: Tory, Karin, Tom, Lina; Maybe: Dorolyn; Probably not: Barbara
Re: #5a: Tom will take care of everything.
Re: #5b: Tory is organizing, will be soliciting potluck items.
Re: #5c: Karin is organizing - already set up to go to the Church Brew Works at 5 PM (or earlier).
Re: #5d: Karin is organizing, will be soliciting potluck items.
Re: #5e: Many responses received via email. We could still use a non-pet household (do we have any?!) for a single male. Otherwise I think we are fine, but if anyone else wants to step forward please shout out.
We just had a quick after-practice meeting last week. Here are the things that were decided:
- Karin made a prototype arm ribbon, which was approved with minor modifications (remove lighter yellow ribbon). It was decided to use the same rosette on the bell pads (with shorter ribbons), using just one per bell pad (on the outside of the leg). Karin will take care of purchasing the ribbon for the team, probably via mail order.
- Kit was distributed to all who needed it for Saturday’s demo at the Scottish dance. (Good job everyone, by the way!
)
- We discussed who could do a demo at the English Country dance on Feb. 14th. People available are:
- Tory
- Susan
- Dorolyn
- Karin
- Allison
- We discussed who could do a demo at the contra dance on either Feb. 6th or Feb. 14th. The 6th turned out to be the only one of the two that we had critical mass for, so there you go. We have made contact with the caller and gotten the go-ahead to do the dance at the break. Cool beans. People who said they are available are:
- Tory
- Jim L
- Karin
- Kay
- Allison (if we absolutely need her)
- That’s all for now, folks!
Last week we had a kit discussion meeting at Karin, Tom and Lina’s house in Regent Square to discuss what our kit should be like.
We came to consensus on the following items:
- Black pants (jeans or dress trousers)
- Long-sleeved button down shirt (men’s dress shirt style)
- Black shoes (sneaker-type)
- Vest, not baldricks (more on this later)
- Rag coat worn over vest (or with vest removed) for Border dances
- Small three-dimensional rosettes with long(ish) ribbons for flashers
- Another rosette with long(er) ribbons placed high up on back of vest (centered)
- A color “theme” of Smoke and Fire was agreed upon (more on this later)
Details of vest discussion:
Some points of consensus:
- Colors: Dark grey is preferred, with a possibility of red as an alternate choice. Yellow was rejected out of hand as looking yucky on a lot of people.
- A looser fitting vest is preferred over a form-fitting vest — basically, it should look good on both men and women. Also, it was commented that a somewhat longer vest is good — keeps the dancer’s shirts from “pooking out.”
- A suggestion was made to buy the vests rather than make them. This was agreed upon as a possibility, depending on materials/sizes available/color match/price and, most importantly, perceived future availability.
Some points left to be still decided:
- Make vs. Buy: someone needs to research these alternatives, and possibly even obtain/make a prototype.
Details about colors:
As I said, we are going with a “theme” of Fire and Smoke (or was it Smoke and Fire? - doesn’t matter). Thus, our colors will be: dark grey, red, yellow, and possibly (dark) orange as an accent color. Exact colors TBD based on prototype, which Karin is working up this week.
These will also be the colors for our rag coats, with a strong emphasis on the brighter colors (yellow, orange, and red), with grey or black as accent colors.
Details needing to be decided:
- Exactly what the vest will look like.
- Rag coat - need prototype
- Ribbons for back and arms - need prototype
- Bell pads - naked or covered with ribbons? One proposal was naked, with a rosette on either side of the bell pad. A prototype of this would be helpful in making the decision, as well.
- Sock color - a proposal was made for red socks as an official kit, but no decision was reached.
- Hat or no hat? So far the consensus seems to be “hat optional, at least while we’re dancing,” due to the fact that certain members of the team find it impossible to keep hats ON.
So, that’s where we are, so far! Not bad for a start.
Minutes for after-practice meeting:
We decided to do a demo dance at the Scottish dance next week (Jan 31st), and a demo dance at the English Country dance on Feb. 14th.
Dancers available for Jan 31st:
If memory serves, the following dancers (and musician) said they could be there:
- Karin
- Doralyn
- Kay
- Tory
- Allison
Also possibly available:
For this demo, we are planning on wearing:
- Black pants
- White shirts
- Some kind of bells (whatever you have - bells will be loaned to those without their own pair)
- Some kind of arm ribbons (see above)
- Sneakers and socks of any color
Hopefully by the next demo we will have something more approaching “real kit” to wear!
We’ve decided to do Ockington for the demo.
Dancers (and musician) available for the 14th:
- Allison
- Doralyn
- Karin
- ?
- ?
I need to get commitments from people from this next week, and write them down. lol
Also, we need to find out who is available to do a demo at a contra dance on either Feb. 6th or 13th (note: also need to get permission from the contra dance people to do a demo)
Now that we have a name for the team, it’s time to come up with a kit!
Please fill out this survey and let us know if you are interested in being a part of this discussion, and if so, when are good times for you to meet. I’d like to do it next weekend, if possible, since Jim and Tom will both be down then.
A quick recap of the meeting we had after practice yesterday, for those who weren’t there:
Brief after-practice meeting:
As you can see in my post just before this one, we decided on a name for the team — Whiskey Rebellion! Discussion was heated but amicable.
After that, Tory, Barbara and Karin retired to Karin’s house for pizza and beer, and a discussion of the Bucknell workshop.
Information:
Report from Tory: The WSCC has our usual room available for Feb 21st, but not the larger room. This could work, but would be tight. The kitchen is available for an extra $5, so we could heat up food there if we wanted to. No alcohol is allowed.
Decisions:
Karin will look into Miflin Methodist Church and the Environmental School as possible alternatives for a location for the workshop.
Lunch will be held at someone’s house, thus negating the need for a kitchen (and allowing us to serve beer).
We’re looking at the following schedule for the workshop:
- 9:30 - 10:00: Coffee and registration.
- 10:00 - 12:00: Workshop
- 12:00 - 2:00: Lunch
- 2:00 - 4:00: Workshop
- 5:00: Dinner?
We didn’t talk about Sunday, but I believe we are tentatively planning a potluck brunch at Karin’s house.
Things we need to know from the team, especially the Scottish contingent:
1. Who is planning/able to have dinner with Ann Arbor after the workshop? What are your constraints, time-wise and location-wise?
2. Who is available to do demo dances at:
- Scottish dance: either Jan. 31st, Feb. 7th or Feb. 14th (to be determined in discussion with the Scottish dancers). Note: Jan 31st would probably be the best date for us to do the Scottish dance, given the the English Country dance is on the 14th, and there is some (other) event on the 7th which is likely to make attendance light.
- English Country dance: Feb. 14th (provisional on approval from the organizers)
- Contra dance: Feb. 6th or Feb. 13th (provisional on approval from the organizers)
3. Who can put people from Ann Arbor up? If you can, please let us know how many people can you host (and whether they should be couples or singles or what have you).
We’ve finally decided on a name for the new morris team!
Everyone give a huge hoot and a holler for ……..
Whiskey Rebellion!!
Go to SurveyMonkey and voice your opinions on our proposed team names!
(Votes made by non-members will not affect the outcome but may be cast the purposes of the non-members freedom of expression)
Here is the list of potential team names that we came up with at Saturday’s organizational meeting (plus one kick-ass one I came up with out of the blue this morning):
- Panther Hollow Morris
- Iron City Morris
- Three Rivers Morris
- Squirrel Hill Morris
- Monongahela Morris
and my addition:
- Ironwood Morris (surprisingly, not taken!)
Obviously, some of these names will be familiar to those Pittsburgh morris veterans among us! 
Hey, they’re good names, so why not reuse them!
Anyway, here’s what we are going to do:
You have until Thursday, January 11th to add new candidates for a team name, either by leaving it as a comment here, or by emailing it to Karin.
On Friday Karin will create a Survey Monkey survey that will allow people to rank the various suggestions on a 5 pt. Likert scale. Hopefully, the results of that survey will then make it clear what our new name should be! If not … we’ll come up with some other mechanism.
After our first practice we retired to Tom and Karin’s house for beer, pizza, and another organizational meeting.
Topics up for discussion: recap of the first organizational meeting for those who weren’t there, possible May Day sites, whether the practice time/space is good, scheduling a Bucknell workshop, who should be bag, names for the team, kit ideas.
Decisions that were made:
- We decided to practice every Saturday from now on, provided we have critical mass (at least 4 dancers). If people are going to be unable to make it, they should email Karin as soon as they know.
- The practice time and space were declared to be good, at least for the time being. We may revisit the issue in the spring/summer.
- We decided to try and schedule the Bucknell workshop for Saturday, January 24th, if we can get people down from Ann Arbor on such short notice. We’ll keep people updated as soon as we know one way or the other. If the workshop doesn’t happen that day we will practice as usual.
Decisions that were not made:
- Who will be bag. It was observed that Jim Logan was looking like a bag (or at least a hat) and he didn’t run screaming, but no official dragooning appointment of bag was made.
- What to name the team. Various suggestions (some more serious than others) were made, but no decision has been reached.
- Kit. It was decided to table the question of kit until we decide on a name, since that might have an impact/influence on the kit.
- May Day sites. Some various suggestions were made, which will need to be researched. The Point has been researched, and has been rejected (at least for May Day morn) for various reasons, the most pressing of which is the fact that the sun will be behind the buildings at sunrise (doh!). Flagstaff Hill in Schenley Park was proposed with much favor, pending research.
Things that people volunteered to do:
- Tory volunteered to contact the Ann Arbor folks to try and get a Bucknell workshop scheduled for Jan. 24th.
- Tory volunteered to contact the Wilkins School and tell them we want the room again next week.
- Karin volunteered to write up minutes and send them out. (Consider this the minutes kthx)
- Karin volunteered to send out an email listing the proposed choices for a team name, and soliciting additional suggestions.
- Karin volunteered to set up a Survey Monkey survey so that we could rank the proposed names, once people have had a chance to respond.
Things that someone needs to do:
- Contact the Wilkins School about getting a room for all day on the 24th for the workshop (provided we can get the Ann Arbor folks to come then). Possibly Tory was going to do this? - I’m not sure.
- Research whether or not Flagstaff Hill would be a good May Day site or not. I’ll probably do this, at least in a preliminary fashion, sometime this week. If someone wanted to join me, that would be cool, anyone who is in the CMU/Pitt area and has a spare hour or so during the day to go for a walk in the park.
See you all next week at practice! 2-4 PM on Saturday, at the Wilkins School. Be there!
We had our first organizational meeting Saturday, November 15th. We met at Karin and Tom’s house in Regent Square for a pancake and ice cream brunch (yum!). In attendance were: Barbara, Tory, Karin, Tom, and Jim Morgan.
Items up for discussion: when to practice, where to practice, what traditions to do, names for the team, kit, who should be fore(s), squire, bag, etc., possible May Day dance sites.
Decisions that were made:
- After a discussion of what traditions people who were at the meeting had done, a decision was made to dance: Border (in the style of the Bassett Street Hounds) and Bucknell
- Fore(s) are: Karin (Border) and Tory (Bucknell)
- Squire is: Karin (how did this happen?? :P)
Actions that were volunteered to be undertaken by various members:
- Karin, Jim and Tory volunteered to look into various practice spaces — Karin was going to look into CMU and possibly Mifflin Church, Tory was going to look into the Wilkins School, and Jim was going to look into the Friends meetinghouse.
- Karin volunteered to email all the people who weren’t able to be at the meeting and let them know what happened at the meeting (This didn’t happen, sorry. This blog post shall suffice to bring everyone up to speed.)
- Karin volunteered to make a “When is Good” page to find out the best times for people to meet for practices. (Saturday afternoons turned out to be good for just about everyone, and one of the only times that was good for certain people, so we decided to go with that.)
- Tory volunteered to look into when we could schedule a Bucknell workshop to help us get started with that tradition.
Other things on the agenda were discussed in a somewhat random and haphazard fashion, but no decisions were made.
