Our DanceSport Athletes: An Open Letter
Part of running an educational non-profit like USA Dance is knowing who your supporters are. For several years, our chapter has had a shortage of volunteers to handle member contacts. We’re trying to change that this year, and as part of the effort, all of the Board members have been provided with the membership roster. We’ll each be trying to get in touch with some of our members to find out what matters most to YOU – and how YOU might be able to contribute!
As chair of the DanceSport and Showcase Committees, I made it my business to identify the competitors among us. I was astounded and delighted to find that roughly a quarter – yep, 25% – of our current members are DanceSport Athletes: 163 of you in all, 75 minors and 88 adult or collegiate athletes.
THIS IS AMAZING AND WONDERFUL!
I would love to hear from any or all of you. Are you pro-am competitors, working with professional partners in NDCA competitions? Do you have amateur partners? If you have an amateur partner, is your partner a member of our chapter or of another? Where have you competed so far? Where do you plan to compete next? What style(s) do you compete in? And – of course – when can you come to do a spotlight dance for us?
I plan to contact some of our competitive members directly – particularly two of our amateur couples who competed at the Phoenix National Qualifying Event: Richard & Iris Chiang, and Anthony & Marina Sanchez-Torres. I want to start doing more to bring our DanceSport Athlete members onto the chapter stage.
I also want to find out whether our DanceSport Athlete members can help me start developing a program for a chapter competition.
Los Angeles will again be the site of the 2013 USA Dance National Championships. Our chapter contributed quite a lot to the 2010 Nationals, and I believe that we will be in a position to do even more in 2013. One thing I personally would love to do is host our chapter’s first competition in the months leading up to 2013 Nationals.
So let me know if that is something YOU would like to see happen!
Questions or comments? Contact me through my website or at dancesport (at) usadancela.org.
