In the 2 years, at the Montreal Convention, since being elected President I have been increasingly aware of the tremendous work that is being done across the country by the Provinces to promote our activity, however Clubs, Associations, Federations and the Society are seeing an annual 10% reduction in the number of their dancers and this, along with the poor North American economy, is affecting us in many ways, none more so than in the attendance at our National Conventions. We are seeing Halifax's numbers at the start of the 24 month timetable being the lowest of any previous convention and as yet we have no Association to host the 2012 Convention. London, meanwhile, have approximately two thirds of their present registrations coming from within Ontario, which is wonderful support and on the bright side there is every indication that London will achieve it's goal of 2000 dancers. Hopefully with London achieving it's numbers then support will increase for Halifax.

The Society, with it's Public Relations/Promotions, Website and Grants & Bursary programmes, is working with Associations and Federations to hopefully reverse the loss of our dancers and to encourage new ones in joining our activity.

Hopefully by the end of this convention we will have found a solution to the problem brought to us over the past few years by Ontario regarding bursary applications.

Respectfully submitted,

The CSRDS By-Laws are constantly under review.  At this time, there are no changes required to the By-Laws.

Respectfully submitted

Bonnie and Bill Taylor
By-laws and Regulation Committee.

Directors’ Manual Editor's Report

          The Terms of Reference for the Directors' Manual Editor were prepared. These are quoted here:

·          “Maintain a record of approved changes to the Society By-laws and other information contained in the Canadian Square and Round Dance Society Directors' Manual.

·          Accept and collate changes to the Directors' Manual.

·          Maintain a Master copy of the Directors' Manual in paper and digital format.

·          Distribute paper & electronic updates to the Directors’ Manuals.

·          Take steps to ensure the Manuals are passed from the outgoing to incoming Board members.”

           The Directors' Manual on the disk prepared by Secretary, Lorraine Kozera was used

to prepare updates for several sections of the Manual. These have been passed to the Board members. The main changes dealt with:

·          The History section;

·          The Secretary's Terms of Reference (TORs);

·          The Honours and Awards section;

·          The TORs of the Convention Coordinator;

·          The TORs of the Directors' Manual Editor;

·          The Special Donation, Memorial, & Endowment Fund section;

·          The TORs of the Historian; and

·          The Society's Privacy Policy.

          Directors' Manual changes shall be collected for distribution annually in January.

This will permit changes from the AGM to be processed in a timely manner. Urgent changes from Board meetings will be distributed upon approval.

            Bob Ruohoniemi

            Directors' Manual Editor

Web site Report, Annual Meeting, 2008

It has been a demanding year maintaining our website. I recommend NOT changing your email address as I needed to do. To have anything changed on a website CIRA (Canadian Internet Registration Authority has to be informed and the correct documents need to be submitted. These document require a passport photo, and in our case, all legal information since we are not an individual but a organization and must be witnessed by a few very select individuals. It has been completed but not before many emails and fax had been sent.

A few months before that, I changed the legal details so that each website has its own password rather than have it all run through the csrds password. This move makes it much easier for Provinces to change their web managers. We now receive a once a year bill for all websites instead of two or more each month. I have sent all of this information to our Secretary Lorraine Kozera so that we have a back up if needed.

I have found it necessary to turn over more pages to my very talented assistants, Glenda Harris and Frank McNeil and will continue to do that.

As a result of two educational seminars that I attended recently, I quickly realized that our website could be more of a Publicity & Promotion tool than I first thought. I will be discussing this with fellow Society Board Directors in upcoming months with the intent of deciding and confirming the direction we want to go with the huge explosion of social communication on the web.

Respectively Submitted,

Marion Knight, Webmaster

The Basic Convention Letter of Agreement and the Convention Guidelines are in the process of being rewritten to incorporate several recent amendments and updates. The completed documents will than be presented to the Society Board for review and approval.

Norman Demeule - CSRDS Convention Coordinator 

HONOURS & AWARDS   COMMITTEE REPORT

During the past year, the activity of the H & A Committee consisted of the following.

Award of Excellence awards presented:

Maureen & Gary Geldart, Pierrefonds, QC

Les Greenwood, Park Hill, ON

Lorraine & John Kozera, Oak Bank, MB  

Marvis & Thor Sigurdson, Winnipeg, MB.

Mary Anne & Nick Turner, Williams Lake, BC

Long Service Award:

Freda & Lelland Paul, MacDowall, SK

Following a suggestion by Marguerite Jordan, it was decided to present those members of the dance community that have attended all past and present Canadian Conventions with a special certificate and long service award medallion.

Receiving this award are:

Dot & Ron Connell, Dartmouth, NS                         Shirley MacLean, Kitchener, ON

Mac Marcellus, Vineland, ON                                Joan & Ralph Pitt, Chesley. ON

May Greenough, Edmonton, AB                            Hope Pennock, Edmonton, AB

Olive & Allan Zwierschke. Holden, AB                

Hazel & Jim Clark. New Westminster, BC

If you are aware of others that should receive this award, please advise your Provincial Director.

The H & A Committee wish to thank all those that have taken the time and effort

To complete and submit the nomination papers, for the above recipients 

Gary Geldart, Chairman

Maureen Geldart, Edythe & Wendell Brown,

Members H & A Committee         
18 July 2008

                                                                            Historian's Report

            The Historian has submitted an update to the Directors' Manual list of Society Presidents, Annual General Meetings, & Board meetings, as submitted by the Treasurer, Roy Church, last year. The listing of Board members from 1991 to the present will be submitted later.

           The Terms of Reference for the Historian have been prepared and added to the Directors'

Manual. These are quoted here:

·“Collect and submit updates to: the list of - Presidents, Annual General Meetings, Board Meetings, and Board members for inclusion in the Directors' Manual.

·Prepare summaries of the annual activities of the Society for inclusion in the History section of the Director's Manual.

·Collect and store Society memorabilia as it becomes available.

·Perform other duties related to the history of the Society as necessary.”

          Future plans for the Historian are to update the History section of the Directors' Manual

and begin collecting Society memorabilia as it becomes available.           

            Inge Ruohoniemi

            Historian

SPECIAL DONATIONS, ENDOWMENT FUND REPORT  

The Fund balance is $240.00, which has remained constant for quite some time.  

The Fund was set up to enable Dancers, Callers and Leaders and others to make

contributions in order to increase and supplement Society Bursaries funding, also to

assist in Society Promotion and Public Relations, and other Specified projects. 

Contributions can be made as a gift in recognition of the enjoyment Dancers and others

have received from the activity, or as donations in memory of others. Special donations

for selected and designated purposes are allowed and graciously accepted.  

Any suggestions or comments to improve the recruitment of contributions and making

the Fund more appealing would be greatly appreciated. 

A complete and more detailed description of the Fund can be found at the

CSRDS website:   www.csrds.ca     “Spec. Fund Donations”

Submitted by Loretta Demeule

Communications Report 

Toll Free Number 1-866-206-6696

Toll Free Line Costs

July 2007 to June 2008

                          

July 2007                  $10.47

August 2007              $7.19

September 2007         $6.48

October 2007             $5.36

November 2007          $5.62

December 2007          $8.76

January 2008              $4.97

February 2008             $8.63

March 2008                 $8.45

April 2008                    $5.50

May 2008                    $5.36

June 2008                   $8.83

Total                           $85.62

Calls by Province up to July 07 to June 08

Alberta 2

B.C. 6

SK 5

Manitoba 2

QC 9

NB 5

NS 1

USA 24

ON 64

Total 118

 27 of the calls asked for Convention information.

Through the month of June I have notes on 27 calls that I dealt with that did not get added to the numbers above.

While answering the toll free line, I looked at the job as being a clearing house, sending calls on to each Province as needed. In most cases they were sent on to the person I perceived as being most able to provide the correct answer if I could not.  Each Provincial web site played a large roll in providing answers. You are to be congratulated on the good job your web masters are doing for you.

Our toll free number 1 866 206 6696 is a very cost effective Publicity & Promotional tool

Marion Knight

Thanks to the Canadian Square & Round Dance Society, as your Director, charged with promoting square dancing in Canada I have been given the opportunity to receive some training from experts in the field. This does not make me an expert but it certainly opened new doors for us. I have monitored two teleconference that will add greatly to our repertoire of methods to promote square dancing. Our dedicated-to-publicity B.C. member of the P.R. Committee, Brian Elmer joined me in the first conference and together we will be sharing this information with you over the upcoming months. We heard the thoughts of representatives of Dove Soap, Ford Motor Company and many others both large and small on implementing and using social media and web sites to promote dancing.

Over the last 6 years we have developed a PSA (Public Service Announcements) that will again be running during July through to October on Shaw, Rogers, Cogeco and Eastlink Cable Stations. You will see this commercial while watching specialty channels A&E, CNN, CNN Headline .News, TLC, WTBS, The Super Station, CNBC, SpikeTV, The Golf Channel and Speed. These signals originate in the U.S. and every hour, two minutes are made available for U.S. cable casters to insert Canadian commercial content. Shaw Cable covers all of the western provinces into Northern Ontario. Rogers covers Newfoundland, some of the Maritime Provinces and Ontario. Cogeco covers a large area in Ontario that runs along Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Eastlink covers most of the areas in NB, NS, and PEI. These ads are run thousands of time throughout the 24 hours in a day. I happened to be watching the Atlanta Braves baseball game on WTBS and up popped our ad.

Advertising in high end glossy magazines is beyond our means in most cases except for the Seniors Magazine Called Carp or 50 Plus. We have inserted an ad into this magazine for about 4 years. We encourage Associations and square dance clubs to seek out low cost or no cost print potential in their areas. We feel it is important to place square dancing as a healthy and mentally stimulating form of exercise in the minds of the public in all forms of communication.

Our toll free number 1 866 206 6696 was developed by John Sellers in 2004.It has proven to be one of the best communication tools that we have. The number of calls received on that line has grown each year as more clubs make sure that the toll free number is placed on every piece of paper generated by their clubs. This past month, the number of calls has been incredible – to the point where I have lost track of the numbers. The toll free number is now available to both U.S. and Canadians dancers.

I would be remiss if I did not mention and congratulate Nick & Mary Anne Turner  on the work that was done developing and promoting  Moving & Grooving. A dance program for Schools and Community Groups. The Society P.R. group was not involved with this but we are happy to support and promote this unique and very useful piece of PR promoting square dancing. For more information on this program go to  www.squaredance.bc.ca .

“Dancing Keeps You Young” is 11-12 minute introduction on DVD to the joys of square dancing. It was a joint effort by B.C. and the Canadian Society and produced by Lloyd Juhala of B.C. Included is a suggested list of uses.  Every Province, Association and club has the opportunity to use this DVD as it is intended; to reproduce and give it away to potential dancers. This can be viewed on www.squaredance.bc.ca   or on www.squaredance.ca, New Dancer Info page, then click on link. For more information on how to use this product send an email to info@squaredance.ca or contact our toll free number 1 866 206 6696.

   Membership Report

CSRDS MEMBERSHIP STATISTICS 1994-2006