It is truly an honor to be asked to write articles for the Southwest District.

We have so many friends among the Southwest District Square Dancers.

This month let’s talk about the relationship between the callers and the clubs.

What are the responsibilities of the caller, toward the club, and what are the responsibilities of the club, toward the caller.
These are only my opinion and not of any-one else. In my opinion the responsibilities of the callers and the clubs are not that much different whether you have a club caller or you use a guest caller. Either caller should be told what the club expects of him in terms of the type of dance they will be having when he or she calls each dance. All callers, club caller or guest caller, should be considered as being employed by the club. He or she should plan each dance in accordance to what the club wants them to do. If he or she can not feel comfortable doing the dance as he or she are re-quested to do when they are contracted then maybe he or she should not enter a contract with that club. It is up to the club to decide what type of dance they want. After all it is the club that pays the caller’s to call for them. If he or she doesn’t call what they feel comfortable with they should reconsider hiring him or her to call. Also club callers should do everything they can to support the club when they need him or her to call at other functions that will help increase the membership to the club. If the club does not survive because he or she would not support them without being paid then he may wind up with no club to call to.

The responsibility of the club toward the caller is to keep him or her informed as to what they want from him such as theme dances, lessons, and types of tips at each dance. If he or she is a club caller, they should have him at their meetings for input of up upcoming events. At the meetings both the club and the caller should listen to each other to use the ideas that will help the club grow. The club square dancers should be in charge at all times and they should be able to listen to what the caller would have to offer. Both the clubs and the callers should not be demanding from each other as much as be able to find middle ground where both sides feel they are accomplishing something.
Again I have gotten on a soapbox and probably should not have
Sincerely,