Editor’s Page

Welcome to the Fall, 2024, issue of the Promenader, a quarterly publication of the Western NY Federation of Square and Round Dancers, Inc (WNYF).

In this issue

Fall is the season that generally feels like the “start” of the dancing year. We relive the summer through photos of our summer activities and we look forward to regrouping with our friends and meeting new friends at Open House dances and classes.

Articles in this issue include a historical note on the status of square dancing as the official American Folk Dance, along with state and local proclamations designating September as Square Dance Month.

Photo articles feature summer promotional activities such as the Greece Historical Society’s Strawberry and Desserts Fundraiser and promotional displays at the Penfield and Parma public libraries.

Please don’t miss the article on our upcoming promotional demo at Innovation Square in downtown Rochester set for Sunday, September 8.

We also cover numerous special dances hosted by our member clubs. These include the annual Elaine Eno memorial benefit dance by the Shirts N Skirts, the Cayuga Cut-Ups annual Anniversary Steak Roast (63 years and counting!), the WNYF Summer Dance and the Batavia Silver Stars August Name Tag Dance.

When your club hosts interesting dances or special events, be sure to take photos and send them to us with a brief description of the event. Sharing these in the Promenader and on the Facebook page will help new dancers see how much fun it would be to come to your dances.

Awards

The summer of 2024 saw multiple award presentations. The Circle of Service award was presented to Lucy Pietrzykowski at the WNYF summer dance on June 21, and to Missy Frendak, Polly Losito & Norm Courtemanche, Kay & Andy Anderson at the Cayuga Cut-Ups Steak Roast on August 18.

Club News

The Club News section contains descriptions and news from each of our member clubs.

Federation Website

Fresh Promenader Photo/Feature articles and Club News reports are posted every three months (March1, June 1, September 1 and December 1), with the submission deadlines set at one month before the publication dates. In addition, webmaster Sidney Marshall maintains the Calendar/Flyer database continually, posting flyers and updating changes to the schedule listings as soon as he can after he receives them. So, there’s no deadline for schedule information. For fastest service, he recommends sending flyers (in PDF form) and schedule change notices (as .doc/.docx attachment files) to him directly (sidneym@frontiernet.net), with a copy to the Promenader (promenader@rochester.rr.com). In addition, for maximum distribution of urgent messages, clubs should send Sidney the text for any “Breaking News” to go on the WNYF home page (squaredancingrochester.org). And clubs should also consider posting their news on the “SquareDancingRochester” group Facebook page.

In Memoriam

This issue includes the obituaries of Russ Uhrenholdt, Karen Bigenwald and Don Oestreich.

Editorial Comments

Last quarter, I encouraged dancers to volunteer to fill one of the many roles that “dancing” depends on for sustainability. Yes, dancers will always find a way to put on dances, so yes, they can probably get by without your help, but if you pitch in *everyone* will feel better—including you! Please present yourself to those who are most active in organizing your club and offer them your services.

This quarter, I would like to talk about working with volunteers. In my role as editor, I interface at least every three months with every club reporter, a group of section editors and proofreaders and with the WNYF leadership and the WNYF webmaster. All of these people, including me, are volunteers. None of us have quite the same set of skills or the same amount of available time or the same levels of patience, and the clubs we represent all have different levels of organization and do their planning on different timescales. And yet, we consistently get a complex set of documents, lists and images collated, proof-read, and posted every three months without meetings and without friction. Most clubs and the WNY Federation itself have similar situations—i.e. multiple volunteer officers and operational volunteers organizing schedules, venues, callers/cuers, finances and promotions, etc. How does all this happen?

The key is to understand two things. The first is the simplest: Always keep our shared goal in mind—that we are all here to share the workload of doing what it takes to keep dancing with our friends.

The second is more complicated but equally important: We and each of our fellow volunteers are here of their own free will and that they value at least as highly as we do the result of our joint efforts—the dancing, the socializing, the teamwork, the feeling of a “job well done” in producing whatever result we are after.

Like you, the others value the results highly enough to absorb the various expected and unexpected inconveniences that their role entails. When problems arise, they trust one another (including you) to be open about them and to take a calm problem-solving approach rather than a finger-pointing one. We volunteers each have our own strengths, limitations and style, and we owe it to ourselves and to one another to value and foster the “team dynamics” that make things work.

There might be a third thing to keep in mind: None of us can do all of this alone. We need to spread the load and to keep things fresh, but consistent, and to give everyone a sense of belonging in the group, whether it’s a working group, a club or the Federation.

How are we doing? Well, in my opinion pretty well. I’ve been a volunteer at all levels in Rochester square dancing, beginning in 1993, and especially over the past ten years I have seen a remarkable level of teamwork, coordination and positivity throughout our Federation and our clubs. Keep up the good work!

Quarterly Chuckle

Two eggs and a bagel walk into a bar.

“Bartender, my friends and I would each like a cold one.”

“Sorry,” the barman replies. “We don’t serve breakfast.”

Peter Emmel, Editor