From the Editor’s Desk

Welcome to the ABA news, communicating with and supporting the member clubs of the American Bop Association. This newsletter is your forum for discussing ABA events, activities, policies, business, the how and why we did that, and just plain old fashioned “pass the word” concerning the ABA and your club.

Helping me as Assistant Editor with this newsletter is Mary Lou Poremba, from the Chicago Jitterbug Club. I want to thank her for all of the great help. We both hope you will find the ABA news enjoyable, meaningful, and helpful.

Format

The newsletter is available in several different formats to allow you to read it in the manner you’re most confortable. To help with the variation of computer displays, you will notice on each HTML page. Clicking on one of the A’s will change the size of the main text.

The ABA news is available in a hardcopy or paper version, PDF for use with Adobe Reader© (Acrobat), as an HTML package, and it is viewable on your American Bop Association web site. When you print ABA news from the web, some of the display items go away and the text is black. This gives you a to give you a cleaner page to read.

I am aware there are some formatting issues with the PDF version and printing. I hope to have them resolved by the next issue. However if you encounter a problem with viewing ABA news, please email me and tell me about the problem.

Topic of the Quarter

Often, whenever ABA directors gather we often discuss various topic related to our club’s activities. We talk about what we did or did not do, and sometimes the unexpected results, like a dance floor joyfully moving across the hotel's rug and pushing against the wall of the ballroom during a well-known weekend event. Sometimes the efforts we put forth work while other times the efforts were less than satisfactory. I’ve heard these stories retold a number of times, so they must be important to us as part of our shared dance history.

I would like to introduce a new feature. I plan to take one topic for each newsletter and ask each of you to provide me with some information. It could be in the form of a complete article or maybe just bits of information.

I know that some clubs are reluctant to talk about not so successful endeavors; however, learning from these situations is just as important as the successful one, especially if we know why. We are all part of ABA, and this is an opportunity to help each other. In addition, this information could be become a part of our web site and eventually evolve into a reference tool for our clubs.

To start this off, the first topic explored in this edition of ABA news is “How have you promoted your club”. I think you will find the article interesting.

For the August issue of ABA news, I would like to explore the topic “What is your club’s philosophy about dance lessons and how do you handle them?”. Directors, some ideas of what to discuss include:

So, get your thought together and your pencils moving

Thank-you in advance for your assistance.

Changes

Since I do not have all of the flyers, I did not included the event flyers for the parties in this newsletter. I have also come to question the need to include them. I think historically including flyers with the newsletter made sense, especially since a paper copy was then mailed to each club. However, now it appears that most clubs send flyers to all of the clubs or provide them at our January Directors’ meeting. They are also available on the ABA web site and the club's web sites. Including flyers is a costly item for ABA and appears to be a duplication of effort. If you disagree with this change, please let me know.

Last Words

Mary Lou and I hope you enjoy this ABA news and that you will help support its continued publication.

Thank-you, Jim