July 22nd and 23rd Balboa Clinic with Cami Asher from San Diego
Every quarter we have a technique clinic. For July it was all about Balboa. This blog post describes the finances that made that event happen.
Below will be a graph. What I want to communicate with this is that running these events is expensive and barely anyone involved 'wins'.
The most successful parties are obviously the instructors. And their rates are obviously, deserved. They put in the work to plan their classes, they take time out of their lives. And are obviously laboring fairly intensely for our benefit.
I ended up with slightly over $190. Which is just barely enough to rent the Z room again for the same amount of time for another clinic. How many times can the same group of people shell out $60? I think what I want these posts to communicate is that this model IS unsustainable off of goodwill and a good product. The community has limited funds for this niche, luxury hobby.
And while of course, I could hide a secret personal cut of my own in this freely published financial graph, I'm not doing that. I'm not taking a cut of the money. I didn't teach and all those instructor related-expences you see went to the instructors and nowhere else. So, this isn't a profitable business. I didn't profit at all. I was barely able to make enough to reinvest for future events.
How will things change for future events?
Not totally sure yet. But, I have a few ideas.
We need outside support. Since this business is a non-profit co-operative. The current organizers are not taking a salary or any profits. Any "profit" goes back into the business. So, we need donations and we need more managing members who are willing to put in some money to share the load of organizing, we also need more dues-paying club members. Which will help to make having more consistent events and classes sustainable. Where we have bigger events non-club members will help to offset the increased cost of operation.
There is hope for the future of community-building organizations
Getting the details right on this organization is tough. Doing it alone and with little funding is even more difficult. With more help from the community the easier it'll be able to get our non-profit status and therefore donations which will be I think the greatest contributor towards a more sustainable future for this organization.
Soooo, become a dues-paying member and come to all of our stuff. We have a good product here. Refer your friends and together through Lindy Hop and good music, we can change our small worlds.