Weekender booking practice

[stewart38]

Well this looks the fairest system I've seen

Of course many ladies on this forum who want 50/50 at all cost and know whats going on a year in advance wont agree

Clearly as we are there to dance the leader/follower ratio has to be right . Only problem ,if some leaders (women) became mainly 'followers' at the event

Re produced in full

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Ballot Result on Gender Balance Control



The ballot was closed on the evening of Friday 17th March 2006 at 18.00 hours. With the following result:

1. For Gender Balance Control, 245 valid votes.

2. Against Gender Balance Control, 249 valid votes.

The four vote difference are not enough for me to declare a clear winner and close the book on this issue, given that on the basis of this narrow margin the result could have swung either way. Many people, voting For Control, also commented that they would prefer to see a larger proportion of tickets allocated to women than men. Proportions such as 40/60 and 4% to 10% in favour of extra ladies were submitted. These suggestions raise the question of what legal ramifications there could be given that I have been already notified (in writing) by the Equal Opportunity Commission (set up under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) that indirect claims of sex discrimination may be brought if the claimant/s could prove that the 50/50 allocation of tickets would adversely affect more women than men (or vice versa) once the half allocated to either gender is sold. As such, I must consider that any adverse claim might be strengthened by the very fact that it is already public knowledge that more women than men are generally in attendance at any given modern jive event of any denomination.
Therefore, given the size of these events, there is a potential for a very large number of claims arising from a Gender Balanced Controlled booking procedure.

However, because of the very large number of people voting For the motion, I have to recognise that there is a clear need of change in direction and in so doing I neither can ignore those who voted Against the motion. In view of this, we have decided to opt for a new kind of Booking Control, by introducing the following procedure:




Leaders and Followers Balanced Controlled Booking Policy - DRAFT



A. Leaders and Followers

It would be discriminatory to say that only men can lead and only women can follow, in fact, in any given dance venue it is possible to observe women leading and men following.
However, for Modern Jive partner dance, the Leader will be expected to lead and the Follower to follow, irrespective of their gender. These roles are well defined and become apparent during workshops and freestyle, when the role of a Leader is one of leading his/her dance partner, whose role will be one of following his/her dance partner.

B. Ticket Apportionment

An equal number of tickets for Leaders and Followers will be made available at the onset. However, these will be sold in batches such that neither the Leader nor the Follower group will be allowed to have a gap of more than 100 tickets between each other. This procedure is in place for four reasons:

1. To prevent either the Leaders or the Followers group from buying a disproportionate amount of tickets at the onset. For example, if a total 1000 tickets are available, the principle of balance won't be met if 500 Follower tickets are sold whilst by the time the event takes place only 150 Leader tickets are sold, thus leaving a gap between Leaders and Followers of 350, which would constitute a major imbalance between the two dance roles.

2. To take into account the concept of fair proportionality, as if there was not an equal number of Leaders and Followers attending the modern jive dance scene, then the largest group will not be constrained by the minority group, as in the end a maximum 100 extra tickets could be had by the majority group, being this either the Leader or the Follower group.

3. Other conditions will also apply. These will be stated at the end of the present consultation with our legal council.

4. Compliance with the Sex Discrimination Act 1975. As the role of Leader and Follower might be carried out by either gender, than we aim not to discriminate against either gender as all would be free, irrespective of their gender, to book either Leaders or Followers tickets.


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[MartinHarper]

I thought this thread was going to be about how one might practice for booking weekenders on time. Anyways, I predict a lot of drama when some guy buys a "Follower" ticket. I'm also thinking of starting a sweepstake on who that guy will be.

[TheTramp]

Anyways, I predict a lot of drama when some guy buys a "Follower" ticket. I'm also thinking of starting a sweepstake on who that guy will be.

[Lynn]

I thought this thread was going to be about how one might practice for booking weekenders on time.

So did I!

I commented on this on the Camber thread. As the problem has always been more women wanting to book than men, I could see women who can lead, (and lead well) booking as lead but actually spending most of the time dancing follow. You can't make them lead. Unless they are going to have wristbands and 'dance police' wandering round the rooms checking if people are dancing lead or follow...

[Dan Hudson]

Well this looks the fairest system I've seen

Of course many ladies on this forum who want 50/50 at all cost and know whats going on a year in advance wont agree

Clearly as we are there to dance the leader/follower ratio has to be right . Only problem ,if some leaders (women) became mainly 'followers' at the event

Re produced in full

------------------------------------


Ballot Result on Gender Balance Control



The ballot was closed on the evening of Friday 17th March 2006 at 18.00 hours. With the following result:

1. For Gender Balance Control, 245 valid votes.

2. Against Gender Balance Control, 249 valid votes.

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what a load of old rubbish.................obviusoly not you Stewart

[Northants Girly]

what a load of old rubbish.................obviusoly not you Stewart

I find the results quite hard to believe too . . . . .

[MartinHarper]

I find the results quite hard to believe too . . . . .

Do we need another debate about how representative the forum is? I think we do...

[stewart38]

Do we need another debate about how representative the forum is? I think we do...

The forum is representative at all

[ducasi]

The forum is representative at all

isn't?

[stewart38]

isn't?

Im going to say it wasnt a typo

It is and it isnt ,so i cant be 'attacked' now

[Tessalicious]

I commented on this on the Camber thread. As the problem has always been more women wanting to book than men, I could see women who can lead, (and lead well) booking as lead but actually spending most of the time dancing follow. You can't make them lead. Unless they are going to have wristbands and 'dance police' wandering round the rooms checking if people are dancing lead or follow...

Fair point Lynn - the ideal circumstance for those of us that would like to be able to do both might be for there to be "Mixed-Role" tickets, which in practice adds 0.5 followers and 0.5 leaders to the list.

I can't imagine there are many men who want to follow more than a few dances, while there are several women, like myself, Sparkles, foxy, drathzel, Cruella etc who I can imagine would happily commit to trying to dance equally much as lead and follow. But it gets complicated when you have to take into account how many of those are likely to lead or follow in workshops, so you can never get it right all the time. Gender balance, or in this case role balance, is about trying to make the weekend more pleasurable for the majority of people in attendance, not about making strict rules about how it's going to work.