North Shore Squares – Zero to 50 in 18 Months

Type
Winning Ways Story
Submitter
Bruce Holmes (Bruce@BruceTHolmes.com)
Date
2019-01-16 (Updated 2022-03-20)
Description
Bruce Holmes is the caller for a new club in Evanston, ILL called North Shore Squares, which at the time of this writing has been in operation for about 18 months and now has 50+ members. This story is an inspiring personal narrative that charts his journey through the process of using the Social Square Dance (SSD - formerly named Sustainable Square Dance) system as a tool to dig their club out of an all-too-common hole. All the clubs in the area danced Plus or beyond and you can't realistically take the average recruit from nothing to Plus in a dance season. Result: at most one student intake a year, sparse student numbers, and heavy attrition. Club membership was falling. Along the way, the group faced all the usual hurdles: resistance to change, demoralization, lack of resources, reluctance to do the hard work. Bruce's narrative takes you through how they stick-handled their way through the obstacles and grew their club.

You can click on the links below to get more information on the North Shore Squares story, and also see some of the supporting materials they developed to support their marketing and teaching.

Read Bruce's Story // Video of Bruce's Story
Flyer #1
Flyer #2
Definition Booklets
SSD Flash Cards
MS Not in SSD Flash Cards
Plus Flash Cards
Teaching Videos