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Northern Lights Classic - The Future

Posted: Jul 09, 2010

DanceSport Alberta is very pleased to see our members and the general dance community take action to help us keep the Northern Lights Classic going. As you know, with the relocation of our Event Organizer, Chair and MC, we did not believe we could plan and set up the competition to run as effectively as attendees have experienced in the past. We are also unable to commit the additional hours it would take to plan everything from a distance.

We have been searching for suitable replacements for the past two years, knowing that we would be moving soon and traveling more for work. We thought we had two very talented individuals last year but it did not work out for them. We've continued to work very hard this past year, approaching several past committee people and several of the DSAB Board members but were still unsuccessful in finding people with enough competition knowledge and experience and ability to donate the large number of hours (400 hours or so) to plan, organize and run the Northern Lights. To make it more interesting, costs have increased this year and fundraising has been down, such that it will take a new operating model to produce a quality event that at least does not lose money. We usually start planning 8 months in advance but have had several set backs in bookings and have had to spend time looking into options to balance a new budget. It is now only 4 months from the run date which is an extremely short time to plan a competition. We want the Northern Lights to continue but given the situation felt the responsible thing to do would be to put the decision to the Board as to whether NLC runs in 2010 or whether it skips a year while a new plan is developed.