Archive for category: Announcements

The Austin Swing Syndicate continues to keep a strong watch on when we can safely reopen for dancing and what the transitions of reopening may look like, while matching public health concerns with readiness to return for the majority of our dancers in a financially responsible way. 

Thank you everyone (124 of you!) who completed our survey. These results will help Austin Swing Syndicate leadership shape events and classes for our dance community. 

The majority of people answering the survey (55%) reported that they attended weekly classes and dances at The Fed. We’re excited to have such strong engagement from our regular community and to still have a good response from dancers who attend less frequently (28% once a month or every 2-3 months) so we could ascertain their willingness to return to dancing too. 

Most people (81%) have not been participating in virtual online dance classes. Survey results showed that generally people are not interested in returning to The Fed for in-person solo dance classes but would rather wait until partner dance of some kind resumes. 

Dancers are split in roughly equal amounts on each end of the spectrum when it comes to returning to dancing and safety procedures: half our dancers are comfortable dancing with masks and not rotating partners and half of them are not at this time. More years of dance experience and age each correlated to being less comfortable returning to dancing right now. 

This survey represents a snapshot from mid-August of our community’s readiness to return to dancing when safe. As we all know, the ability to reopen changes with infection rates, hospitalization rates, holiday impacts, and following public health regulations about capacity with consideration of the unique aspects of partner dancing. 

We will be sending out another survey to assess our community’s readiness again in the future and welcome your comments at that time or you can send us a private message. 

We continue to look forward to the day when we can safely reopen the doors of The Fed for dancers within public health regulations and when it is financially stable to have enough dancers ready to return to support the reopening.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR PRESIDENT DEB TINDLE

It’s almost July! We hope you all are healthy and safe. Our Ballroom continues to be silent, awaiting the day we can all dance in person again! We, the Board, have been busy behind the scenes working on plans to ensure that the Austin Swing Syndicate survives the current pandemic. We look forward to hearing from Public Health Authorities about when it will be safe to gather and dance. In the meantime, we hope you are tuning in to the numerous online classes and musical performances. We are building a library of  fun tutorials for our website too! 

We want to thank our community members who have been donating to us!  It warms our hearts to see these donations coming in, and we are excited to announce a new opportunity to support our organization. We’ve had our thinking caps on, and we have come up with a great plan. We will need YOUR help.

We are an Arts Organization. And we are so proud to say that we have been self-sustaining all these years. That is extremely rare for an Arts Organization. We have actually paid our own way.  That shows that there is and has been an ongoing desire for this organization to exist. The COVID-19 crisis is a huge challenge, but we believe we can survive.  We are uniquely positioned to survive this pandemic. We fear that the worldwide Swing community may permanently lose many events and perhaps even many smaller communities. But the Austin Swing Syndicate can survive and become a future beacon, lighting the way back.

We are establishing a new level of membership. The Sustaining Member. This membership costs $250 per year. Benefits of this level of membership include free admission every Thursday, including Live Music Nights. You also get a special membership card, three admission cards to give away, a Syndicate T-shirt, and a Syndicate sticker. These membership dues are tax deductible as well. Obviously, during COVID-19, we are not dancing. Therefore, during this time, the Sustaining Membership revenue will be vital to meeting our contractual obligations such as rent. We are looking for 250 people to become Sustaining Members. During normal operations, that will allow us to know that our most basic expenses of rent and staff are covered all year. 

Please consider joining the Austin Swing Syndicate as a Sustaining Member. You can sign up today in our online store.

We miss you. We thank you for your support, and we can’t wait to see your faces once we can safely return.

– The Austin Swing Syndicate Board

We believe Black Lives Matter, Black Austin Matters, and Black Lindy Hop Matters

We invite you to join us in donating to the Austin Justice Coalition via our Facebook fundraiser. The Austin Justice Coalition is a Racial Justice Group that educates and builds community power for people of color who live in Austin, Texas. This group helps those who need support, community, and liberation during a time of systemic injustice in America.

100% of the donations to this fundraiser will go directly to AJC in support of the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement. If you would like to learn more or donate directly, please visit their website: https://austinjustice.org/ If financial support is out of reach, please consider other actions such as donating time, amplifying voices, or sharing this fundraiser.

Thank you for your help.

– The Austin Swing Syndicate Board