Thank you for volunteering to be a practica host. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the experience. The guidelines below provide some information to help you with this role. Please also do not hesitate to speak to the Practica Coordinator if you have any questions.

A practica is not the same as a milonga

The club holds milongas as well as practicas. Both are important for our club. A practica is a practice session for tango dancers. A milonga, on the other hand, is a social dance where people hold a tango dance and party. The aim of practicas is to practice tango. A practica allows us to develop our technique. If we tried to use the milonga to develop our technique we would soon find our dance cards fairly empty. Likewise, without the practica sessions we would not be able to practice our technique and this would also lead to disappointing experiences at milongas. Thus the practica, as something independent of milongas, is very important.  It is therefore important that the practicas run as they are supposed to. The following guidelines will help.

What is expected of the host?

The host is fully responsible for the practica. This is includes opening up the venue, hosting the practica and locking up the venue.

Before the practica

• Arrange to collect the practica gear from the previous host.
• You need to collect the practica gear from the previous Saturday host
• The practica gear includes the speaker, ipod & leads, sign-on sheets, practica information folder, purple wallet, CD player & CDs, and venue keys (St John’s  &  All Saints)
• You can collect the practica gear by:
  • attending the previous practica and collecting it from the practica host at the end;
  • arranging for someone else to collect it for you from the previous practica;
  • contacting the previous practica host before their practica and making alternative arrangements to exchange the practica gear; or
  • if you run out of options, contact the practica host coordinator before the previous practica.
• Recharge ipod 1 (the old one).  You only need to recharge ipod 2 (the new one) if the battery is indicating ‘low’
• Count  the money in the pencil case & note the total as ‘Starting Balance’ on the reconciliation sheet
• Make sure you are familiar with the venue (see notes overpage).
• Arrive 10 minutes before the practica to open up and set up.

At the practica

• You must be there for the duration of the practica.
• Open up the venue (keys will be in the key pouch - St John’s on the incense stick and All Saints on the vertebra & pelvis).
• Turn off the alarm at St Johns
• Turn on lights, heaters, fans etc
• Set up the music and flyers (Club, Tango Teachers, Workshops, Events).
• Date the sign-on sheet and put it out for all to register.
• Make new people feel welcome and introduce them to others.
• Deal with Club enquiries. A committee member may be available to help you.
• Process memberships. A committee member may be available to help you.
• Be responsible for the takings & the pencil case contents.
• Play appropriate music (tango related music only please).
• Most importantly, have a great time dancing and socializing

At the end of the practica

• Announce ‘last song’.
• Collect sign-on sheets, reconcile takings and note the ‘end balance’ on the reconciliation sheet
• Pack up practica gear.
• Pass it to next practica host, or make sure alternative arrangements have been made. A current roster should be in the host folder to help you identify who it is.
• Make sure venue is tidy – ask club members to help stack chairs, put things back where they were etc.
• Make sure nothing is left behind. Collect any lost property.
• Turn off lights, close windows, doors, curtains etc.
• Check heaters and fans have been turned off – please do this even if you did not turn them on as someone else may have!
• At St John’s, lock the emergency doors and set the alarm before leaving.
• Lock up venue. Put the key in the key pouch for the next host.

Changing a practica hosting session

If you need to swap, in the first instance please try to organise this with other practica hosts – you should have all their email addresses on the emails I send to you regularly with updates, or you can contact me to ask me to send out the email.  Please don’t use the discussion group or the newsletter as most people who receive these are not hosts.   There may also be opportunities at practicas to speak to other hosts to arrange a swap.   There is a current roster in the practica host folder to help work out dates.

If a swap is arranged let me know so I can update the ‘master version’ and ensure this goes on the web version of the roster and in the newsletter. If you can’t arrange a swap and you are unable to do the date please contact me as soon as possible.

On the following pages are some more notes that will assist you with hosting practicas. Thank you all for volunteering your time and yourselves to helping our club.

Kathi

Practica Coordinator
January 2010

The Venues

Saturday practicas

Venue: St John’s Uniting Church, Constitution Ave, Reid

Time: 2.00 to 4.00 pm

Cost: Free
Venue hire: Prepaid

Practica gear & sound system: Please collect all practica gear from previous Saturday host.

Getting in: The front doors will often be open, to allow other church users access to the toilets. If they’re not, the key will open the front doors. The same key also opens the glass doors to the hall, and activates the alarm (see below).

Alarm: You need to turn off the alarm as soon as you unlock the building. The alarm is to the right of the door as you come in. The alarm needs to be reset using the key when you leave the building.

Emergency exit: For fire safety reasons the right hand glass door nearest the stage labeled EXIT must be kept clear and unlocked while the Hall is in use. Please unlock it as soon as you enter the hall, and make sure no chairs are placed in front of it. At the end of practica, please make sure it is closed and properly locked. The key (old fashioned style) is on the same key ring as the main door key.

Lights: There are several light switches to the right of the door as you enter the hall. Lights for the stage are on the side walls of the hall. Please also turn on the foyer and toilet lights, and ensure they’re turned off when we leave.

Heating:    If required, the controls are on the wall to the left of the stage (looking from the door), about half way down, near the 1st window and behind the curtains. It just looks like a light switch, and there is no sign. When the heating is on, the green light next to it will be on. Always ensure you check the heating is off before leaving.

Power: Power for the sound system is found to the left and right of the stage (near ground level).

Sign–On Sheet: Please date and set out the sign-on sheet on a table near the entrance for everybody to note their attendance.

Flyers & Brochures:  Please also set out club brochures, practica flyers and any other leaflets about current events or classes.  These are kept in the classes, workshops and events section of the purple wallet.

Takings: Please count and record any takings. See also notes on ‘Takings & Outgoings’.

Locking up:  Check all lights and heating are turned off and the curtains are drawn. Lock the emergency exit door. Lock the front glass doors to the hall. Turn on the alarm, then pull the main door behind you. Return the venue key to the key pouch before passing to the next practica host.

Alternative venues

On occasions when St John’s is not available other venues may be used. This will be clearly marked on the roster but on occasions there may be little notice. In this case the Practica Coordinator will contact the host and also ask the Newsletter Coordinator to put out a newsflash about the change of venue. The Practica Coordinator may also put a notice on the usual venue door before practica to make sure stray people find their way to practica (or may ask if you mind doing this).

All Saints, Cowper St Ainslie (off Limestone Ave)

All Saints is our main fallback venue for Saturday practicas. It is pre-paid when we use it.

Opening the Hall: We now have a key for this venue (on the vertebra & pelvis) which opens the front door and the door to the hall.

Setting up: Open up curtains and windows as required. There are a few small tables near the back of the hall. Set one of these up by the power points near the back for the sound system, and another near the front door for flyers. There are also some chairs that you can set up around the perimeters of the room.

The french doors nearest the church can be opened up onto the garden. The other french doors lead to the creche - please don’t open these.

Heating: The central heating control is by the kitchen shutters. Turn it on and adjust to the required temperature.

Locking up: Turn off the heating. Close all curtains. Replace all furniture as you found it. Lock the door to the hall and exit by the front door shutting/locking it behind you.

St John’s Scout Hall

This is our emergency venue when we lose our booking at St John’s (for whatever reason) and are unable to access any of the other alternatives or we simply aren’t given enough time to find somewhere else.

Opening the Hall: We have a key to the back door with the other St John’s keys on the incense stick.  The back door opens onto Amaroo St.

Setting Up: Allow yourself extra time, as we need to push the furniture back against the wall to give as much dancing space as possible.  A St John’s rep may be there to help and will put up some signs. 

Return the furniture to its proper place when finished

Locking Up: Ensure the premises are secure when leaving. 

Canberra Seniors Centre – 10 Watson St Turner

This is our latest venue and is usually heavily booked.

Before the booking:

We can pay for the venue and pick up the key before 1.00pm either on the Thursday or Friday before the booking.  

This venue is usually booked well in advance so arrange with the Treasurer for a cheque before you go in to pick up the key; you will be given a receipt which you need to forward to the Treasurer. 

 Facilities:            

We will normally just be using the hall, but there is continuous hot water if we want to bring in coffee/tea & milk etc. and we are able to use the eating area if it is free.

Toilets are just down the hallway.

There is heating & air conditioning which is turned on by the top switches on the power board just outside the hall doors.  NB ensure this is turned off before you leave

Setting up:

Set out chairs as required and a table near the door for pamphlets, news items and for people to sign – on.

Packing up:

Return chairs & tables to where you found them. 

If you’ve used cups, rinse them & take them into the kitchen area so they can go through the dishwasher later.

Turn off lights, including the toilets and shut the doors to the hall 

Turn off the heating/air conditioning

Unlocking & Relocking the Venue:

See separate information sheet from Practica Coordinator for these procedures.

Lutheran Church, cnr Ballumbir & Boolee Sts, Reid

The Lutheran Church is hard to get as it’s usually fully booked. When the Lutheran Church is used we need to arrange to pick up the key from the venue manager before the booking.

There are no alarms and the key opens the door into the kitchen area.

Follow the usual lock up procedures when leaving; including ensuring all lights and heating are off. The heating controls are on the back wall.

We pay the Pastor at the time – a 2.5 hour session is $41.25, 2 hours is $33.00.

Please take this out of the ‘Takings’ in the pencil case and pay the Pastor at the start or end of the practica and return the key.

Record this under ‘Less Paid for Venue’ and in the ‘Ending Balance’ columns on the reconciliation sheet.

Practica gear

The Saturday Practica gear is carried in a duffle bag on wheels and a small suit case. It includes:

Duffle Bag on wheels

·          Speaker

·         Portable stereo player

·         Front plate of stereo (held separately in a case)

·         Various cables/leads & power board

Suitcase

·         Hosts information folder

·         Purple wallet containing club forms, various flyers, receipt book and pencil case

·         Registration (sign-on) folder

·         CD Wallet

·         Ipod

·         Pouch containing keys for St John’s (incense stick), and All Saints (vertebra & pelvis)

Boom box

The club also has a boom box, in case all other sound equipment fails or doesn’t turn up at practica. This is currently held by Linda.   Please give her as much notice as possible if you need the boom box.

Using the sound systems

Some very basic instructions are given here for using the ipod and the car stereo. There is also a handbook for the ipod included with the practica gear which you might want to read for more detailed information.

Saturday Practica Speaker

Both the ipod and the car stereo attach to the large speaker. To set up the speaker you need to:

• Attach the black lead to the plug in the back of the speaker

•  Plug it in to a power source

• Turn on the ‘on ‘ switch at the back of the stereo

•  Plug the ipod or the car stereo into the two plugs at the top of the speaker  - make sure you use plugs with the same letter i.e. both R (for Right speaker) or both L (for Left speaker), not one L and one R

• Volume may be adjusted using the volume switch at the back of the speaker

Portable stereo

The portable stereo is for playing CDs. It operates as follows:

• Attach front plate of CD player (held separately in a case)

• Plug leads into speaker (see above)

• Insert CD.

• Press play.

• Use right arrow to fast forward tracks, left to go back

• To stop, use the eject button

Ipod

The ipod is basically a small computer which holds music tracks rather than text documents. It can be played using the headphones (for personal use) or the speaker (for practicas). The ipod handbook is included with the Saturday practica gear if you want to get an in-depth understanding of what it is and how it works. Pages 1-13 are useful for learning how to use the ipod to play music. The other pages cover adding tracks to the ipod and creating playlists. A basic guideline is also given below.

Like a computer, ipod contents are arranged in folders. On a PC you might put documents in a folder, then put that folder within another folder, along with related folders. On the TSCC ipod, the folders contain music tracks arranged by artist, album, song, genre, playlist etc which are then held in larger folders along with other tracks arranged the same way.

The main folder you will use for practicas is the ’playlist’ folder. A playlist consists of a number of tango tracks arranged in a set order, which will then play in that set order. The playlists on the TSCC ipod have been developed specifically for practica use, so contain a range of danceable tunes, usually in groups of 3 related by style (e.g. vals, milonga, tango etc). Each playlist goes for about 2 hours so can usually cover a whole practica. The TSCC ipod currently has several playlists. There is a set of the contents of current playlists in the host information folder. Moving between the tunes and folders in a play list is just like moving between documents and folders on a PC – if you’re in a document or a track, you go back one level to get to the next folder (e.g. YK1) then back another level to get to the next folder (e.g. ‘Playlists). The bits of the ipod you need to know to do this are:

• To turn the ipod on – unlock the hold button (on the top for Ipod 1 & at the bottom for Ipod 2) and press any button

•  Menu – basically the back button. Takes you back one level at a time

•  Scroll – not labeled. This is the glossy circular dial (click wheel) in the centre of the ipod. Just run your finger round the click wheel to scroll up (anti-clockwise) a list or down a list.

• Enter/select – not labeled. It’s the centre button of the click wheel. Just press it to select a highlighted tune/folder.

•  Volume control – not labeled. The click wheel that you used to scroll becomes the volume control once you’ve selected a track and it’s playing. The master volume control on the speaker however has a better range for practica use.

•  Forward and back arrows – to advance or retreat one track

•  Pause/stop – press the bottom button (right arrow with two horizontal bars) briefly to pause.

•  To turn off the ipod, press and hold the pause/stop button for 4 seconds

•  To lock the ipod in on/off position – slide the hold switch at the top of the ipod so the orange bar appears

Once playing, the display on the ipod shows the number of the track within the selection/playlist, the title and artist and the time played/left to play.

A useful feature is the ‘on the go’ playlist which lets you create a playlist from existing tracks on the ipod. This playlist can be deleted once you’re finished with it (e.g. after practica).

Using the ipod

To use the ipod for practica you need to:

• Attach the black lead to the plug at the base of the ipod

• Attach the two other prongs to the R or L  plugs at the top of the speaker

• For Ipod 1 Attach the recharger to the power source & the ipod. This ipod is recharger-dependent i.e. the ipod will run out of battery if it’s not recharged while it plays.  It is also a good idea to recharge the ipod between practicas if you can.

• For Ipod 2 Only recharge when the battery indicator is low – we should get several practicas out of one charge.  You can either recharge using your computer or plug the USB cable into the adapter in the pouch and connect to a power source.

• Select a playlist

• Use the master volume control on the speaker to adjust the volume. The volume control on the ipod itself doesn’t have enough range

See above for operating instructions.
 

Choice of music

You can either choose your own music for practicas, or use the ipod playlists and practica CDs.

If you want to bring your own music, the emphasis should be on simple, popular, danceable tango, milonga and vals. Occasional danceable Piazzola, late Pugliese etc, depending on the mood of the crowd. Music need not necessarily be in tandas – this is a practica, not a milonga. No non-tango music please – we are there to practice tango, not salsa.

The Club has a CD library. You can borrow CDs to listen to them, and select music to play at practicas.  The CD library list is on our website, together with information on how to borrow specific CDs.

If you’re less confident about choosing tango music, or just want to take it easy, you can use the ipod playlists. The ipod has several suitable play lists. Lists of the contents of the play lists are held in the host information folder. There is also a set of ‘practica CDs’ in a black CD folder in the Saturday Practica Kit, which can be used in their own right, or as a backup if the ipod is unavailable for any reason. If you don’t know how to use the CDs or the ipod, ask the Practica Coordinator or one of the other practica hosts.

Takings and Outgoings

This is kept in a pencil case in the hosting folder. Please remember the following:

• Be very careful with this money and do not leave it lying around outside of the hosting folder.

• At the start of the practica, (or before) check the balance in the wallet and record it as ‘Starting Balance’ on the reconciliation sheet in the folder.

• Record any cash or cheques under their respective columns in ‘Takings’ on the reconciliation sheet.

• On Saturdays this could be membership fees, and can be checked against receipts which you will issue, or voucher sales

•  At or near conclusion of the practica, please add the money received and note the amount of cash and cheques taken on the reconciliation sheet.  Then complete the rest of the columns for the day on the reconciliation sheet, e.g  noting any money taken by the Treasurer or payment for the venue when the Lutheran church is used

• Finally, record the ‘Ending balance’, being the total amount of money in the pencil case

Memberships

The host is responsible for processing memberships.  If you are unsure what to do, ask the Practica Coordinator or Membership coordinator.   Please remember the following:

• For all memberships (new and renewing) check that the member has completed the form (excluding the grey area). If any details are missing, please try and get these details from the member.

• If payment is by cheque, write the receipt number, the number of memberships and membership type on the back of the cheque. If the member's name differs to the drawer of the cheque please write their name on the back of the cheque.

• In the grey area on the form, complete these sections: Date paid; receipt no.; cash or cheque; and cheque details. There is no need to fill in the rest as the Membership Coordinator will complete this when the person(s) is added to the database.

Completed forms need to be put into the clear plastic slip marked ‘Completed Membership Forms’ which is located in the purple wallet.