Dear Community of Swing in Utrecht,
We don’t want to send this message, but we have to because we’ve had serious difficulty finding volunteers to organize all the activities we love. We know you’re out there, we just have not been able to find you.
We care a lot about the Swing dance community in Utrecht, just like many of you. We love that we are able to have weekly socials that are well-visiting and joyful and we love that we have inspirational classes by many teachers that share their knowledge about this art form that we all love. We are excited that both last year and this year we were also able to have festivals again and connect to dancers from other cities.
These things are only possible because we have a dedicated group of volunteers who make the existence of these community events and classes possible. Most of these volunteers have been active from before the pandemic and kept active during the pandemic period as well. We deeply appreciate them for that. In this light it makes sense that they want to hand over the baton to new community members.
And that’s why we come with this message to you, because we’ve had serious difficulty finding dancers for certain functions.
The consequences of not filling these positions will be major (e.g. we won’t have lessons or be able to sustain our community long-term:
- Classes team: for the classes team we are looking for two people who want to either help with creating a class schedule or help out with the registration of dancers to those classes. Per block this will take approximately 15-20 hours, but you’ll share the task with someone else. If we cannot find anyone for these positions it will be impossible to organize classes after this block.
- Board members: We are in need of multiple board members for the upcoming year. Board positions differ in how many hours they take, but it would generally be somewhere between 2-5 hours per week. These hours are flexible and flexibly scheduled, though.
- In particular we are looking for someone to help out with PR and take over from Douglas.
- Secondly, we are looking for someone to look after our community of volunteers (our volunteer & social coordinator) which is also an important position we’ve been missing ever since the pandemic.
- Third, before next summer we are looking for a new Treasurer. If you want, you can also start earlier and be on-boarded by the current treasurer Marijn.
In filling these positions you not only make an invaluable contribution to our community but you also get to work with some amazing individuals, help decide the future of Swing in Utrecht and as a bonus get some perks (such as discounts).
Please, send us a message on our social media or to volunteer@swinginutrecht.nl, also in case you have questions!
If you feel like you want to help out, but are more interested in helping in other positions, we will of course also welcome you; any volunteer contribution is very much appreciated!
We hope we can continue to build this community and let it thrive, with your help!
Swinging regards,
The Board of Swing in Utrecht
Sanne, Marijn, Anna, Juanjo and Douglas