studio disagreements

[Guest costumier]

Hi all,

 

I'd like to get some comments and advice from posters who might have been in a similar situation to the one I find myself in now.

 

I have been quite heavily involved in helping out at my daughter's studio, mainly doing costumes and organisational support for the end-of-year recitals. I have done this because the teacher/director/owner asked me to, and she has been very good to our DDs, for instance giving one a needs-based scholarship a while back when we were having temporary financial difficulties.

 

The problem I find myself in is that everybody wants different things, and seems to be blaming me if things aren't the way they want them! They seem to think I have pushed myself into this "wonderful" position of "chief organiser of everything" because I want to be in charge. I have tried to get everybody involved in the decision-making, for example by holding meetings, but it seems most people are too busy to attend. Actually I don't care what the people who never help out think, but over the last week I have had some very negative feedback about how things are being organised from a couple of people who DO always help out, which has put me in a right tailspin. I feel like I have no mandate to move ahead, and yet I know if I try to call a meeting to sort out what people actually want, I'm still not likely to get enough people turning up to satisfy the critics that the majority of parents are behind us. I think the majority of parents actually don't care, so long as somebody else takes care of it. I have tried calling around those whose phone numbers I have, with very mixed results.

 

A key issue has been costs and how to deal with them. Last year for the first time we started to build up a communal stock of costumes. The rationale was that we were doing a bigger item costume-wise than had been attempted before (Les Sylphides). A lot of our families are not very well-heeled, so the other main sewer and myself said we were happy to put in our labour for free, so long as the costumes stayed in the school. We wanted all the girls to be able to perform in this item. Those who weren't prepared to donate the cost of materials to the school could get their own costume made/make it themselves as normal. We now have a lovely collection of these costumes so the girls can "domino" up through the sizes, and we can use the tutu as a base for lots of different costumes.

 

HOWEVER the cost of materials was high, a lot more than you would expect to pay for a hire, and there were a few grumbles. (Along with a lot of people saying "what a fantastic idea! Now we won't have to turn around and do this every year!") So this year we thought we'd do some fundraising to help cover the cost of the concert. I've now had feedback from some parents saying they think it's entirely inappropriate to do fundraising "for a private business", that the whole concept is shonky, and that people should just take care of their own costumes, and it's up to the teacher to manage other costs.

 

I've always been under the impression that the money we pay the teacher is for instruction, and that concert costs in most schools are borne by the parents of those taking part. Am I correct about that?

 

I should add that there is no pressure on the kids to have expensive costumes in order to appear in the concert. Obviously to dance in something like Les Sylphides you have to have a constume, but when a child has a solo they can spend as much or as little as they like. They can even appear in their class uniform if they want, and quite a few do.

 

What are other people's impressions of this mess? Should I just barge on regardless? Should I wash my hands of it and tell people to make their own arrangements? The teacher/director/owner is a fantastic gifted ballet teacher, but she's not all that good at the business/organisational side of running a studio. She really needs help and she knows it, that's why she asked me. Should I just do whatever she asks and if anybody complains refer it back to her? (Not that I want to do that - it would stress her out dealing with complaints!)

 

It would be great to get some feedback about how things run in other places, and how people have resolved this sort of thing in the past. Thank you all.

[BW]

Oh yes, you are not alone: Parent Volunteer Woes.

[vicarious]

We were at a school where the school itself was privately owned but they had a non-porfit company with a seperate budget. The students auditioned to be in the company. Donors and ticket sales supported the company. The school's Ballet Master became the company's Artistic Director. The company bought or involved volunteers to make the costumes. That went along well for about thirty years until the owner of the school sold. After a year with the new Ballet Master/AD. The board of directors for the company decided they didn't like the AD and fired him even though he still owned the school. Eventually he did get his money back on the school and moved on. And the company found a new AD who the bought the school. It was a bit of a mess for a time though.

 

Parents have a valid point about not wanting to provide costumes to a private business. Those costumes become business assets and if the business were to be sold they would increase the value of that business.

[Guest costumier]

Thanks BW, that was a great thread you linked - I could relate to so much of that!

 

vicarious you have a valid point, and it is something that has troubled me. However we are a small school, and it would actually cost more to set up a not-for-profit branch and maintain all the legal side of things than we even spend on our productions! I'm not sure what the answer is to that, and I hate all this wrangling, all I want is for the kids to be able to have a nice concert without it breaking anybody's bank.

[kikiswede]

One ballet pre-professional school and company (non-profit though) that we were part of offered work scholarships to offset the cost of tuition. Students/and/or parents would sign up for a commitee. Event planning, costumes, housekeeping, fundraising etc. The parents formed a guild, and each commitee chair person would organize their own task force from friends or parents who might not be able to go to all meetings. Sign up sheets were everywhere. Sometimes a ticket was given for a shift of doing a task.

 

From these funds, the guild would meet with the owner of the company to see what was needed. Since the guild was the non-profit whose sole purpose was to raise funding for the school/company, they decided what the budget could afford to spend for the company/school. The owner was not a member of the guild, and could only request her needs. By giving more say to the parents in raising and dispersing the funds, they felt validated and in control of their investment of money, time, or energy. (I don't understand why the school isn't a non-profit. Also...you have to check with local non-profit laws.)

 

There was always a costume fee. It was discounted for familys with more than one dancer performing.

The apprentices and company members all received a pair of pointe or canvas shoes and a pair of tights for the performance. They also were paid if company.

 

I would suggest empowering parents and finding out one task everyone is comfortable with in contributing in a guild. I would ask for an all parent re-organization meeting to hear and validate everyone's concern with your project, but have the ground rule that with the comment they will also offer a solution. If there is a costume fee, then this should help offset materials for new costumes and cleaning of them We had a dry cleaner as a playbill sponsor who cleaned our costumes after the run of a performance in trade.

Having a 501c3 is pretty important to help distinguish fundraising from the school. This way the guild can have ownership of the costumes and props, etc...and lease/loan them to the school/company, but the value remains with the guild until the school/company chooses to also become a non-profit. The contributing parents and business would get a tax benefit as well. That was more important to most than a costume taking up space in a closet.

[BW]

Try reading through Cast Fees, Recital Fees: how much do you spend and School Performance/Costume...parent role in alterations and feel free to add to those topics as well, if you wish.

[Guest costumier]

Wow! What interesting threads. Two things are clear to me now, one: nothing is standard. And two: our costs are actually very reasonable. I guess my real problem is trying to get any agreement or buy-in (about anything) from all these people who are too apathetic/busy to get involved.

[Momof3darlings]

Costumier--a couple of things to remember. The people who are too "apathetic/busy to get involved" you referred to will be that way no matter what the policies present. That is their "way" and you will most likely not be able to change it. By reading through the threads BW linked you to, you will see that there might be small subtle ways to get others to help who you think are in that category but in fact, are too shy or too new to speak up and help. They think you have it covered and don't want to make waves.

 

Clearly, I see two things questionable, if I am following your original post correctly. And that is, as a volunteer, your director needs to take the lead and you be in a clear following mode. This so that you are handling the execution of her wishes and any fallout goes to her, not you. And secondly, if your current volunteers have problems with the ways things are done, those are the people you may need to have the director listen to. Because they are the backbone of your workforce and if they are not reasonably happy, they will not return to help in future years. But again, it's one thing for you to be the person who organizes the director's wishes. It is clearly another for you to be the person who takes the brunt of dissatisfaction for doing so.

 

vj

[TutuMaker]

I agree whole heartedly what everyone has posted before me!

 

There is one paragraph in your post though that I want to clarify:

I should add that there is no pressure on the kids to have expensive costumes in order to appear in the concert. Obviously to dance in something like Les Sylphides you have to have a constume, but when a child has a solo they can spend as much or as little as they like. They can even appear in their class uniform if they want, and quite a few do.

 

My take on that is that the AD does not care one way or the other about costumes and that the costume side of the performance is parent driven. Is this a correct assumption? If this is true, then why have costumes? I have always enjoyed watching the kids dance, instead of the costumes. Also by allowing the kid/parent to "spend as much or as little as they like" opens the door to a competitive type atmosphere in regards to costumes. IMHO that is not appropriate in a school setting.

 

If the parents all agree to costumes, then the costumes IMHO, should all be the same. If there are enough parents to make them fine, if not have them made...in either case, every parent should have the same cost. If there are some who really cannot afford it, then why put them on the spot and insist? Especially if the AD doesn't care?

[calamitous]

Costumier- good advice from others and I don't have anymore to offer. But I do know you are not alone. At my DD's school one parent is the volunteer liasian and each year there has been grumbling from others that this person is too involved, making decisions that will best suite her child, too bossy et al. But I am not sure that I have heard any of them take their complaints to the directors, more just grumbling in the parking lot.

 

Me, I am one of the "don't really care" crowd and I am thrilled that someone else would take on such a thankless position. We get periodic messages about how to help and I always try to help when assigned a task or two. I am sorry you are feeling unwanted, by I agee with Mom of 3 - you probably need to director to make it clear that you are implementing her wishes.

[pattypirouette]

Costumier - I have been in the same position that you find yourself in. For me, it caused endless sleepless nights and headaches having to hear about the b--ching that was going on behind my back.

 

I think that the most important thing to remember (without getting into all the little details of your specific projects) is that when you have a leadership role - you are going to make certain people unhappy. I found that those particular people who complained are people who like to complain and will most of the time, look for something to find fault with. As long as you continue to meet the expectations of the director you are only doing the best you are able to do. When you must deal with the nay-sayers, perhaps you could counter their critisism with "well, I'm just trying to do my best but I'm always open to suggestion... what would you do if you had your way with it?"

 

That usually takes care of the problem

[Guest costumier]

Sorry tutumaker, I haven't explained myself clearly enough. Yes the director does care about the costumes! Clearly if you are going to have a part in Sylphides, Bayadere etc you have to have a costume, and they should all match. The "solos" I was referring to are the "filler" items between the big pieces that give people time to change. (We generally run a divertissement programme, and being a small school the older students perform several times each.) If a student can't afford costumes, the teacher puts them on in these spots doing dances that look right in a leotard or similar. So students who cannot afford costumes can still have a chance to perform if they want to, but not at the expense of the show looking professional! A few of the oldest students wear beautiful tutus for their solo spots but there truly is no competition, people in our studio don't have enough money to buy into that sort of thing. These would be students who have the tutu hanging in their wardrobe from a competition and the parents are thrilled she'll actually wear the damn thing again before she grows out of it.

 

Thanks so much for your feedback everyone! I've spent most of the weekend reading your posts and the older threads linked by BW, and phoning around the volunteer team to get their different perspectives. It's been so interesting! Most interesting of all is that everybody has something different to say.

 

I do have quite thick skin and I don't tend to take complaints personally. My problem is more wondering which of all the opposing viewpoints I've heard is right, or trying to meld them into some form of consensus. I feel confused and frustrated more than hurt or "put upon".

 

Yes ideally the director should just be taking charge, that would certainly make my life a lot easier! However she doesn't have an autocratic type of personality, she really does want to make things acceptable to as wide a range of people as possible, and she looks to me for parent feedback. Her English is very good, but sometimes she misses things if people are talking too fast or all at once, so she likes to have someone listen to the gossip and give her an executive summary. Things are starting to take shape in my head now thanks to all the thrashing it out and input over the last couple of days.

 

It is clear to me that you can't keep everyone happy. However I am determined that the volunteer team should be happy! The concert couldn't happen without them. It is also becoming clear that we do need a more formal opt in/opt out system than we have had in the past. Parents need to be very clear about what they're in for if they sign their kids up for the concert, and there shouldn't be any pressure to take part if they don't want to. In the past the director has always started from the assumption that everyone will participate, and I think that's part of the problem.

 

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. I am so glad I found this site! There are so few people you can talk ballet with, it really is invaluable.

[Momof3darlings]

costumier--I am wondering if the dissent is related to the idea that if you can afford a nicer costume you can have one, if not, you can wear your class outfit. I would think that would be more of an underlying issue than you/your director may be wanting to admit. One of those things that sounds like it's working but ill feelings are going on behind the scenes. This possibly because I don't come from a place where that type of setup would work.

vj

[Guest costumier]

Hi Momof3darlings,

 

I truly don't think this is part of the problem! In fact it's one of the things people say they like. In a lot of schools if you don't want to pay the fees/buy the costumes you're just not in the performance full stop, whereas at ours you can participate for free if you want to. In fact the students doing this often end up being more showcased than the ones in a pretty costume in the corps, because they are usually solo, and always actually dancing. I must add that the costume costs are very reasonable too, less than US$70, which I'm sure any of them who REALLY wanted to do the costume/corps de ballet thing could scrape together if they wanted. It's just not what some of our students/families want to spend their money on, and some of them actually prefer more modern ballet to standing around pretending to be a fairy. When I referred to those items as "fillers" I meant from an organisational point of view when you're scheduling the items of the concert (easy on the backstage staff). Maybe things are different here, it certainly sounds from reading the boards that some places in the States are quite hysterical about who's dancing what, what they're wearing etc.

[tc17]

I've always been under the impression that the money we pay the teacher is for instruction, and that concert costs in most schools are borne by the parents of those taking part. Am I correct about that?

 

I noticed you are in NZ and perhaps it's different there? At the two US schools we've been involved with, the parents have been responsible for purchasing recital costumes (last year in excess of $75 US for each costume). The parents have also been required to purchase tickets, at $25 each, for the recital to cover the cost of auditorium rental. The schools use volunteer parents for backstage supervision during the recital, concession sales and as ushers. The dancers keep the costumes after the recital but there truly isn't much use for a used ballet recital costume for the older students . . .

 

There was no alternative to the costs as participation in the recital was not voluntary and some class time was devoted to recital prep. That said, I know several local schools where the recital costs are much lower and costumes are provided by the school. Of course, we are looking at one of those - not to evade the cost but to gain an increased focus on training and less on recital prep!

 

TC