Kenyon College Ballroom Dance Cl

Kenyon College Ballroom Dance Club: Minutes for Fall 2006

8/29/06
9/5/06
9/12/06
9/19/06
9/26/06
10/3/06
10/17/06
11/28/06
12/12/06

In attendance:
Arianna Herman,
Chris Blaine,
Ben Wright-Heuman,
Brendan Cox,
Emma Wampler,
Allison Goldsmith,
Helle Slutz

(1) Once again, we say no to the Cornell competition. In fact, Brendan has given a
"thumbs-down" on two occasions, which constitutes two thumbs down in total!
Arianna suggests a road trip instead—London, Montreal, Argentina…

(2) The activities fair is this weekend!! We will need:
• Colored paper for flyers
• Candy—preferably individually wrapped chocolates. After all, chocolate
attracts women, and women attract men…hence our conniving plan to fill the ranks
of our ballroom army. I mean…club….
• The poster from last year
• Music
• The beautiful scrapbook
• A spiffy slide show of other ballroom pictures
• A sign up sheet for the dislist

Ben will take care of the flyers, and Chris has organized all the ballroom music
and will burn CDs for each dance. He will also go to Walmart to get candy.
Ari can put together the slide show and we can use her laptop for the fair. Emma
will use her crazy spread-sheeting skills to make us a dis-list sign-up sheet.

Arianna suggests making people put down their height so she can pick a potential
ballroom partner… "No one’s too short!"

Ari will also remember to bring her camera!

Members are reminded to dress for hot and muggy weather. Also, we will need
to be at the fair from 11-11:30 for set-up. [The fair itself runs from 12 pm to 3
pm on Gaskin Street and Middle Path, with a rain site at Gund Ballroom.]

Speaking of the poster from last year, where the [heck] is our ballroom closet??

Do we even have one? Whether or not we do, we will have our music, dancing,
candy, hand-outs, a slide show, AND a scrapbook, so we will look really good
compared to the myriad "shoddy" booths (according to Brendan). However, we
may also be next to the radio people again, as we both need electricity for music.
Sabotage, anyone?
Ben will be celebrating his 21st birthday the night before the fair. We remind him
that he must, at the very least, be able to mumble vaguely and push paper at people.
And offer candy to strangers.
[Secretary’s note: We do indeed have a closet. We share with the Kokosingers,
it is within room 18 in some "ugly" building next to Ernst, and we even have keys.
We should also put a video camera in the closet to record the Kokes’
reactions to our fabulous ballroom get-up.]

(3) Next Tuesday and Thursday there are funding meetings and Brendan and
Chris will need to attend one of them. No going to the meeting= no funding for the
club! They have decided to go at common hour on Tuesday.

(4) The swingitty swing dance is the Saturday after the activities fair—Saturday, 9
August, to be precise. We will need:
• Balloons
• Other decorations
• Flyers
• Jive music for triple-step swing
• Prizes
o We will hit the toys isle in Walmart.
• Food and drinks
o Last year we spent about $80 on pizza. [Gund Funds?]

During the discussion of pizza, Chris pulls out an economics joke—we should take
inflation into account when budgeting for pizza this year. The secretary is not at
all amused, and…politely requests…that Chris never mention economics in her
presence. Especially not economics jokes.

We will need to reserve the Gund ballroom from 7:00 till…the sun comes up! We
will look at the old swing dance flyers, but who are we kidding? Obviously we’re
going to have to kick people out of the ballroom in the wee hours of the morning.

Now the secretary takes her rightful turn at major-oriented jokes. She remembers
that last year Chris and Allison won the swing dance competition.
"Foreshadowing!" she wittily remarks.

Secretary and Ari both have CDs of swing music that should be investigated for
use in the swing dance and in practices. Chris reveals that he spent two days of his
life organizing and renaming the almost 400 ballroom songs with the help of his
trusty side-kick, Google. In fact, he deleted 9 Sex on the Beaches. The secretary
disapproves—after all, one can never have enough Sex on the Beach!

However, Chris needs to see if he can print off a play-list of the songs.

(5) We need to fix the dislist. Secretary will do this, as it falls under the category
of secretarial duties. She needs to add Marta, Valerie, Jeff, and Karen. Secretary
will also send out an email telling those who wish to beremoved from the list to
reply to the email. Emma will look into fixing the dis-list so we don’t have to use
our silly attachment technique.

Brendan apparently saw Karen the other day and asked her where she was living.

Upon learning that Karen is going abroad for the Exeter program, he almost expected
her to fade away before his eyes. Ari decides that Brendan plays too many video
games. He must be majoring in video games! Chris admonishes Allison for her pun-
slacker tendencies: she hasn’t made a bio joke yet!

Brendan tells his horrible chip joke yet again, unwittingly starting a ballroom controversy.
Secretary and Ari, intelligent as they are, agree to ban the joke; it’s too painful. Chris,
however, maintains that the joke will "live on forever." Civil war ensues.

(6) What do we want to teach first? How should we structure our first day?
We start teaching newbies this Sunday!
Brendan officially endorses teaching triple-step swing first. This reminds us that we
should practice single-step before we have to teach it at the swing dance!

After swing, we should teach the cha-cha-cha-cha-cha, followed by foxtrot.

Ari suggests that we follow our predecessors’ example of two people teaching and
others watching and helping. We should also go through the whole move first to show
what it fully looks like, and then break it down.

Rotating girls! We returning girls can also learn the guy’s parts to reduce the male
partner deficiency.

Brendan remembers learning three dances per practice, we sophomores remember
learning two per session: one in the first half and one in the second.

Chris needs to call Svetlana about lessons. How many classes will the newbies need
before they are exposed to The Russian? Brendan believes that we should just warn
them ahead of time: "If you want to destroy your body…"

Speaking of Svetlana, we decide that the ballroom will work for the first few Svetlana
practices.
Later, when we have more dedicated newbies, we can move it to the KAC multipurpose
rooms.

Secretary suggests that we dress up a little bit for the first practice—nothing too flashy
or sketchy, though. This means that Chris should NOT wear his women’s pants…no
matter how much he wants to, and Ben should certainly refrain from wearing his low,
tight Latin shirt. However, Brendan SHOULD find a loose white shirt that he can rip
off to reveal his ballroom shirt, and possibly loose pants that he can tear off as well…

Secretary also suggests starting off the meeting with a fun, flashy dance, then introducing
ourselves and the club, then showing a few more dances before starting to teach.
Maybe after a few weeks we could designate Tuesdays as a mostly social dance day?
This might help us reel in some more members as well as giving us a chance to dance
ourselves.

(7) We no longer have a mailbox at the SAC! It was taken over by Kenyon Dance and
Drama people! We should swiftly dispatch Chris to beat up the entire department.
Wait…Ben realizes that he’s part of the department as English and Drama major!

Helle suggests that he prepare to be kicked. However, Ben was Valerie’s dance partner
at one point, so he’s used to being kicked.
(8) Money makes the world go ‘round…
Ben suggests fund-raisers for the club. Unfortunately, none of us can think of ideas for
fundraisers. Also, we would all prefer to raise money for a cause.
Previously, the club has raised money for women’s shelters at the Snow Ball.
We decide that we would like to do this again.
We do have an Honorarium after all! It’s about $150! We decide that we would be
willing to perform for the trustees again. After all, we’ve sacrificed our collective dignity
so many times for ballroom even without making money…
However, this time, if the Nuge interrupts us, we will blast Sex on the Beach and dance
around the podium!
(9) To do these coming weeks:
o Clean it up! I.e. tone down the sketchiness for a while…and gradually
introduce it to the newbies. This means:
o Nix on the cross-dressing. Even if Brendan says that "we’re all about the
cross-dressing."
o No flirting between Emma and Allison.
o Ben, no throwing girls around. Or dropping them, while we’re at it.
o Find the crotch-less dress and make Chris wear it and dance on a table at the
fair.
o Reconcile our two goals…

Adjournment. Peace out.

Ballroom Minutes for 9/5/06: Robots and Pickles
Attending: Brendan Cox, Chris Blaine, Emma Wampler, Arianna Herman, Ben
Wright-Heuman, Allison Goldsmith.
After a brief, stimulating discussion about rabid bees, Chris begins the meeting with
big news…and bad news. Apparently we waited too long to sign up for the Gund
ballroom for the swing dance we were supposed to hold this Saturday! Our
requested time slot has been taken by the Social Board, which is hosting an X-box
gaming night. Ben will ask the Social Board if they would consider changing the date;
otherwise, we will reserve the ballroom for next Saturday, September 16. The
secretary would like to know why these gamers can’t just go to one of those "Gaming
Facilities." You know…where they play video and arcade games… That is, she begins
to wonder before she becomes temporarily distracted by a particularly delicious pickle.
Right, business. We have three ballroom t-shirts that haven’t been paid for yet: One for
Jeff, one for Vanessa, and one for Autumn. Brendan talked to Vanessa lately, but we
need to contact the other two.
Speaking of awesome people, last night, the newbies asked if Scott was a professional
dancer! Chris reveals that the only reason he stayed in the club was because he wants to
be like Scott. The extremely insightful Secretary is not surprised; she has commented on
several occasions about the growing resemblance of Chris’n’Ari to Scott’n’Marta…
Brendan turns the conversation to money matters: from whence should we obtain our
funding for the swing dance? He will ask two different organizations: Fun Funds and Gund
Funds. If we get enough money, maybe we can buy out the X-boxers!
Note: the official swing dance events will start at 9 pm, but teaching will start at 8.
What will we teach at the dance in the silly invention of single-step swing?
WELL, Chris thinks we should teach the tummy tickle, the Turkish towel (yes, towel, not
tower!), and the underarm turn. We also need to make sure we have enough jive and/ or
single-step swing music.
At this point in the meeting, Emma whips out what is possibly the best present EVER: A
super-sexy swanky makeup kit for the club! It even has a big mirror inthe lid with…lights!!
Now we can feel all professional and pretty at competitions.
Makeup? Competitions? That reminds Chris that he needs to call The Russian, our very
own hip-swiveling boneless wonder, Svetlana. She’s out of town for two weeks, but when
we resume lessons, they will hopefully be on Sundays again.
For some reason, Brendan has decided that our beloved and revered Secretary is actually
a robot. She *beep* *bop* *squeak* has no idea what he’s talking about…
The newbies are awesome!!!! The new facebook, however, is not. Neither is Allison’s
computer, which has a bad virus.
Next we’re going to teach Tango and Foxtrot. Secretary is highly excited. In a very human,
non-robotic way.
Meeting adjourned!

Ballroom minutes 9/12/06: Chicken Heads, Deedley Deedley
Attending: Chris Blaine, Ben Wright-Heuman, Allison Goldsmith, Arianna Herman,
Emma Wampler, Brendan Cox, Helle Slutz.
We ease into our meeting with Allison aptly describing her stress and exhaustion,
mirrored by other club members: "I’ve been running around like a chicken’s head!"
Speaking of chickens’ heads, Emma refrains from eating cafeteria food tonight
because she’s been feeling ill since this morning. Secretary suggests that Emma try
yogurt and mint tea. Alternatively, she could become Ben, who once again shocks
and upsets club members with his entirely nutrient-free meal.
Then again, if there’s one thing our cafeterias do well, it’s the cookies, so he may be
making the wisest choice.
Secretary decides to get in her two bits before she must scramble to keep up with the
minutes. She and Ari would like to have more organization before practices: we should
decide beforehand not only what dances but also what dance moves to teach so we
can run through them ahead of time. Hopefully, this will eliminate some of the awkward
standing around in front of the newbies looking (and feeling) hopeless and confused…
So, tonight (Tuesday), we will teach foxtrot (basic, underarm turns) and then something
high-energy: Salsa. We’ll teach chase-turns, New Yorkers (again), and Ben’s awesome
"throw-out" move. For the record, the girls have already learned both single and double
underarm turns in foxtrot…Ben and his boys are just slow.
We will continue teaching new moves in the dances with which we have started (swing,
cha-cha, salsa, tango, foxtrot), rather than moving on to new dances.
[Secretary’s note: because Svetlana wants to teach cha-cha-cha-cha-cha and jive in the
first lesson, we started teaching jive on Tuesday night. Or maybe Wednesday. One of
the two…]
Body connection! We will put off waltz because we feel that some of the newbies still
aren’t particularly comfortable with body connection…and some are too comfortable
with it. Chris suggests telling them "You’re college students.Touch each other." Secretary,
on the other hand, advises telling the boys not to "lead from the crotch." In other words,
Brendan says, we need to find a nice mix between a "middle school dance and a strip club."
Other notes about newbie form: Posture (both boys and girls), the cortés need work,
and no more looking at feet! For one thing, it makes it seem as if they boys are looking
down the girls’ shirts—which some probably are.
Also, we should comment about proper footwear and responding to questions (Secretary:
"The girls just stand there and stare at us, and I have no idea whether they don’t want to
admit that they need help, or whether they think I’m a complete idiot!"). Also, Secretary
feels that we can be more enthusiastic, especially at the start of practices, to get everyone
excited about learning new moves. Brendan apparently believes that he has been
"supernaturally enthusiastic!" Secretary suggests, therefore, that he attempt to be "super-
duper-naturally enthusiastic" (deedley-deedley).
Also, Secretary publicly reminds herself that she needs to be on time to practices.
Which leads to the next point: SVETLANA IS COMING! SVETLANA IS COMING!!
She will be here next Wednesday from 9-11 pm. That’s the 20th of September, so write
it in your calendars! Chris thinks we should start prepping the newbies now—maybe teach
them some combinations? The fan? The cha-cha combo? (Dissent within the ranks on this
point.)
On the topic of crazy internationals, when will we teach the international tango? Next
week! Next week we’ll also teach the "hand-to-hands" in international rhumba, as well as
some more hustle moves. At some point we need to teach quickstep, samba, Viennese
waltz…etc.
The swing, swing, swing dance is this weekend!! Ben, like the good VP he is, has printed
50 flyers and 100 table tents. Friday at 5pm we will stage an attack on the decorations
and toys aisles of Walmart.
Saturday we should begin set-up at 6:30, to be ready by 7:30. Chris has a list from The
Almighty Marta of what decorations we should put up and what moves to teach. Can Chris
carry the helium tank on the shuttle? Um, of course he can…he can carry Ben! Also, we
have $70 for decorations, although we haven’t heard about money for pizza yet.
[Secretary Note: the swing dance was a huge success, and she (among others) had a fantastic
time!]
Secretary, feeling a bit inexperienced and unqualified for the teaching position in which she
has recently found herself, worries about running out of things to teach. No worries, other
members assure her: we still have several dances we haven’t even introduced, not to mention
new moves and more specific technique.
We’ll be fine!
Speaking of fiiine, Kimberly Zito, officially named the "Ballroom Music Goddess" has been
emailing Chris: he will send her a list of what music we have and she will send us some more
music to supplement our collection. Apparently, she is also one of the "ballroomers of yore"
who routinely read these minutes…*GULP!*
Who else could be reading these minutes?? Are they monitored by the CIA or….Bush??
Just in case, "Screw you, Bush!" says Chris.
And, with a casual conversation about smokers and alcoholics, we adjourn.

Ballroom Minutes 9/19/06: "True Dat, Matey, Arrr!"
Attending: Brendan "Black Beard" Cox, Arianna "ARRR!" Herman, Emma "Patch-Eye"
Wampler, Ben "Hoist the Sails" Wright-Heuman, Captain Chris "Cross-Bones" Blaine,
Allison "Gory" Goldsmith, Helle "Scull Flag" Slutz
Welcome aboard the ballroom ship o’madness, matey! This week’s meeting is crazier
than a drunken parrot…
Black Beard, the ship’s quote machine, starts off the meeting on the topic of giving blood:
"I’m often afraid that my blood has gone to a stupid person."
The ship secretary scowls—she’s still underweight and can’t give blood anyway.
She reconciles herself by beating Blackbeard in a game of dice.
Well then…when should we invite the new deck hands to come to meetings? Soon, soon.
It might be good to wait at least another week to make sure they’re "hooked" on ballroom
before we let them in on our schemes…
Speaking of which it’s time to start planning our annual movie night! This year, we have
decided to watch "Take the Lead" with the swashbuckling Antonio Banderas. However,
we cannot decide whether Snowden or Hillel would be a better spot to weigh anchor,
so decide to let Ben lead the foraging crew. We do decide that we will hold the event in
October, to facilitate bonding before competition, when we will have to sleep …er…in
the same "cabins."
"Yes," our captain muses, "Bondage is generally better before sleep."
"But what happens if you do bondage after sleep?" asks Hoist the Sails.
The secretary pipes up: "Ye get hanged, matey."
Once again, Hoist the Sails annoys Gory Goldsmith by pointing out that she has more
food on her plate than he does. Then again, we all remind him; she’s eating a gargantuan
salad—as opposed to Hoist’s usual Heart Attack Special.
Once again, team members suppress mutinous tendencies upon hearing that Hoist slept
until 2 today since his one "watch duty" starts at 2:40.
We will discuss competition with the deck hands some time soon. Meanwhile, Gory
reminds us that there are sessions for becoming certified to navigate Kenyon vessels next
Tuesday at 1 pm and next Thursday at both 11:15 am and at 1 pm.
We should remember to make deck hands become certified, and to emphasize that they
don’t actually have to take the wheel. We just need to make sure we have the required
number of certified sailors so that we can take the school vessels! So far we have the
captain, "ARRR!", Hoist, and Andrew "Polly Want a Cracker" Saygers, and Gory is
getting certified.
And now…booty! We need to know soon how many people are competing so that we
can decide how much loot we will need for gas and how many ships we’ll need to sign up
for. Also, for the Ohio Star Ball, we need to remind people to reserve their flights for
Monday morning, but not too early!
This week, the secretary and Scott "Blood and Guts" Brown will teach the cha-cha at Apple
Valley; starting next week the secretary and Hoist will be teaching.
Due to a clumsy comment from Blackbeard, the captain begins to fantasize about ice cream
with candy shell. He and Gory decide it’s time for the weekly scavenging foray—
Captain: "If we’re not back in 24 hours, send the boat back, matey!"
While we wait nervously for them to return, we discuss babies, pandas, and reflexes, which
leads to a discussion of "ARRR’s" life goal: to save all the babies in the world.
Then the conversation spins on to spirals—and fish with legs.
Oh, captain, my captain! The foraging party has returned! And yet somehow the
conversation continues to spiral out of control…
Secretary and the captain get into another fight about the ban the secretary has imposed upon
poli sci and econ references. The secretary stops listening…therefore, she wins!
Secretary: "True dat, matey—Arrrr!"
After a quick discussion of plastic American singing cups versus Tibetan singing bowls, and a
heartless Steve Irwin joke from Blackbeard, we finally get back to business.
Tonight we will teach the Cha-cha-cha-cha-cha, including all the variations of the traveling New
Yorkers, as well as the progressives and the chase turns. We will also teach international rumba,
but we will wait a bit longer before teaching the fan.
Tomorrow we will all bow down to the scourge of the dance floor, Svetlana.

On Sunday we will teach our deck hands the quickstep, waltz, and maybe samba as well. After
all, there’s nothing like Samba to stave off scurvy!
Captain: "mmHMM!"
Blackbeard: "That’s not pirate-y at all!"
Captain: "AAARGH, MATEY! WALK THE PLANK!"
And, as we are leaving ship:
Blackbeard: "Holy, crap, holy crap, son of a… listen to me now!"
Apparently, the Mystery Science Theater episode for this week is "like visiting your own funeral…
or circumcision," it is that life-changing. The secretary would like to say that, however amazing this
episode is, it cannot be more life-changing than hearing what Blackbeard just said.
And we all walk the plank.

Ballroom Minutes: 9/26/06: Food For Thought
Attending: Chris Blaine, Ben Wright-Heuman, Emma Wampler, Brendan Cox,
Allison Goldsmith, Helle Slutz
Secretary, Emma, and Chris express their happiness about changes and improvements
in the cafeteria food over the last few weeks—they have tuna!
Edible casseroles! Peaches! Ben, however, is unhappy with the changes towards
more healthy food options…Perhaps he should change his eating habits?
Chris: "Ben , you’re going to die at 45."
Ben: "Thanks, that’s the oldest prediction yet!"
Chris begins to describe the fresh, juicy steak dripping with steak sauce that he ate
lately at the Kenyon Inn. Ben attempts to stab him with his fork.
Once again, Secretary is appalled by Chris’s distaste for blueberries. Chris claims a
legitimate cause: his mother used to make him pick blueberries from their yard, so he
associates blueberries with child labor…But his argument dies when we discover that
his mother made him pick the berries because he didn’t like them. Basically, he just
has silly taste buds.
And the meeting begins.
Emma has added a new page to the website specifically for the club’s constitution. It
shall never be lost again! It is located off of the officers’ page. This is ironic, considering
that Chris, our very own president, has never been to the ballroom page! For shame!
Chris is just not having a good day, what with the blueberries and the ballroom page…
tsk! And now we head into a stream of surprising productiveness.
So, how about we start teaching an hour of technique on Mondays? Ok!
We also need to do the waiver signing soon.
Two of our awesome newbies have already paid dues!
Tonight we will teach the international rumba, the tango, and samba, since Svetlana will
be teaching these dances tomorrow.
Competition stuff!
Officers need to give Allison their ballroom numbers and need to remember to renew
their memberships to the national ballroom association thingy on time!
Allison will send out an email with a link, address, and instructions so that our newbies
can register.
For the Purdue (or, as Brendan says, PurDON’T) competition, the fees are $25.

Also, Allison will need to know who is definitively going to both the Purdue and the Ohio
Star Ball competitions by October 15. [SECRETARY’S NOTE: THE DEADLINE HAS
BEEN MOVED TO WEDSNESDAY, OCTOBER 11!] Club members need not pay
the fees by this date, but they must give Brendan competition fees before going to the
competitions!
For competitions, "newbie" dancers are defined as those who have been dancing for a
semester or less. This obviously excludes a certain ballroom nemesis—Mr. Curly Hair of
the Purdue Ballroom team. This individual, who housed some of our team members last
year (secretary included), danced newcomer, bronze, and silver at the last competition.
Secretary is convinced that his hair-gel is what turned him into such a rude, rule-breaking
snob: "He was perfectly nice the night before the competition, and then the next morning
he showed up with all this gel in his hair and it was like he was a completely different person!"
Anyway, back to Purdue: the competition is from the 3rd to the 5th of November, although
there is no dancing on the 5th. We will decide while we’re there whether or not we want to
drive home Sunday morning or Saturday night.
We will leave on Friday night for the competition, around 4pm. The social dance is from
8-10, so we will plan on arriving at 8:30 or 9 pm. Chris also points out that we should
spread out newbies and officers in the vans. Secretary, however, is highly amused by the
image of cramming six newbies into a van: "By, kids! See you at the competition…"
Ohio Star Ball!
The college competitor price has been "jacked up to the nines." Apparently this year it’s $70
(as opposed to $65 last year.) However, this ticket includes unlimited entries to all ballrooms,
tickets for the professional events, and the competition fees. Each competitor is limited to 5
entries in each style, with a maximum of 12 entries for the weekend.
The deadline for registration for the competition is November 3rd, although, again, Allison
wants to know who from our club is going before the [11th] of October.
The schedule for the competition is:
Friday night: registration, social dance.
Saturday morning: 8 am-- Bronze rhythm, 1 pm-- Bronze standard.
Sunday: 8 am—Bronze Smooth, 1 pm—Bronze latin.
Competition ends Sunday around 6 pm, so competitors should schedule their flights for
Monday morning.
Also, this year, we have 15 newbies who want to compete! We will most likely need to
ask people to bring personal vehicles in addition to taking the Kenyon vans.
At this point in the meeting, Chris takes a bite of his cake. "Ohhh!" he exclaims. "That’s
AMAZING!"
Brendan turns to Emma and says, very effeminately, "I’ll have what HE has!" We decide
that Brendan is certainly ready for the Deb ball, although Brendan maintains that if he
doesn’t have someone there to "pull off his pants and put him in a skirt," he’s not going.
Allison quickly brings the meeting back to business. She was registered to drive Kenyon
vehicles today! Aaaand she got 100 percent on the test. Good job, Allison! Secretary
thinks you should get a gold star. Hint, hint, president!
Speaking presidentially, we will most likely be reimbursed for the pizza from the swing
dance. If not, Chris thinks we should up the ballroom fees by $70-$80….and make the
checks payable to Chris Blaine…
There will be no Apple Valley teaching this week. However, the Apple Valley-ites have
decided that this month is Latin month, so we will be teaching salsa, cha-cha, mambo,
samba, and rumba over the next few weeks.
At this point, for some reason, the officers decide to send a shout-out to Mr. Jeffery
Force in this week’s minutes. So….SHOUT! MR. JEFFERY FORCE!
Also, the rumors about our very own Mr. Scott Brown continue to circulate.

First, he was thought to be a professional dancer. This week, the rumor is that he single-
handedly discovered penicillin years before his birth….What shall next week bring?
We’ll leave you to ponder.

Ballroom Minutes 10/3/06: Jeff Force and Your Mom
Attending: Ben Wright-Heuman, Brendan Cox, Emma Wampler, Allison Goldsmith,
Arianna Herman, Chris Blaine, Helle Slutz, Saskia Warren
Our pre-meeting discussion is better expressed in direct quotes:
Ben: "I feel like such a whore"
Brendan: "The servery is like a damn sauna."
Ben: "Your mom’s like a damn sauna."
Brendan: "She is pretty damn hot."
Ari: "I already knew that from last night!"
In a well-placed change of topic, our very first newbie attendant of the year, Saskia,
mentions something she learned in Anthropology today: Orca whales taught humans
to hunt humpbacks in Australia. Or New Zealand. One of those countries in the
southern hemisphere. Anyway, her informative comment reminds Secretary of a song
by Regina Spektor, which includes the lines "I have dreams/ of Orca whales/ and owls…"
And now Saskia wants to record the secretary and use her as a ring tone. Secretary
begins to scheme about quitting her secretary job and going to work for Verizon when
the meeting begins…
Competitions!
Housing for the Ohio Star Ball: unless OSU sends out an email or puts something on
their website about housing, we will have to find and/or pay for our own. Luckily, our
very own secretary lives just outside of Columbus. Her family is willing to house 4-5
women and she might be able to find housing for at least a few other team members,
since she has friends at OSU.
Another alternative would be to rent one hotel room and cram as many people into it
as possible. This year we might be able to do this since we don’t have the amazing Jeff
Force here to be concerned about breaking the rule of four to a room,. Sadly, Jeffery
will not rejoin us until next semester. This brings on a chorus of sighs—we all miss Jeff!!
As far as transportation goes, if we take Kenyon vehicles, Allison can drive one of them
back after the competition. We may need others to return the vehicles, as well as someone
with a personal car who can go along and then drive people back to Columbus.
Budget! We’ve gotten all the money we asked for for gas, but they didn’t adjust it for
mileage, so we will have to factor that in (as well as compensation for gas used by people
driving personal vehicles) when we apply for supplemental budget. Also, Allison emailed
the lovely woman at Security about reserving vehicles for competitions, and she hasn’t
gotten a response yet.
Speaking of emails, we got one recently from the drama people. On the 9th and 10th of
November we will need to find another place to hold practice, since Sweeney Todd will
be using the ballroom for their dress rehearsals. What should we do about Svetlana,
since the 10th is a Wednesday? Well, we may just have to move to one of the multipurpose
rooms at the KAC, although our illustrious president complains that the KAC is too far
away and he doesn’t want to walk there.
If we take this plan of action, we will need to tell Svetlana how to get to the KAC—and it
should probably be someone who has driven there who tells her.
Otherwise she might just get directions such as "go through this alley, cut across this field…"
We decide that Svetlana could probably handle the tight spacing and off-roading, however,
since she most likely drives a Russian, mini, bat-mobile.
"You know," someone says, "We could just get Segues to take to Columbus!" We all
agree that this is a fantastic idea. Chris laughs, however: "Whenever I see a cop on a Segue,
I just want to steal something from him [or her]!" We also decide that we should joust on
segues.
Somehow, our discussion of Segues segues into a debate about Jeffery Force’s height—
which of course leads to reminiscence about our amazing "Shetland couple," Ari and Jeff.
Brendan is jealous: "I hope people have debates about my height!" Chris decides he’ll have
to measure the life-sized statue he had made of Brendan…in a dress.
Brendan is strangely not happy about the idea of a dress-clad statue of himself, but Chris
counters his objections with "But it’s for posterity! And if you’re against posterity, you might
hate children!" Unfortunately, Chris’s argument falls flat when Brendan reveals that he does,
in fact, hate children.
The Saturday after October break is ballroom movie night!! We still don’t know whether it
will be held in Snowden or Hillel, but we’re pretty sure it will start somewhere between 8 and
10 and go until….whenever….In fact, the only thing we’re certain of is that we are watching
"Take the Lead," and that the amazing Saskia has agreed to purchase said movie. Yay for
our newbie!!
Speaking of Saskia, she also thinks that Brendan is "like Franklin the Turtle, only perverted."
She also thought that Chris, Brendan, and Emma were normal… Sorry to disillusion you, dear!
For her first time at a ballroom meeting, our Saskia sure has contributed well! Secretary feels
like a proud parent.
Since we’re talking about parents…The weekend after our ballroom movie is parent’s weekend,
and our lovely web mistress expresses interest in putting on some sort of exhibition for the
parental units. Ari says "they would love us forever and ever if we did that."
Brendan apparently "loved your mom forever and ever last night. Multiple moms."
We reluctantly agree that we will do something. That something, however, is not, under any
circumstances, to involve Ben and Scott doing the salsa dip.
And with that unfortunate image, we end this week’s meeting.

Ballroom minutes: 10/17/06: Make room for Jesus
Attending: Elena Fernandez, Arianna Herman, Chris Blaine, Vito Mantese, Brendan Cox,
Ben Wright-Heuman, Emma Wampler
The meeting begins, per usual, in spurts of random comments:
We discuss the evils of organic chemistry—the class which is slowly and perniciously sapping
the life force of our lovely competition coordinator, and which caused Elena to switch from a
bio-chem major to just a biology major.
Secretary thanks Dieu and Kenyon College for her never having to take this class.
Vito: "Apparently, the U.S. population hit 300 million today."
Emma: "There are too many people in the world. Let’s kill Ben."
Brendan: "We get sooo much leeway in ballroom, it’s like a leeway festival. Just like that. Yes."
MARTA IS COMING TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A fiesta spontaneously erupts,
complete with mariachi band and piñata.
Chris: "Ok everyone, meeting adjourned. We’ll just let Marta take care of everything tomorrow…."
Secretary once again voices her opinion that Chris should be kept from positions of power-- none
the less because he has decided to censor some of this week’s minutes. Help! Help! I’m being
repressed!
Ben has decided to put together a Halloween-themed CD of ballroom music. "For instance," he says,
"Black Magic is a cha-cha. And it’s black magic, so it’s witchy…." Thanks for the clarification, Ben.

Apparently, "Thriller" is a hustle, which prompts Chris to say: "I hustled your mom’s thriller last night,"
at which point Secretary curls up in a little ball of pain in the corner.
Speaking of mothers and Ben, the club would like to send a SHOUT OUT TO BEN’S MOTHER!
Also, the club would like to apologize to Emma’s mother for Brendan’s comment in a previous minutes
in which he called her a liar. We know this is simply not true.
This, of course, leads to a discussion of parents’ weekend—i.e. this weekend.
The exhibition for parents will take place at 12:30 in the afternoon in Gund ballroom.
Group members argue over which dances to do, and over whether or not deciding now is important.
Everyone (save Ben) agrees that deciding now is important, that we should dance for about half an
hour, and that we should do cha-cha, international rumba (since it doesn’t have rumba rocks!),
American tango, and swing.
Apparently Ben taught American rumba at Apple Valley last week, with Scott as his partner—and
they taught the rumba rocks. The high schoolers who were there to learn moves for their upcoming
school dance, besides being disturbed, also told Ben and Scott that their school would never allow
them to do that move at a dance.
This reminds Elena of her high school dances (at a public school, none the less), where the chaperones
would walk around with a ruler to make sure students were an appropriate space apart, telling the
kids to "leave room for Jesus!" Elena apparently wanted to tell them, "Well, I’m Jewish. Why should
I care about Jesus?"
Somehow it comes out that Ben and Chris will give a private performance for the parents….
Elena thinks we should do the hustle, since it’s of the parents’ generation.
What dance is of our generation? Well, there was the Macarena….Secretary defies anyone to make
fun of this dance, as it is very near to her heart. She is ecstatic to learn from Ben that the Macarena is
also a samba…maybe we can add Macarena moves to our samba combos!!
If officers or others who somehow have the ballroom email password read emails intended for either
Chris or Allison, please remember to mark the email as "unread" afterwards—both Chris and Allison
have missed responding to important emails because people forgot to do this. Also, those who read the
requests to remove emails from the dislist, please actually remove the names from the dislist!
Vito very intelligently suggests that we get a gmail account for the club.
Brendan, suspicious, asks "What? Are you working for Google or something….?"
We’ll think about that Google account, but meanwhile Chris wants to clean up the existing account,
deleting the emails and folders that we don’t want to keep as records. Ben makes a good point-- there
is plenty we want to keep as archives; however, some paring down and organization is needed.
Ben enjoys a sandwich of a chocolate-chip cookie and a sugar cookie.
Chris: "Because the chocolate-chip cookie doesn’t have enough sugar in it!"
Ben decides that he should get a chocolate-chip cookie and pour sugar packets onto it…and some
sweet n’ low… Elena’s only reaction: "Sweet n’ Low? That stuff’s gross!"
Chris asks that we remind Anneke to remind him to remind her of something…The secretary gets lost
in the reminders and in Chris’s remarkably Canadian "aboots." Somehow this leads to a brief conversation,
the only aspect of which Secretary catches is "DEATH BY MOOSE!"
Svetlana is having a competition on October 28th. Is anyone interested in competing? The general
consensus is that people would like to watch, but not compete. Ben will be going and can drive.
Apparently Svetlana would like to move her lessons to the KAC. Chris, of course, thinks we should do
anything within our power to keep the Svetlana happy. He also sends a message to those who say they
won’t go if the lessons are in the KAC:
"HEY, BALLROOM PEOPLE! Stop being lazy! If I can walk down there by 6 am every Tuesday,
you can go for S. Stop complaining!"
Elena, looking over Secretary’s shoulder, comments on the "for S": "Wait, you mean "fo’ shizzle?" Yes,
Elena. True dat, yo!
Secretary would like to send another shout out, which is completely unrelated to anything just discussed:
SHOUT OUT TO CHRIS AND ARI! Today is their 13-month anniversary. 13 also happens to be Ari’s
lucky number. Which is strange, because it’s also her roomie’s lucky number…
More good news—we are fine in terms of supplemental funds. We are still receiving the money for the
Cornell competition, even though we didn’t go.
Unfortunately, it would be unethical for us to use the money (earmarked for gas and transportation) for
food, but we CAN drive around in circles for hours.
Which we will probably end up doing, considering our previous navigational experiences…
IMPORTANT REMINDER: Members must pay dues ($15 if competing), as well as money for the
Purdue competition, BY TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24.
Also, those who are planning on competing and who have not been in a while need to show up for
practice. You know who you are!
Speaking of competitions, SHOUT OUT TO ELLIE NORTAN for being the coolest person ever
and dancing the guy part!
Aaaand that’s all, folks!

Minutes: 11/28/06: "Beefy!"
Attending: Chris Blaine, Arianna Herman, Elena Fernandez, Ben Wright-Heuman, Brendan Cox,
Emma Wampler, Allison Goldsmith, Saskia Warren, Helle Slutz
We start with Snow Ball: AHH!! The woman from the Latin partnership that was to replace
Svetlana can’t come in two weeks, and we will certainly not be ready to put on the Snow Ball this
weekend….How about we have it next semester, before Phling? Ok! We will hold it the first
weekend back from winter break. That’s the weekend of the 19th and 20th of January, two weeks
before Phling.
Maybe Svetlana will have a new partner by then…? OR, maybe Christiano will have returned!
Chris does not want to see Christiano after Svetlana gets through with him—he’ll be bruised,
battered….but his hair will still be perfect…
SO. After break we will have a ballroom advertising blitz. Elena intelligently suggests that we get
some of those little invite cards to stick under doors.
On the topic of Phling, it will be held in the KAC this year. Where will they put all the bands??
Chris thinks the pool sounds like a good idea. Speaking of the pool, Ari thinks they should block
it off…But what to do about all the glass walls? Or the saunas? Basically, the KAC is a death trap
for drunken people!
The ring of Saskia’s cell phone interrupts the discussion. It’s Maya! She’s skipping softball
practice. We all decide that she should come and hang out with us. As Saskia tries to convince
Maya to do so, Allison turns to Chris.
Allison: "Hey, Chris, how’s the beef stroganoff?"
Chris: "beefy!"
Maya arrives to deafening applause and fireworks! She looks rather frightened by her reception.
Frightening? That reminds us! We will hold ballroom elections next weekend.
Since Brendan is going abroad next semester (WAHHH!!), he will run the elections.
We decide that we should nominate Scott for every position so that he has to do multiple interpretive
dances. Maybe we can make up a position for him— how about "Ballroom Guardian?" Secretaire
has a mental image of Scott in a tight, low v-necked sparkly chain mail tunic, with a sword, shield,
and women’s spandex pants…
Chris sent out an email earlier saying that elections will be on Sunday, December 11th, but we
have all learned by now not to trust anything Chris says.
Once again, he lied—elections will be held on Sunday, December 10th.
One of our officers, our Web Mistress Emma Wampler, in fact, is working on pictures. Which leads
to a fumbled explanation of how to use Photoshop through one of the public software drives. Which
leads to a discussion of professors and illegal file sharing. Not that any of us participate in this heinous
crime….
And now time for La Secretaire’s shameless plug: This Saturday, 8pm, in Rosse Hall, the Community
Choir and the Chamber Singers will put on their joint winter concert. Several members of our illustrious
club are in one or the other of these choirs, so come and support them! (First altos, woot!)
After Secretaire finishes her shameless pluggage, she catches the tail of Chris’s conversation: "…and
then I stabbed him with a knife…" She hopes he is simply discussing their plans for taking out other
couples on the dance floor.
She also hopes that he already knows about and plans to attend the concert this weekend, which is
why he’s not paying attention to her pluggage. Because otherwise, well…Chris won’t be the only
knife-stabbing ballroomer…
Ari had a dream that Chris asked her to find his vegan scarf….This relates to ballroom, however,
because one of our jive songs was in her dream. Yup, she’s a ballroomer, all right!
We make fun of Chris and Allison for their silly accents. Aboot!
We make fun of Chris some more, and then some more, and then….Break!

Ballroom minutes for 12/12/06: T-shirts, Dolphins
In attendance:
Chris Blaine,
Ben Wright-Heuman,
Allison Goldsmith,
Anneke Mason,
Andrew Saygers,
Elena Fernandez,
Suzanna Stroganova,
Saskia Warren,
Emma Wampler,
Brendan Cox,
Arianna Herman,
Helle Slutz,
Maya Schell,
Thomas Lewis

Sorry if I misspell your name. I do care about that. Let me know.

And this is my first time so, please, be gentle.


When Zarathustra was alone, however, he said to his heart: “Could it be
possible! This old saint in the forest hath not yet heard of it, that God is dead!”
-Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra.




A clear horn rings high above the field, and lays claim to the hearts and hopes of
a brave few yet remaining. They stand, true and proud, above the battlefield of
sexual identity and moral ambiguity. A pure driven hope, an ambiguous consort -

A ballroom club. They stand for gay rights and sexual healing, for nonsense and
free-love, for most of Africa, and for any cause the Justice League of America
won’t bother with because there isn’t any oil in it. The ballroom club.

Actually, most of us are only here to dance. Fowl the Democratic party. In the alps.

The night begins with a discussion of the finer points of t-shirts, and everyone
mentions their favorite.

Chris is mentioning something, and Brendan drops

YET ANOTHER YOUR MOM JOKE. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP
MAKING THEM IT’S DRIVING ME OUT OF MY MIND

and everyone laughs. Anni makes a confused search around the room for napkins
before someone just hands her one. This brings up an interesting point about napkins:
specifically, how many napkins do you think this place goes through in a day? Isn’t
there a more environmentally conscious way of going about this? Whatever, screw
the rainforests. What did they ever do for me?

I think at this point Ben made a pointless remark about new attendees, and everybody
argued about how many new attendees there were, and who cares, Ben? Really?

Saskia weighs in on the value of declaring as a freshman. A couple people tell her it’s
dumb, she defends herself by recounting her situation, and I decide to give up on my
salad and go for my pie. What’s my secret to staying so thin, Ladies? I run ten miles
a day, and bench press unicorns. Call me ladies!

I think at this point Elena said something about a Physics professor named Yan, and
someone mentioned something about Anni, so I think it’s safe to say that Yani and
Anneke are getting married. Darling, I personally think he’s too old for you.

Business

Svetlana’s message deconstructs the different permutations of functions you can
perform upon reaching her voicemail. It is apparently adorable. So adorable, in fact,
that I feel I must hear it…I resolve to crank call her day and night until she screens her
calls and I can put ear to this fantastic message. Just kidding, I’m not a creep.

Chris decrees that Snowball is now the 26^th of January. It will take place in God
knows where, which in English roughly translates to either Philo or the Ballroom.
We argue over the location for a little bit. We argue more. We fight. We bicker, we

GOD RAISES HIS FIERY HAND TO SMITE THE INFIDELS

It’s still up in the air, people. But trust me, someone, somewhere actually cares, and
they’ll keep me posted. You’re on your own, though.
Chris talks about the dis-list, and how someone should clean it up. Emma complains
about the lousy system we have that makes creating a dis-list link impossible.
Someone gets on my case because I don’t have a clue how to do any of this crap
but I DON’T CARE. LICK ME, CHRIS.
I know you want to.
Bank statements are discussed. If you aren’t Elena, this isn’t really all that important to
you.
Ben takes a moment to ask for recounts. We discuss the finer points of goats.
We discuss next semester, and possible theme nights or casual/non-competition nights
so non-competitors can actually enjoy a practice every once and a while. If you
haven’t been coming, please do next semester. It will be better, we promise.
We discuss why theme nights and casual nights failed in the past. Chris and Hella have
the most awkward conversation of all time. We discuss different nightly formats. The
idea grows into a magnificent bird, flying among dreams of casual Tuesdays and
different instructors every night. A graceful swan, which Brendan then shoots from the
night sky:
Brendan: “We’ve tried that in the past. It’s a horrible idea.” Oh, the tragedy of swans.
Ben, Ari, and Anni continue discussing nightly teaching switches. It is ball-stompingly
boring.
We talk about how we should improve technique. Chris thinks we should. Emma
accurately states that none of us could teach it, since none of us have proper technique
anyway. And Ben, don’t lie to yourself. You don’t either.
We discuss unicorns. Hella wants to be a pink one with flowing white hair and a
speckled back. Chris mentions how his parents googled him. Thomas makes a Googled
your mom joke, than cuts himself with a razor. While shaving, I mean.
Meetings of the future are discussed. Nobody actually knows when they’ll be available
next semester, and the discussion is abandoned as
MOSES LAYS WASTE TO THE TRI-FOLDED GOD’S EYE!
Maya is asked to keep her hands to herself. Hella is asked to
STOP MAKING THOSE FREAKING YOUR MOM JOKES
Chris looks at Ari, then loses his wisdom teeth. Saskia’s mouth is so big she doesn’t
need to have hers removed. Ben talks about how much he loves codeine, but it’s no
good to him. Everyone mentions their own pathetic drug stories. Not like me. I
freebase napalm from a crack pipe made out of a human skull.
Chris offers the room his ghost pie. The moron doesn’t even realize that the crust is
the best part.
Brendon makes a nancy attempt to adjourn the meeting since official business is
completed.
We talk on the matter of adjourning, and finals. Anneke is cooler than you, because
her American Studies final paper is optional. And Brendan’s Japanese professor
declares himself God.
Hella drinks wholesome milk with her pie. We get on the subject of bunt cakes.
Brendan is anti-bunting, claiming that it is insufficient at something that no one cares
about. Chris lines up as pro-bunting, claiming that all of the outside edges go bad at
the same time, so you know when to throw it out.
http://www.pbfcomics.com/?cid=0PBF10060BC-Skub.jpg - 11
Chris is a fatty who eats a lot of cake. Ben fails to bunt anyone’s mom, goes home
alone. Again.
Maya is discussed. She enjoys her necklace, her flip-flops, hair ties and dolphins.
We discuss the word subtle. Some people just don’t know the t is silent.
Allison has spider-man band-aids. They gift you with mutant powers when you wear
them over fatal stab wounds. Just kidding, you’ll die anyway,
We discuss tape. Blue tape, to be accurate. Maya waves at Brendan. A little known
story is recounted about how Caleb once gouged out a hobo’s eyes with his thumbs.
The room dissolves into about three gajillion conversations.

I make a brilliant mom joke, but no one understands the subtlety of it. Whatever,
fowl you all. In the alps.
We discuss Sonic the Hedgehog. He had a TV show. Chris thinks that Sonic isn’t
good enough to save the world, and if an evil fire-bombing psychopath attacked the
forests of the world, we’d be screwed. I think everyone missed the point, which is
that Contra would kick Sonica’s @$$ any day of the week.
Hella and Allison begin a devastating battle over the stupidity of Swedish accents. To
hell with Wisconsin. Brendan’s sweater is green: it calms the room down. Hella is
Green’s favorite color.
Ben is banned from talking. Not because he says inappropriate things, but because
he isn’t funny.
JESUS COMES DOWN FROM THE RIGHT HAND OF THE FATHER TO
BATTLE THE MUSTARD STAINS.
Brendan starts a separatist movement dedicated to the true nature of ballroom. A civil
war ensues. Tango knives. Tear gas. Mom jokes. I whip out my Glock, drop the
hammer, and administer some indiscriminate justice. To make way for my Utopia of
hedonistic manatee worshippers.
Brendan calls Ben a traitor, than judo chops a flying shoe. The ledger is abandoned,
everyone jumps overboard. Someone makes a motion to adjourn.
Everybody leaves. All quiet on the Western Front.