Role Terms Vote Results

Dear PATMAD Community Members,

The following is the report on the role term voting that took place over the last two PATMAD dances at Commodore Barry Club. A total of 181 active members were eligible to vote, and 101 members voted. Thanks to all of you who did so.

Ballots were tracked for verification and only given to active members whose membership status was checked against the membership list. The absentee ballots were given in person to active members who attended dances on April 6th, April 20th, and May 4th and the absentee ballots were printed on identifiable paper so that they could not be easily duplicated. No absentee ballots were mailed to anyone. The ballots were cast in the following manner:

16 absentee ballots were returned of the 18 that were given out.
71 ballots were cast at the June 1, 2023 dance.
14 ballots were cast at the June 15, 2023 dance.

The ballot asked members to vote on the percentage of non-gendered role terms that best ensured the health and vitality of the dance. The vote totals were as follows:

The PATMAD Board determined in 2019 the median would control the outcome, and the median here was 100%, so in the future, we will ask callers to use the non-gendered role terms Larks and Robins.

Special thanks are due to jess purvis, Nicola Lustig, Jeremy Steinberg, Ella Williams, Linda Corson, and Adlai Waksman, who organized people to update their memberships, ran the vote, and counted votes; and thanks to our ace accountant Jack Marquess, who certified the results.

I hope that those of you who wanted to see the continuance of gendered role terms will continue to dance with us. I know that some of you felt very passionate about this issue. I am hopeful that we can all recognize the paramount value of contra dancing to live music in an all-inclusive, supportive environment.

The Board is working to implement the role term changes as soon as possible.

If any of you has any questions about the role-terms voting, please e-mail me directly.  .

--Rich Myers, President, Philadelphia Area Traditional Music and Dance