|
Through traveling to other places during events and for regular weekends and by talking to what was growing to be a large network of friends everwhere, I started to appreciate the things that made the Toronto scene special and realize some of what we had was if not unique fairly special. I had experienced a fairly new phenominum called a Lindy Exchange and also been housed all over the place and wanted to return the favor by inviting people far and wide to my backyard. I had created a list of events that started off for myself because I was trying to figure out what event to hit next. Later it got more detailed as I was trying to choose a date for the 1st ever Toronto Exchange (which was the first offical Canadian Exchange). The listing had gone through many name changes some of which include; 'Dance Schedule of Events', 'Jody's Dance Schedule of Events', 'Upcoming Dance Events' and eventually it became the 'Swingoutoftown Listing'. This listed upcoming dance events all over the place. The list was only intended for me but eventually word spread about it and blamo I was emailing it out to event organizers and dance travelers all over the place. I realized that all the organizers could really benefit from this information as, no one really wants to risk holding an event at the same time as a communinty that is fairly close as it makes your list of potiential attendents smaller. Also knowing where things were happening could make dancers aware of more of the opportunities and options out there is a great way to advertise events. By posting dance and travel information in one place I was hoping to take some of the hassel out of dance travel and create a network of dancers who look out for those travel specials/deals and share them with the rest of us. The North American swing dance community has become a small place, becasue of online resources and travel. September 19 2000 I created an egroup called 'TorontoLindyExchange' for the staff of the 1st ever Canadian Lindy Exchange to communicate to one another and also collect information in one central place. The only two members of that list for the first 4 months or so were co-founders Jody and Mandi. Both were to be taking on two very different but equally important roles. I traveled to MANY exchanges everywhere gathering information to later use for ours. I took notes on what worked, what didn't. Showed up early to a few to help out and see how others did it. Mandi rallyed the troupes in Toronto and we both discussed the 'plan of attack' online/by phone/in person. December 6, 2000 First Toronto Exchange general meeting. December 13, 2000 I registered the mirror site http://hop.to/toronto December 2000 Time was running out and the voulenteers who said they'd do the web stuff (and never did) hadn't come throguh and I wanted something up before the new year. I was leaving for Los Angeles December 21st and not returning till January 8th. Ryan Swift aka. Swifty from Rochester helped make it official. He was amazing and helped me out by designing a temporary 'coming soon' page for the exchange. He helped me put it up, made a banner and sumbitted it to Elan at the lindyexchange.com website. Also Ryan was amazing and later answered many html questions that I had when I eventually tried to do the site myself. Yes, it was sink or swim situation and I had to learn on the fly. January / February 2001 From December throught to February I was spending close to 1/2 my time here and 1/2 in Orange County (L.A. Area). When put together I think it was about 5 1/2 weeks out there? I did most of my work for the exchange remotely... as I worked night and had the time to put in while there. Several hours each night and I would oftend stay past the end of my shift (8 am) and it wasn't uncommon to seem me there at noon. The norm was around 10 though and there were times where I'd meet with Mandi at her shop/workplace for a few hours before heading home. I had a hands off approach with the committee as my schedule was horrible for face to face meetings and Mandi was there. Our impromptu meeting created a a cohesive unit and ensured we were all workign towards a similar vision/goal. The yahoogroup was excellent for sharing information and I was greatful that aside from a few kafaffels things went rather smoothly. The comittee was doing its job and things were going well. August 2007 I had stopped living there for well over year (some would say several years longer due to my commuting to Ottawa) and it was really more effort than it was worth. The Toronto area of the site came down. (To be continued..) |