On February 7th the Super Bowl will be over and  Pinenuts will return to the stage, playing this time for a variety of callers, led by Ken Gall (and of course for dancers!). Contact Ken if you want to call.

January 31st, we have music by 61st Pl. Project & caller John Teskey. Indianapolis is counting down to the Super Bowl, with lots of  Super Bowl Village activity downtown, parking limits, and lots of extra traffic, so approach the dance from the north or east.  Try to arrive early too! Parking will be in demand!

Indy Contra has one Membership Meeting each year, and this year it’s scheduled for the last dance in February, on the 28th. (Everyone’s always welcome to the monthly board meetings too.) We’ll elect three members to the board. Please email indycontra@gmail.com if you want to run. The ballot must (per bylaws) be announced by February 14th.

We will also vote on amendments to the bylaws, primarily intended to reflect new technological tools we use to communicate with dancers and potential dancers. When last revised, email was not as widely used, nor web pages, and there was no Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube.  We need, for instance, for this posting and an email sent to our google group and google announcements list to count as notifying people that there’s going to be a meeting. Suggested changes will be posted and distributed by February 14th.

The meeting is during the break, around 9 p.m., and usually takes 5 – 10 minutes.

Our caller on January 24th is Trevor DeWitt. Trevor brings years of experience teaching clogging, and Celtic Myst brings years of playing for our contras.

ITMDG memberships are for 12 months, no matter when you join. But most people renew in January, so here’s the form. Print & mail with a check for $15 (or more, if you can and want to), or bring it to the dance.

In exchange, you get $1 off admission to each weekly dance, occasional free or reduced admission to special events, to vote in elections, and to help support and grow dancing and music.

We also offer a reduced price membership for those under 26. It gets all the benefits except that admission (already discounted) isn’t discounted even more.

ITMDG is a charitable organization, listed in Publication 78, Cumulative List of Organizations described in Section 170(c) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (organizations eligible to receive tax-deductible charitable contributions), so contributions may be deductible.

Those who itemize on federal personal income tax may want to review IRS Publication 526, including the sections “Membership fees or dues” and “Certain membership benefits can be disregarded” in “Contributions from which you benefit.” (Note that this is still the version for tax year 2010. Also, we are not allowed to provide tax advice or interpretation. It is up to the donor and his or her tax adviser — not the nonprofit that receives a donation — to determine how much to deduct, and when and how to deduct it.)

According to weather.com, the average monthly temperatures for January in Indianapolis are: high of 34, low of 19. Getting hot & sweaty at the January 17th contra dance seems pretty appealing, in comparison.

We’ve got the band & caller re-scheduled for Tuesday, January 10, 2012! Entwyned is playing with Ken Gall calling. We were so sorry to have to cancel the 12/27/11 dance, due to our dance site being closed for the holidays, but we’ve scheduled Ken, Twy, and John for our 2nd dance of 2012. Come help us make it worth the wait.