Green with ... jealousy or envy?

With dance can come amazing opportunities.

Three dancers from our studio were invited to dance in Europe next summer. The choreographer Jacques Monfiston not only choreographed their trio but he also picked them to join his troupe in Europe.  These are 3 of our top girls.  They are all very grounded dancers and the nicest of girls.  Why am I mentioning this in a blog about being a dance mom?  With the good usually comes the bad.  One would have thought such a close knit studio would all rejoice in the good fortune of fellow members.  Well the memo didn't make it to the senior classes apparently.  While the junior members of the team congratulated the girls on being chosen ... their peers did nothing of the sort.  They did however talk amongst themselves about the chance they would be picked at a later date.  I had to explain to my 9 year old when he came home with these stories, that unfortunately for the others, it didn't work that way.  This brought to light the divide in the team.

When there is a divide in a team ... the next thing you need is to remove that divide and build your team strength.  Last Saturday the studio brought in a motivational speaker named Saidat to try to break down that divide.  I had been to one of shows before and loved it.  I found her even better for the kids.  I think she really hit home with some of her messages.  I am not sure anyone filled her in on the tension among the members of the team.  None the less I think it was a great idea to have something like this. 

Here is Saidat with her Flava Crew which includes 3 Elan dancers.

Now for the part of my blog where I talk about my Digicomm course.  Let me tell you how excited I was to check course registration in another Digicomm class for Winter term today only to find there was 1 spot.  So a swapping I did go!  I swapped a distance studies course I had registered in for a Wednesday night on campus class.  This will be my last required course and then I just have optional courses to get my diploma.

In my current class this weeks reading was about mobile usage.  At Western we are currently working on a mobile app that will allow students to view their timetable on their smart phone.  We are also going to make it work on tablets but are still sorting out the sizing issues with the larger screen.  Our first attempt at a mobile app came this past spring that allowed applicants to create their own WesternOne card and upload their photo to get on their real WesternOne card when they accept their offer.


Hopefully we will be bringing the new mobile app live in time for Fall/Winter 2014 registration.  Mobile devices really are the way of the future. UPDATE: We are now live with our mobile app. 

On the topic of businesses using the scan icons to promote their sites I recently came across a business using it and thought what a marvelous idea!  We were shopping in the states and wanted to eat at the Olive Garden but 2 of us are gluten free.  When we stopped in we were given a menu and under gluten free was the QR code we were so excited to try it out.  Unfortunately for them, their QR went to a dead page :( We still ended up eating there and asking for the gluten free menu but what a great way to use it!

Pink on a boy ... oh my!

Fundraiser #1 down.  We don't have the official total yet but the estimate was about $4000.  Yay us!  There are 42 kids on the team and that money gets split amongst the families that participated to help cover the competitive fees. 

I found it a really great exercise to setup the legion on Saturday before the fundraiser with some of the other dance moms.  I learned a lot of their names and who they belonged to.  Meeting everyone and chatting I got caught up on a lot of the gossip as well.  I guess when you look at a group of women you have to know there will be some gossip.  I really tried my best to float between all the little groups until my friends arrived.  We played 3 games of bingo and I didn't get close to winning any of them. 

Sunday Kian had his first all day dance workshop at the 4 Points Sheraton Dance Attack Workshop.  I dropped him off for 9am and picked him up at 4.  I didn't think he would be into the swag because it was blue and pink.  Well ... I was wrong.  When we picked him up his first question was 'Can I get sweat pants?'  He can always use a pair for warmup so we picked him up a pair.  After wearing them for the night he decided he wanted to wear them to school the next day.  I was concerned that he might be made fun of since they are blue and pink.  He said that you can't be made fun of for wearing pink and that ended that conversation.  So the next day he wore the sweatpants (which by the way he says are the most comfortable pants ever) to school.  When I picked him up at the end of the day he had his beanie hat on, pockets pulled out of the sweatpants and walked with a ton of swagga.    I asked how his day went and he said one person started to make fun of him so he put on the hat, pulled out the pockets and told them it was a look.  My kid makes me so proud just being him.  This day however, I was beyond proud at how he handled himself.  *sniff* he is growing up :(

On to Social Media ... at work my area hasn't created a social media policy yet.  We have two main accounts one for The Office of the Registrar and one for Student Services.  We are currently looking into setting guidelines for our social media accounts and deciding which account is responsible for covering what topics.  Right now @westernuReg covers anything that Student Central handles (Admission, Fees, Financial Aid, Records, Exams).  Once the higher level makes the decision then we will develop an official policy.

Something that came up this week was when a student Instagramed a screen capture from a PoliSci lecture.  We were then set to question if the student had violated the Student Code of Conduct or if the Professor had done something out of line.  In the end we passed the situation on to the appropriate office and took a step back.  Interesting how these new forms of communication now bring an added level of complication to what we do. 

Bring a friend to dance class ... ah ya about that

This last week Kian has brought home 4 'bring a friend to dance' passes.  He will likely get 2 more tomorrow as well.  The problem I am finding is that he never has just one recreation class (except Tuesday).  For him to bring a friend, their parents have to agree to drive them and pick them up from Lambeth.  That is a 30 minute drive from the very north of the city to the very south. 

Most of Kian's friends would not be caught dead in ballet or jazz class (Mon & Tues class).  The one they are likely to want to attend is breakdance or hip hop on Thursday.  Kian starts dance at 4pm so his recreation classes (the ones with 'bring a friend') are from 6-7 & 7-8.  I then dance from 8-10 so my husband has to shuttle Kian and my daughter home to bed.  Is it wrong to allow Kian to invite a friend if they can find a ride?

I am having trouble with this.  I would hate to say no when he really wanted to bring a friend to see what he does but it is really asking another parent to inconvenience themselves.  Same thing for Niamh though.  She wants to bring a friend to her 9am Saturday morning acro class.  She has gymnastics right after so if the friend came with us she would have to wait through that class or have her parents pick her up at 10. 

I also had to say no to the first school event Kian will have to miss thanks to dance.  The school Christmas concert is scheduled for a Thursday night at 6pm.  He has already missed Thursday classes thanks to Halloween (I had to let him skip) so he can't miss any more.  So I signed the consent form back saying that he wouldn't be participating nor in attendance.  He didn't seem heartbroken so hopefully it will be ok.

On the class front this week our readings were about tags.  For me personally I tag people in photos on Instagram and Facebook but I tend mostly to use hashtags on twitter.  I haven't gotten used to the hashtag feature on Facebook yet.  When I use a hashtag on twitter it is either one that I am using to allow others to find my tweet such as when watching Sons of Anarchy I will hashtag with #SOAFX but when I am just typing a general tweet I tend to use a hashtag such as #justsaying when I want to emphasize my point.


At work I use hashtags to reach certain groups of people on both Facebook and Twitter.  One hashtag I used a lot recently was #WesternU2013.  I was trying to reach the graduating class on Friday when the 401 was closed due to an accident.  The Helpline was getting a lot of calls from panicked students who were stuck.  We wanted to convey the information that they should proceed straight to Alumni Hall when they reached campus and we would have their regalia waiting for them.  We also use #WesternU when we want a broad group to see our tweet.  This also prompts @westernu to see our tweet and retweet it for us.

Over the last few weeks I have been trying to grow our followers and two things have provided us growth.  We tweeted the preliminary exam schedule October 11th and then on Nov 4th we tweeted about refund cheques being available.  Both of those updates along with adding our twitter to the bottom of official emails has encouraged followers.

Today I asked my student-staff why they use tags.  Their overwhelming response was just to make a point and to share their thoughts.  They don't do it to make searching easier but simply because they like the way it looks.