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Decisions, decisions
Mar. 13th, 2005 12:55 pmI hate making decisions.
So of course, there I was as the only steering committee member besides Chris taking any responsibility for the question of whether we should call off last night's contra dance, in the face of weather forecasts that sounded pretty bad (or not, depending on how you looked at it). I was especially skittish after our experience with the English dance last Tuesday.
Except this was sort of the opposite situation: on Tuesday, conditions didn't look bad in mid-afternoon, so we decided (not respecting the forecast sufficiently) to go ahead, and then conditions got much worse around 6:00, and only about 10 dancers showed up. Yesterday, snow was coming down pretty fast in mid-afternoon (although not accumulating much), but the worst was predicted to be over by 5:30, with light snow and snow showers continuing until midnight or a little later.
This meant that conditions would not be particularly dangerous, or even that unpleasant for driving, at dance time -- but that assumed that we believed the forecast, and that potential dancers wouldn't be scared off. At least the radar pictures, and the reports that the sun was already out in western Mass., were encouraging.
Chris and I talked on the phone at 10:00, and decided to put off a decision until about 2:00. At 2:00, we decided to wait until 4:00. At 4:00, we agonized for a while -- both of us really wanting to go ahead, but afraid of the financial hit if nobody showed up -- and I consulted with one other committee member, and at 4:30 we finally decided to go ahead. At each of these stages I sent out little email notes to our mailing list telling them we still hadn't decided, and to stay tuned.
Chris, as it happened, had an increasingly bad cold, and so couldn't set up the sound system as planned, so![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jwg and I did it when we arrived at about 7:15. This in itself guaranteed that the dance wouldn't start on time, but it didn't really matter since at that point there were only about 6 dancers and anyway the band hadn't shown up yet.
They did arrive eventually, and the dance started -- with maybe a dozen people -- at about 8:15. More people filtered in, and I think we ended up with 20-25, which is not good, but at least enough to make the dancing enjoyable; and it was. I think we made the right decision, although the financial effects are not good. Asjwg said at the point when we had finally decided, "A bad decision is better than no decision."
I really don't want to go through that process again anytime soon. Everyone keeps talking about how much snowier than normal this winter has been, but most of them don't point out that we've had an awful lot of snowstorms on dance days. What have the weather gods got against gender-free dancing, anyway?
I hate making decisions.
So of course, there I was as the only steering committee member besides Chris taking any responsibility for the question of whether we should call off last night's contra dance, in the face of weather forecasts that sounded pretty bad (or not, depending on how you looked at it). I was especially skittish after our experience with the English dance last Tuesday.
Except this was sort of the opposite situation: on Tuesday, conditions didn't look bad in mid-afternoon, so we decided (not respecting the forecast sufficiently) to go ahead, and then conditions got much worse around 6:00, and only about 10 dancers showed up. Yesterday, snow was coming down pretty fast in mid-afternoon (although not accumulating much), but the worst was predicted to be over by 5:30, with light snow and snow showers continuing until midnight or a little later.
This meant that conditions would not be particularly dangerous, or even that unpleasant for driving, at dance time -- but that assumed that we believed the forecast, and that potential dancers wouldn't be scared off. At least the radar pictures, and the reports that the sun was already out in western Mass., were encouraging.
Chris and I talked on the phone at 10:00, and decided to put off a decision until about 2:00. At 2:00, we decided to wait until 4:00. At 4:00, we agonized for a while -- both of us really wanting to go ahead, but afraid of the financial hit if nobody showed up -- and I consulted with one other committee member, and at 4:30 we finally decided to go ahead. At each of these stages I sent out little email notes to our mailing list telling them we still hadn't decided, and to stay tuned.
Chris, as it happened, had an increasingly bad cold, and so couldn't set up the sound system as planned, so
jwg and I did it when we arrived at about 7:15. This in itself guaranteed that the dance wouldn't start on time, but it didn't really matter since at that point there were only about 6 dancers and anyway the band hadn't shown up yet.They did arrive eventually, and the dance started -- with maybe a dozen people -- at about 8:15. More people filtered in, and I think we ended up with 20-25, which is not good, but at least enough to make the dancing enjoyable; and it was. I think we made the right decision, although the financial effects are not good. As
jwg said at the point when we had finally decided, "A bad decision is better than no decision."I really don't want to go through that process again anytime soon. Everyone keeps talking about how much snowier than normal this winter has been, but most of them don't point out that we've had an awful lot of snowstorms on dance days. What have the weather gods got against gender-free dancing, anyway?
I hate making decisions.
