11/30 Update

From Valerie Dawn:

"I hope everyone had an amazing holiday break! Its so good for our bodies to have a break to allow restoration of our bodies and minds!  ENCORE is thankful for each of you!  

Yesterdays time got gobbled up quickly yesterday, this update is later than I intended, I apologize.

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Christmas Party & Secret Santa!

Our Christmas Party is coming up this Sunday, Dec 5th 2 - 4pm!

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We are so excited to take over the building this Sunday and have some Christmas Fun! ENCORE will be providing/organizing the team building activities, orchestrating Secret Santa as well as providing cookies & hot cocoa! We are so excited to get into the holiday spirit with all the company & crew students!

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You will be receiving who your Secret Santa is via email info@encorepacnw.com. You will receive who you are to be the Secret Santa for and what their interests are. Everyone attending the Christmas party must participate in Secret Santa, no one is allowed to be left out. In order to participate you need to bring either a general gift or one directed towards your humans interests between $15 - $20 dollars and make sure it is wrapped.

(If you are in financial trouble, if you can't purchase something due to time, anything! contact Valerie asap - no one stays home because they didn't get a gift. We will make it happen no matter your situation.)

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If you have not filled out the Secret Santa, please do ASAP - Click Here

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Group Photography

I spent yesterday morning flipping through every photo that was taken at group picture day! I worked with our editor to superimpose our missing humans with their group. I've been told that she will have them updated by tomorrow and I will start uploading your group photos into your Smugmug accounts! I will do this over a couple of days, your link to see the pictures is below: (see our website for direct link)

• Jazz Tots

• Jazz Minis

• Hip Hop Minis

• Acro Petites

• MT Petites

• Hip Hop Petites

• Jazz Juniors

• Contemporary Juniors

• Tap Juniors

• Hip Hop Juniors

• Popping Juniors

• Company Teen Solos

• Hip Hop Teens

• Waacking Teens

• MT Duo

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See's Candy Fundraiser

See's candy fundraiser took a bit longer to figure out then I was expecting. Jeri, Jodie and I were working on this for a bit and deciding what was really worth your time vs finances as they have many options. After trials on all of the ways to fundraise we decided to go with a 50/50 profit fundraiser. (compared to 15%). ENCORE invested a few hundred dollars in purchasing the candy upfront and from now until Christmas you may sell the candy and make the profit asap! Details below on how its going to work! (We will bring this back for Valentines Day as well!)

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Contact Human Jodie Crowe for any questions!

From Jodie:

Hello families! We are ready to launch the See’s Candy fundraiser. It will be a short and sweet fundraiser that will hopefully help those who participate offset some costs. 

How to sell pre-purchased boxes. 

We have ordered Christmas Delivery candy boxes and are planning on selling them outside the studio during class for $10 a piece. If you are interested in this, please sign up here. There will be 2 slots per hour, first come first serve. We will sell until the candy is gone, we can extend up until the week we close. Either the dancer or a parent can sign up. Each box has a $5.00 profit so you would split this evenly with the other family selling during the same time. 

If you would like to try and sell some boxes elsewhere, you can do that too! If you are interested in this, you need to email info@encorepacnw.com and tell them the number of boxes you want to be responsible for. You have until Dec. 18th to bring the money back to ENCORE. No candy boxes can be returned. However many you take, you will turn in $10 per box or your account will be charged for that (wholesale) amount on Dec 18th.

Here is an example:

Example 1:

• Dancer Joe asks to sell five boxes of candy for $10 each.

• Dancer Joe picks up those five boxes.

• Dancer Joe turns in $50.

• Dancer Joe will have $25 added to their comp account. The other $25 goes to paying for the candy.

Example 2: 

• Dancer Joe asked to sell five boxes of candy.

• Dance Joe picks up those five boxes.

• Dancer Joe was not able to sell the candy. 

• Dancer Joe will be charged $25 to cover paying for the that they took home. (No returns allowed)

Thank you so much for supporting (human) and their love of dance!

Band Usage Updates/Changes

ENCORE is constantly listening to your feedback and modifying what we are doing for the benefit of ENCORE and you both. We use band as our private communication app for a number of reasons. One, its safe and private so that our young students can be in direct communication with their instructors. Two, it allows us to notify you of updates. Three, its all in one location.

We have had feedback about notification dings coming thru and that its effecting humans daily flow of life. We hear you on this, and have looked at many different ways to communication over the years. Thus far Band this has been the most successful. We are part of a big team and communication is key and sometimes we cannot avoid the dings.

The following are ways that you can navigate the dings/notifications as well as how ENCORE is going to modify using band to help calm down the inevitable dings.

Manage your band notifications:

It is your responsibility to gain the information via band, as well as to modify your notification to fit your needs in life. If you modify your settings, please add a habit to checking into band often as this is the ONLY way we will communicate to everyone on a whole.

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"How To" guide on band notifications: Manage your Band notification : Learning Center | BAND

ENCORE will be Changing our following ways that we use band:

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Band Calendar:

Original Usage: I originally intended for the calendar to have all practices, events, everything in it. However with the amount of groups and changes happening ENCORE with group schedules at the last minute, our staff was not able to keep up with the calendar in time. This caused too much confusion, so ENCORE paused using the calendar to re-evaluate its value.

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New Way: NOW, ENCORE will update the calendar to include the following:

• Co/Cr Dates (Mtgs, Team Building, Photography, ect)

• Listing All Comps (Including mandatory and optional, be sure to know what ones we are attending)

• ENCORE Happenings (ENCORE Events)

• Financial Dates (Auto-Charge Dates for ENCORE & Co/Cr)

• Additional Events/Happenings that are Optional (Musicals, Battles, Shows, Workshops to expand your experience and education)

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(NO, Ind or group schedules will be included in the band calendar.)

Requesting 'on own' practice use in the studio:

Original Way: On the weekly post by Mary you would request what times you want in the studio (this would cause a lot of dings)

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New Way: We will have ONE pinned post that will continually run with requests in the comments. Mary will post in the comments every Monday that she is ready to book for the next week. Everyone can monitor their 'dings' by going to the settings section on the band app and setting those notifications. Did you know that you can set it to only have notifications that your tagged in! See the link above.

NEW! NEW! PINNED POST!

We will be creating a pinned post that will be updating you on different events that are optional and coming your way! These events will be about shows, battles, workshops and other dance related events that you can attend. We will updating the post itself and we encourage you to check the post for updates. (These items will also be in the band calendar)

We will continue with:

• Weekly Update Posts (sometimes bi-monthly when its needed) with all the information in one post instead of separating the info in many posts. 

• I will continue to do videos to provide a way to listen to the update via a car drive, doing dishes, etc.

• We will keep all information on our website for quick reference

Company/Crew Homepage | ENCORE Performing Arts Center (encorepacnw.com)

Password: Unleashed22

If you have other feedback on how to improve our communication, please band message me.

Costume Update

We are continue to work our way through costumes for all groups & solos! When costumes arrive, and we need to try them on and/or items are needed to be gotten by you, we will be notifying you via your band group message. We will also be providing a spreadsheet for all items that you will need to purchase in addition to your costume. (Items like shoes, jewelry, make-up, etc) 

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Inviting Humans to Band:

Here is the link to send to others to invite them to band. ENCORE allows only parents, instructors and kids on band. If you have a human that you want on band, you need to send them this link: https://band.us/n/a5a564v7R8M7j

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Looking for Volunteers:

If you would like to help Co/Cr out with mini projects and such, contact me via info@encorepacnw.com

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Much Love! ~ Valerie Dawn

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