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$Chris Ricciotti$ Several months ago, Chris Ricciotti, the Queen Mum of gender-role free contra dancing severely injured his hand. Several surgeries were needed that included a wrist to finger nerve graft and he expects complete recovery - he's doing well already. Since he has little medical insurance some of us decided to hold a fund raising Contra Dance in the JP church where we usually dance.

The event was on Friday night. It was very successful with lots of dancers and some donations from out-of-town dancers. The cost was $0!. Three bands (Contra Loco, Spank Me!, and Free Association); four callers (Linda Leslie, Bob Golder, Barb Kirchner, and Tony Parkes) donated their services; the UU Church in JP let us use the space for no fee; and many people brought dessert food.

I, an inexperienced sound engineer, ran the sound with the help/advice/hindrance of multiple people. The hall is very reverberant, there was lots of crowd noise, constant changing of callers with different voice characteristics and periodic changes of bands made it quite challenging. Also the sound board is at the front of the hall but the sound in the back of the hall is the problem. It would take lots of really long cables to fix that.

It was a great night. We have a great supportive community. The energy was good, the bands and callers were all excellent.

Kudos to Mike Miller who was the chief organizer of this event.