Dance Scottish Together - Glasgow Branch update

Dance Scottish Together, the new members e-newsletter will highlight stories and events from different Branches and Groups in each issue; in this first issue, we hear from Debbie McAlees, Communications Convenor for RSCDS Glasgow Branch.

Debbie says:

"At RSCDS Glasgow Branch, as every branch and Headquarters have been, we started planning how we were going to get Scottish country dancing going again in our area once restrictions started lifting. Our traditional classes would start, having been assessed by our Covid office, but what about something different? Prior to Covid, we had been working on a social media campaign and we wondered if this would be a great time to launch it.  We decided to give it a whirl and hoped this campaign could generate new members or even new classes.

The campaign involved a marketing agency called SMG and after some market research across social media platforms, they proposed we ran some creative ideas to run on social media, alongside some ideas that came from our branch committee.

We worked hard to decide what catchy ideas and images that would catch people’s interest on Facebook and Google and directed them to Eventbrite to manage the event numbers. Here’s a few of the adverts...

So, the campaign was a great success and instead of getting people to attend our classes right away, we ran a series of taster events at various venues across Glasgow e.g., a pub, a church and a multicultural centre. All fun nights where participants could have a go, enjoy the live music and dancing, and see if it was for them. 100% of attendees said they would recommend Scottish country dancing to a friend. Only one person said they would not come along to a class due to health concerns; the rest said a resounding yes.

So, we now have two new additional beginners’ classes per week, and we have increased attendance at all our classes from this campaign. It may not be for every branch, but we thought we would share our experience of doing something a little bit different…"

Thanks for the update Debbie.  If you’d like to be involved, please email Lyndsay at lyndsay.walker@rscds.org, she’d love to hear from you!