Teachers often ask me if I think it’s proper to add a surcharge to entry fees to cover the costs related to participation in competition. My answer is yes—but don’t try to hide it from your students’ parents. It doesn’t look good for you if they suddenly discover that the actual entry fee is less than what you’ve collected.
If you participate in competitions, you know how much work goes into them—and what they cost you in dollars as well as time and energy. Let the parents know what it takes to keep their kids competing. If you’d rather avoid surcharges altogether, it’s time to start asking for parent volunteers to do some of the work.
From the parents’ point of view, they’re already paying a sizeable amount for lessons, costumes, shoes, extra fees for solos, and hotel and transportation costs. If you let them know, without playing the martyr, what your costs are, they are more likely to accept the expensive reality of dance training.
|
If you’d rather avoid surcharges, it’s time to start asking for parent volunteers to do some of the work. |
Time: The cost of spending hours
Planning the season.
Researching and purchasing the right music for the competition dancers.
Recording and editing music for each of the competition entries.
Making long-distance phone calls to find appropriate competitions, hotels, and transportation.
Meeting with faculty to place the competition dancers on the correct teams.
Designing or selecting the costumes.
Scheduling rehearsals and classes.
Collecting entry fees.
Running to Federal Express with last-minute entries.
Brainstorming new ways to motivate the kids to do their best.
Planning for the next season.
Money: You’re paying for
Office staff to fill out entry forms, make reservations, order costumes, etc.
Long-distance phone calls.
Entry fees you front for parents who are late with their payments.
Extra postage to send the entry forms and payments by FedEx before the deadline. (They’re late because the parents didn’t pay the fees on time and you didn’t have the money to pay for them up front.)
Personal transportation and hotel costs at the competitions (possibly for the faculty too).
Faculty to cover classes at the studio during competitions.
Music rights from ASCAP or BMI.
Tapes and/or CDs and any recording costs.
Personal wear-and-tear:
The stress of wrong orders or late-arriving costumes
Trying to accommodate each parent’s special requests
Fatigue because the competition ended late on Sunday and the studio must be open on Monday morning
Consoling the dancers who didn’t score as well as they had hoped
Dealing with the parents who aren’t happy with the way their children scored at the competition
The thought that there is another competition next weekend!
Excerpted from Rhee Gold’s Complete Guide to Teaching Dance: An Insider’s Secrets to Personal Reward and Financial Success
 |
|
 |
Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
Story Ideas/Submission |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
