The IDTA congress held at the beginning of July in Southport was such a joy to attend this year. It started for teachers with business lectures on Saturday afternoon covering subjects such as GPDR, and Chaperoning, how to run a successful dance school, and an informative question and answer session. It continued with a fun Las Vegas evening on the Saturday, lectures on Sunday, and the IDTA Annual Dinner. This was followed on Monday by the Annual General Meeting in the morning and continued with lectures ending early afternoon.
Over the three days it costs 2 nights of hotel rooms, meals out, dinner dance tickets and fares to the venue from your home and return. The question therefore to ask is does it provide value for money?
Value for Money
I believe it absolutely does and I wanted to share my reasons with you. Firstly it is an easily accessible way of taking continual professional development. I believe it is vital to keep up to date with trends, learn interesting choreography to teach and listen to the views of others. Who wants to be a teacher that took their Associate and then never attended anything more? There were several excellent lecturers and lectures to inspire and inform.
Secondly, it could be a tax deductible expense. Ask yourself when you are paying your tax bill whether you would have rather spent the money going to the Congress.
Thirdly and I believe as importantly, it is a chance to meet IDTA members from all over the word and to connect with friends old and new. It is often the chance meeting with someone which will inspire you to do something you have been thinking about for a while, or to change the way you do things.
Let's Work Together
We are such solitary souls in our business but we don’t need to be. I continue to be amazed that when at times I have needed help with my business someone will always step up to help. That is the true value of networking: the help which others are prepared to give you and the help you might give others. Share your ideas to take the profession further. Share your love of people. The more people that dance the more work there will be for everyone.
Let’s put out a campaign to raise the numbers of attenders at Congress 2019 to record levels. Start planning now.
In the meantime I wish everyone a very peaceful and productive summer. Good luck to all of you running Summer schools.