SOUTHEAST FLORIDA DRUM/DANCE CIRCLE NEWSLETTER
Saturday, 8 July 2006

Offered to you by the Southeast Florida Drum Circle Community
Michael Dean Goodman, Coordinator, 561-350-3930
SoutheastFloridaDrumCircleCommunity-owner@yahoogroups.com

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Dear Drummers and Dancers,

I am saddened by the need to send this announcement to all of you. Please
read on if you plan on attending drumming events at the Raleigh Hotel in
Miami Beach.

It has come to my attention over the past couple of days that the infor-
mation that I was given by Christelle who manages the event for the Ra-
leigh Hotel, that she asked me to send out to all of you a week ago,
about tonight's drum party at the Raleigh, was seriously misrepresented
to me. And I feel embarrassed and tricked because I passed that misinfor-
mation along to all of you with my enthusiastic recommendation, and now I
have to turn around and emphatically withdraw my recommendation.

Although the Raleigh is still the beautiful location that I described in
the last newsletter, and although Amber (the sacred fire dancer) is still
marvelous! - the information that I was given about the drumming aspect of
the evening has dramatically shifted since I last wrote you.

* The professional drumming group that dominates the event will still be
there exactly as before. It will NOT be the kind of community drum cir-
cle most of those reading this newsletter know. It is a party/social
event, where the drummers and dancers are the "entertainment" for the
main party goers. Drummers, other than the pro drumming group, are
welcome to PLAY ALONG, as long as they follow the sets performed by the
pros.

* The restriction on drummers making too much noise IS still a concern;
Christelle does not want the drumming to interfere with people social-
izing.

So the very elements that make me call it a "drum party" rather than a
"drum circle" are still fully in place, although I was assured by Chris-
telle that they would not be.

Knowing what I do now, I am not going; and many of the drummers who com-
mitted to me that they'd go are also not going. Please make your own de-
cision based on this new, more accurate info.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you want more detailed info, here's the outline of what happened:

The Raleigh Hotel's drum party coordinator (Christelle) just recently
took over from Manije (who just got married - congratulations!) who'd been
coordinating the event for some time.
Manije knew me, and knew that I coordinated the Southeast Florida Drum
Circle Newsletter and Website.
Christelle got my number from Manije and sought me out for assistance in
making a change in the Raleigh's full moon drum party.
Christelle called me last Saturday, July 1st, out of the blue, and told me:

1. The Raleigh has been having a drum party around the full moon for about
2 years.

2. They have been hiring a group of about 4 professional drummers to per-
form - to create the drumming.

3. She wanted to change the nature of the drum party, to improve on an al-
ready successful event and make it even better:

a. She wanted to attract drummers from the community and have what she
called "a community-based drum circle". She explained that she has
attended community drum circles elsewhere and wants that kind of
spirit to develop at the Raleigh, where good drummers are attracted to
come and jam with each other and interact with the dancers. She was
concerned that so few good drummers have been attending.

[Right now they get huge attendance at their drum parties - maybe
150+ people - including many dancers and watchers - but very few
drummers for that size crowd. Last time I was there I counted about
8 Miami area drummers (other than the professional group), and they
were mostly accompanying the pro drumming group rather than actively
interacting with each other as drummers do at many drum circles.]

b. She wanted to stop hiring the professional drum group:

* Partly because she senses that having them discourages good local
drummers from attending [which I confirmed to her to be true based
on conversations and e-mails from local Miami-area drummers who've
contacted me over the past 6 months];

* Partly because she said the pro drum group just raised their price
and she doesn't want to pay that much.

c. She said that if I'd publicize her full moon drum event and get 6
good drummers to commit to coming, she'd have the courage to stop
hiring the professional drum group. She said she needed to make
that decision in the next few days (by Monday, July 3rd) for the
upcoming drum party later that week (tonight, Saturday, July 8th).
Also she wanted to publicize the party, with the new drumming for-
mat widely on the 4th of July, when lots of people are celebrating
at the Raleigh.

d. I mentioned two other obstacles that local Miami drummers had men-
tioned to me, that kept them away:

* The Raleigh's policy to limit the loudness of the drum circle,
to end the use of bigger drums like djembe's after 10:30pm.
Christelle assured me that they no longer do that - drumming
now goes on, full blast, till 1-2am.

* The Raleigh's tendency to schedule their full moon drum circle
on the same night as the big full moon, or full moon eve, drum
circles on the beach, which draw the better drummers. Christelle
pointed out that they are trying to avoid that conflict - this
month they are scheduled for Saturday night, 2 nights before the
full moon).

Based on all this information from Christelle, I wrote up a special edition
of the Drum Circle Newsletter, reflecting what she asked me to say, and sent
it to you last Sunday, July 2nd. I was enthusiastic about helping her make
this upgrade to the Raleigh drum party, turning it into a real community
drum circle. I was enthusiastic that she seemed to realize the three ob-
stacles to getting good drummers to attend, and was sincerely remedying each
of them. Notice that this was the first time I've dedicated an entire drum
circle newsletter to one drum event. I felt her efforts were that worthy of
community support.

Then things started to fall apart fast:

Immediately after sending out Christelle's request for drummers to attend,
to replace her need to hire the pro drummer group, I received an extremely
hostile, angry, childish e-mail from one of the members of that profession-
al drum group - he told me that I was completely misrepresenting the facts,
that I had some secret dysfunctional motivation to steal this drum circle,
that I was a mere "tapper" [his derogatory word for most non-professional
drummers that go to community drum circles], and many other comments that
would be too embarrassing for him if I quoted them here. It was apparent
that Christelle had "forgotten" to tell the drum group that she was not
hiring them. So they were shocked to read it in a public newsletter!

Christelle also felt their anger, and called me to try and "heal the divi-
sion" between them and me [a "division" caused by her failure to communi-
cate with them, and her "forgetting" to tell me that they're not just some
hired drum group, but that they'd helped create this drum party and were
deeply attached to it, and felt that it belonged more to them even than to
her - a relative newcomer.]

I told Christelle that I had at least 6 good drummers who had responded to
the newsletter and had committed to coming, and that more commitments would
continue to roll in during the week. I said emphatically that we'd gotten
these drummers to respond, and to forward our invitation along to their
friends, based on our commitment that this would be a typical community
drum circle - free from the leadership of the professional drum group,
free from the noise limitations. I told her that if she went back on her
word, and these drummers attend and find they've been "tricked", then she
and the Raleigh Hotel would lose their credibility in the drumming commun-
ity for years to come.

She seemed blind to what I was reasonably saying. Astonishingly - based
on what she'd had me send out just a few days before - new now told me
that she wanted to still have the pro group come, but to "only lead some
of the evening". She wanted to ignore the problem that would create for
many drummers. Strangely, she tried to pretend that the pros weren't being
paid to be there, and she only reluctantly admitted that they were when
I repeatedly reminded her what she'd told me a few days before and called
her on it [that they were hired, and were even raising their price to the
point where the Raleigh didn't want to pay it]. Our whole phone conversa-
tion was like a chapter from Alice-in-Wonderland; suddenly her plans and
desires were radically changing back to the old situation, she wanted to
pretend that the facts of the event were just the opposite of what she'd
told me days before... I told her to think carefully about what she was
doing, and she promised to think on it and call me the next day (Wednes-
day).

Instead of calling me, she sent out an e-mail to her entire mailing list.
Here are some of her points, exactly as she wrote them [with my comments
in brackets]:

"1. The full moon gathering is the opportunity for many people to share
the energy of the full moon in an environment of harmony, celebra-
tion and integrity. In the surrounding of the exotic and magical
oasis of the raleigh hotel.

2. The main group of drummers who is leading is Chakkawatthi, and all
drummers who want to join the vibrant energy and rhythms are wellcome.

[The pro drumming group that has traditionally been there will be
there exactly as before - no change. Other drummers can play along -
can follow their lead.]

4. We also have people who will be around the fireplace [fire pit], and
we will have to limitate the volume of the music to a level that will
be confortable and enjoyable for all.

[There will still be limitation on loudness of drumming. The social-
izing is most important; the drumming/dancing is secondary - for the
entertainment of the general attendees.]

5. The drummers who wants to join our group and come during that evening
would be asked to use the side-door, to enter in the oasis area.

[The Raleigh would like the drummers to enter off the side street,
through a gate in the back fence, rather than through the beautiful
hotel lobby and grounds - much like entertainers enter via the stage
door.]"

BASICALLY, EVERYTHING SHE ASKED ME TO URGENTLY COMMUNICATE TO THE DRUMMING
COMMUNITY THROUGH THE DRUM CIRCLE NEWSLETTER HAS NOW BEEN WITHDRAWN.

To add one further level of bizareness to this already strange drama, Chris-
telle sent me an e-mail on Wednesday, saying that because of the "bad feel-
ing" generated by my newsletter announcing her intention to change the
drumming part of the event, and her invitation to drummers to attend:

"I would ask you from now on to never mention my name and phone number
on articles or e-mails that I haven't approved before hand."

I had put her first name and e-mail address in the newsletter, as the con-
tact person for this event, for people who need more info. For every drum
event I list a contact person. If you call the Raleigh, they will give you
her name and e-mail as their coordinator for the event.

She begged me to get her message out, to save her from having to hire the
pro drummers again by recruiting community drummers; and now she's acting
offended that her name appeared anywhere in it???

What kind of game is this?

All-in-all this is just silliness. I can't tell if Christelle is just very
mercurial - changing her mind all the time, or was actually playing a game
of "let's you and him fight", or was using all this as leverage to get the
pro drummers to charge her less, or just got into a management situation
that is way over her head...? In any case, I no longer want my name asso-
ciated with this event. I wish them well. I am personally not intrigued
to go to a drum event with this kind of hostility, confusion, and crazi-
ness - nor a drum event where the drummers are considered entertainers
for the "main party" and have to follow the lead of a hired group of drum-
mers/entertainers.

Each of you should judge for yourself, and go only if the situation attracts
you - but NOT because of any recommendation that I previously made. That is
now withdrawn.

Your Southeast Florida Drum Circle Community volunteer coordinator,
feeling somewhat battered by this craziness,

Michael
southeastfloridadrumcirclecommunity-owner@yahoogroups.com
561-350-3930 (24-hours)










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