Smoking, Vaping and Electronic Cigarette Policy - To comply with English and European Law smoking is prohibited in all our venues. In addition, there is insufficient evidence of the safety of second-hand vaping and electronic cigarettes. Therefore we do not allow vaping or the use of electronic cigarettes in any of our venues.
Hot Chair Policy at Dances - The priority at our dance nights is dancing. We work under the assumption that you've come to dance more than you've come to sit and you will be dancing more than sitting down. With this in mind we expect people to share chairs and simply find an empty chair at their table or nearby when they fancy taking a break. We have found that a ratio of 3 chairs to every 2 dancers means that there's always plenty of empty chairs and will endeavor to keep this ratio at all of our dances. Please do not move chairs through the dancers during the event or get more chairs from cupboards and place them in the venue - this increases the risk of injury and could block gangways to fire exits or toilets.
Teaching Policy - We employ trained, qualified dance teachers or dance teachers under the supervision of qualified dance teachers. All our crew have been trained by Andy who is qualified with the UKA and a former National Dance Development Officer with the LeRoc Federation.
N.B. We do not expect students who attend our classes to offer teaching. Whilst it is fine to give tips and encourage a less experienced partner if things go wrong during the lesson, we strongly discourage coaching by people who are not crew or qualified teachers. Please do not take it upon yourself to coach other dancers, either at the side of the dance floor during social dancing or, even worse, in the middle of lessons or the middle of the dance floor during the freestyle.
Advance Ticket Policy - Discounted advance tickets are non-refundable and non-transferable. We give a discount on advance tickets as a thank-you for committing to attend our dance. If you choose to change you plans we will not make a refund.
Alcohol Policy - You are welcome to bring your own wine and beer to dances held at premises where there is no alcohol license.
Where there is an alcohol license please do not bring any drinks on to the premises.
Policy for The Drill Hall, Horsham
The exception to the above is the Drill Hall in Horsham where the Premises license allows a Personal License holder to sell alcoholic drinks - the Personal License holder is Michael Mariner who runs his own Licensed Premises - in the event that Mike is unable to attend in person he is still available on the 'phone and represented at the venue by Andy McGregor.
The objective of this policy to ensure we do not encourage "binge drinking" - of course this is very unlikely to happen at jive events because jivers are not usually drinkers at all, preferring soft drinks as jive is very active and involves a lot of spinning.
1. Where wine and beer is included in the ticket price the quantity available will be limited to 2 drinks.
2. Free soft drinks, water, tea and coffee will ALWAYS be available as an alternative to the wine and beer.
3. A careful watch will be kept to ensure that nobody drinks to excess!
Lost Property Policy - Any lost property will be retained at the venue for 3 months. We will dispose of any items remaining at the end of that period. Property will be offered to other dancers or donated to a charity shop.
Rocsters Anti-Bullying Policy
Draft Document produced Monday 6th Nov 2012
Do we really need a formal bullying policy for an adult class? We asked ourselves the same question. This meant we had to make a positive decision to NOT have a bullying policy. Bullying between adults at dance classes is very uncommon but does happen from time to time. As professional dance teachers running a professional business we felt is was better to have a policy than make the decision not to have a policy. This means that everyone knows where we stand on the subject.
Anti-Bullying Policy
Bullying is the intimidation of an individual or group by another individual or group. Bullying implies a wilful and conscious desire to hurt, threaten, or frighten someone with an intention to cause distress.
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Bullying is often done for the bully’s personal gain or gratification. It is often aimed at impressing others. Bullying that concerns us at Rocsters can take place at Rocsters dance classes or Rocters social events but it can also occur at other times but relating to classes or events..
What types of bullying are there?
- Emotional (being unfriendly, excluding, tormenting, threatening behaviour)
- Verbal (name calling, sarcasm, spreading rumours, teasing)
- Physical (pushing, kicking, hitting, punching or any use of violence)
- Extortion (demanding money/goods with threats)
- Cyber (all areas of internet, email and internet chatroom misuse.
- Mobile threats by text messaging and calls.
- Misuse of associated technology ie: camera and video facilities including those on mobile phones
- Racist, religious and cultural (taunts, graffiti, gestures)
- Sexual (unwanted physical contact, sexually abusive comments)
- Homophobic (because of, or focussing on the issue of sexuality)
- Bullying related to learning difficulties, special educational needs or disabilities
Aims
At Rocsters we are committed to;
- Providing a fun, caring, friendly and safe environment for everyone so they can learn in a relaxed and secure atmosphere. Bullying of any kind is totally unacceptable at our classes and events
- Creating an ethos in which attending Rocsters is a positive experience for all people attending classes and events.
- Making it clear that all forms of bullying, including cyber bullying, are totally unacceptable.
- Enabling everyone to feel safe and encourage people to advise management of incidents of bullying, including cyber bullying
- Dealing with each incident of bullying, including cyber bullying, as effectively as possible, taking into consideration the needs of all parties and of our business and as a result to reduce the incidents of bullying
- Supporting and protecting victims of bullying and ensure they are listened to
- Working with and supporting people displaying bullying behaviour to change their attitudes and understand why they need to change their behaviour
Objectives
- To maintain and develop effective listening systems
- To ensure all staff and crew deal with incidents of bullying, including cyber bullying, effectively and promptly
- To equip all teaching staff with the skills and information necessary to deal with incidents of bullying
- To acknowledge the key role of every staff member in dealing with incidents of bullying
- To ensure that all incidents of bullying, including cyber bullying, are recorded
RECOGNISING BULLIES
Bullying includes the wilful, conscious desire to hurt, threaten or frighten someone else. To do this the bully has to have some sort of power over someone. This power is not always recognisable to the teacher.
Bullying can be hard to distinguish from ‘tit-for-tat’ behaviour, which is also unacceptable.
Bullies often have the following characteristics:
- They enjoy the sense of power it gives them. There is often a wish to ‘dominate’
- They tend to be assertive and aggressive (to peers, crew and teachers) in attitude and often lack self-control.
- They tend to lack empathy and cannot imagine what the victim feels.
- They lack a sense of guilt and rationalise their actions. They convince themselves and sometimes the victim that the bullying treatment was/is ‘deserved’.
- They can be of any age.
- They often have an inflated sense of self-esteem.
The following people may be particularly vulnerable to bullying:
- New people and younger people
- People who show differences in appearance, accent, background or interests
- People with poor social skills.
- Those with low self esteem who react nervously or dramatically to baiting.
- People who are very attractive/clever/talented.
- People who are anxious and/or insecure, sensitive and quiet.
- People who are lonely and isolated.
- However, any people who find themselves “in the wrong place at the wrong time” could be potential targets.
PREVENTION OF BULLYING
A proven way to reduce bullying is to publicise the Anti-Bullying Policy as this allows potential bullies and victims of bullying to know that their allegations will be taken seriously..
WHAT TO DO IF YOU ENCOUNTER BULLYING
- Remain calm. An emotional response may add to the bully’s enjoyment of the situation and add to his/her sense of control.
- Take the allegations seriously.
- It is important to speak with both the victim and the bully to get their accounts of the incident as soon as possible after the alleged incident. This will ONLY be done by Andy or Sue McGregor and will be completely confidential.
WHAT NOT TO DO IF BULLYING IS ENCOUNTERED
DO NOT be over protective. Encourage the “victim” to talk about what has happened and how he/she feels about it.
DO NOT assume that the “bully” is bad through and through. Try to look objectively at the behaviour of/with the alleged bully.
STRATEGIES FOR DEALING WITH BULLYING
Firstly, any incident will be given careful consideration to decide how serious the incident is, i.e. how persistent the behaviour has been, how ‘nasty’, whether it is ‘tit-for-tat’ behaviour that has gone too far etc.
The identified ‘bully’ will receive a verbal warning about concerns for his/her behaviour
PERSISTENT BULLYING OR INCIDENTS OF A VIOLENT OR SEXUAL NATURE
Any bullying incident following one verbal warning will result in the bully being asked to leave and not return to any future Rocsters class or event. We may, if we think things will cool off over time, put a time limit on the exclusion, e.g. 3 months. Or we may simply ask the bully so stay away permanently - we have never done this and hope that we never have to use this last resort.
Any incidents of a violent nature or incidents of a sexual nature will result in the person being asked to leave immediately and told never to return. We have, unfortunately, had to use this sanction on rare occasions in the past and will not hesitate to do so in the future to protect our customers.
SUPPORT FOR THE VICTIM
1. Communication to crew and staff so that the situation can be monitored in a comprehensive way.
2. Follow-up monitoring, "how's it going" even after the situation seems to have been resolved.
