Rich Reel, of all8.com, is organizing a Newer Caller Workshop in the Bay Area. Take a look at the schedule; it’s intense. Here’s Rich:

My goal is to keep things moving. Explanations will be kept to a minimum with the focus on everyone calling as much as possible. An exercise designed for everyone will be provided for every session, however each caller may use their mic time any way they want. (call patter, do a singing call, sight resolve the square, read cards, test choreo, practice voice, etc…)

His homework section looks like good prep for anyone heading off to a callers school (speaking of which, the 2004 GCA caller school has totally filled its beginner and intermediate sections).

Rich has also written an interesting take on resolution: Square Dance Sight Calling – Resolving a Square 2-Face Line Method. It’s basically what I use, except he’s done a further generalization to avoid the distinction between Eight Chain Thru and Facing Lines resolution. With his technique, when both couples are paired, he suggests immediately calling bend the line and slide thru, and then deciding whether a pass thru or a square thru 3 will bring corners to an allemande left. In the technique that I learned (basically from Bill Davis’ Extemporaneous Caller, when both couples are paired, call bend the line and then evaluate sequence (corners adjacent or corners separated) and call either slide thru and pass thru (out of sequence) or slide thru and square thru 3 (in sequence). It’s a very subtle change, but I think it might make a difference in looking at getouts in the future. By evaluating sequence from the facing lines setup, one then has access to a large number of so-called 1P2P getouts.

At any rate, after a full day of calling exercises and mike time, the new callers get a chance to call a tip at a Newer Caller Hoe-down.