bahnisiain

he calls everyone dude! i can see using Dude for males and Dudette for females.

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nativegoddess77

Thanks for the comments/opinions. I also think that ANY person on a committee should not contest for many reasons.

nativegoddess77

well im MIZZ dude

ndnMSW

I think we need to differentiate between "committee" and "head staff". They are two entirely different things.

The "committee" selects the "head staff", and it is up to the committee to decide if their head staff, such as head dancers, can compete in the regular contests. The "head staff" (which includes AD's, MC's, Head Dance Judges, Head Singing Judges, Head Dancers and Host Drums), work FOR the committee, they are not part of the powwow committee.

I've seen head dancers compete in the regular contests several times....I don't know when it became a big deal, but it sure is now.

I've seen arena staff such as AD's compete in family specials at powwows.

The original question asked if it was okay for committee members to compete in the contests. In my opinion, no. It's not okay. The committee is there to WORK and to provide a good event for their visitors.

I helped out a powwow committee with registration one year, I wasn't an official powwow committee member. But I remember one man who was on the committee, he was supposed to take care of the drums - he was in charge of registering the 1st 10 drums for their day money, in charge of drum roll call, paying out the day money, etc. He showed up at the powwow dressed out in his outfit and COMPETED in the dance contest! He didn't even do the job he was supposed to do, until the last session of the powwow. Since his contest was over I guess he thought he had time to do his job, so he planted himself at the MC stand and started trying to give orders about which drum should sing when.

Needless to say, he got run off pretty quick.

What was shameful about that situation was that he placed in his contest....if I was on the committee I think I might have disqualified him....lol.