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Our History
SAMEDA was founded in 1986 when Marcia Katz got a group of local dancers together to discuss sharing information on local events, workshops, teachers, and other helpful topics and ideas. They decided to create a newsletter so that local belly dancers could find out about events ahead of time, instead of after the event was over. SAMEDA also put on a few shows, workshops, and costume sales. The newsletter did make it easier to find out about events in time to attend them! The first newsletter was published in November of 1986 with Theresa Freese as editor, using a typewriter (and a lot of white-out) and cut-and-paste layout. Theresa was able to improve the newsletter and include photos when she got access to computers and a scanner while attending UCSD. Theresa was editor for eight years, then turned the position over to Lily Splane. Lily Splane took over editing the newsletter in December of 1994. Her efforts really improved the layout, photo quality, and editing. Lily and the newsletter won an award! Our next editor, Lynn Perry, continued the artistic layout tradition from December 1998 through April 2002. She also designed SAMEDA's first web page. SAMEDA gets a new look now with web design by Markos. The next editor was Allison Bocksrucker who served through October of 2006. The current editor is Liz Nichols, SAMEDA's vice president and merchandise manager. SAMEDA, as a group, won 'Promoter of the Year' from IAMED in 1998. SAMEDA got a new infusion of energy in 1997, with many more volunteers keeping the organization going and expanding the group's scope. The first SAMEDA Faire was held in 1998, and each faire since then has been a good chance to see multiple dance performances, shop, have fun, and raise funds for SAMEDA. |
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