r/acappella • u/DisciplineThen3846 • 7d ago
intergroup dating
hi. so my group had one SA issue in the past with two members who were not dating. this year, members are wanting to say no dating at all but there are people who are already dating in the group. does anyone have any advice or knowledge or any constitution clauses ??
this is an all girls college group for reference.
15
u/wet-paint 7d ago
Very simple. You don't control the love lives of your singers, telling me who I can see is a very quick way to get me to leave the group. This is real life, not pitch perfect.
I was in a nationwide televised competition back in May, where we were beaten by the guys who won it. We have since organised them to come to town and we are doing a joint concert in October with them. Other groups can be nice to talk to and perform with if you try talking to them.
Once again, any mention of telling people who they can and cannot date is a terrible terrible idea. Terrible.
Edit - SA: sexual assault or soprano alto?
If it's the former, that has nothing to do with any policies you may enact or otherwise. That's just someone committing a crime, and you can't write policies to prevent that. Just rely on the police. They've got policies already in place to deal with that?
2
u/Elegant-Audience-852 7d ago
If you try to enforce a no dating policy, people will date anyway in secret even if they weren't already. This has happened in my group multiple times. These interpersonal issues significantly affected the quality of our performances.
2
u/fNo3 7d ago
former aca pres here - if there are no student government by-laws, this could be a tension point. we had our own constitution but group-level constitutions need to align with student government by-laws. check with a member relations student government rep, and if this kind of rule change is allowed at the group level, put it to a majority group vote. like someone mentioned before, colleges have systems in place for SA-related stuff and that is not to be handled at the group level. if the group can enforce dating, that should be decided by majority vote but even then, you risk member retention and new member interest.
1
u/DifficultHat 6d ago
Oust people who SA anyone, whether the victim is in the group or not. Dating should be allowed as long as everything is consensual.
19
u/jshinab2 7d ago
How would disallowing dating improve this issue? The ones currently dating haven't caused any issues, and the people involved in the issue you mentioned weren't dating. Seems foolish to kick people out of the group when they've done nothing wrong.
Not sure where you're located, but colleges in the US are required to have procedures in place for people to report sexual assault and receive support. The school also has to have a clear process for investigating these allegations. Those systems are never perfect, but they do offer a formal way to respond to sexual assault.