Performed major surgery on the Photo Pages to bring them more up to date and make it a lot easier for me to maintain.
Updated the dances on the beginners page (March 6).
As usual, Linda supplied a couple of tasty (literally) prizes for our annual raffle to raise funds for Retinitis Pigmentosa & we also ran our 'sign a club Christmas Card' rundraiser where people have the opportunity (for a price of course) to sign a communal club Christmas Card. The winner gets the signed card.
The winners were drawn on Wednesday 16th December with Mich & Pat from our Wednesday dancers winning the chocolates and an unendorsed ticket from Monday night's crowd winning the card - when I find out who won it I'll let you know.
Anyway, to the crunch - the Card raised £21·50 and the Chocolates raised £53 giving a grand total for RP of £74·50. Well done and many thanks to all who contributed.
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With a considerable amount of soulsearching and not a small amount of sadness, we have decided, for a number of reasons, to discontinue our (fairly) regular monthly party nights. However, the good news is that we've twisted Tony's arm (Tony Saltwell of Tony's Country Steppers) and he's agreed to take over from us at St James Hall. The first one that Tony will do will be on Saturday, January 9th and will start at 7·30. We'll be there to help Tony set up on the first night and to wish him well. I hope that all of our regulars will continue to support Party Nights at St. James as, without your ongoing support, there will be no party night (exactly as we rely on your regular attendance on club nights).
Some of the photos taken on 5th December are reproduced above - just click on one of the thumbnails to view the image full size.
The RP raffle raised a total of £79 and Margaret, our long time friend and RP representative sent us a really nice letter detailing just how much the raffles at Tulsa Shuffle have managed to raise for the charity over the years. I've reproduced the letter here in .pdf format for your information, edification & delight - check it out.
The most requested dances on the night were as follows :
- It Hurts & Playing With Fire tied for first place with 5 requests each
- Galway Girl & Boyfriend Of The Year tied for third place with 4 requests each
- Joint 5th place with 3 requests each were Pot Of Gold, Go With The Flow & Amame
We had Kim Ray down for an afternoon workshop (she was so good at the last one we had too do a repeat booking) and Nicky, Cliff & Brian a.k.a. Calico (pictured in this order left to right below) down for two exceptionally good live sets in the evening (Kim also stayed for the whole evening).
So far I've received nothing but positive comments about the day so my conclusion is that everyone had a great time.
Kim taught 4 dances (scripts coming along soon) and Calico played two one hour sets that had virtually everyone up and dancing for most of the time - great stuff.
During the course of the evening, we had our customary raffle in aid of 'our charity' - Retinitis Pigmentosa - and raised a total of £128. A further £20·61 was raised from the tea/coffee voluntary donations' via the collecting box in the kitchen. For thos of you not good at adding, this gave a grand total of £148·61 for the evening. Margaret and RP send their thanks.
Many thanks to Kim (who was kind enough to leave all the scripts in electronic format thus saving me loadsa typing - thanks Kim) and to Nicky, Cliff and Brian from Calico for making this such a brilliant day.
Kim Ray's Dances
Kim taught 4 dances at the workshop from the selection she brought down. All scripts are reproduced here, with those actually taught highlighted :- * So Easily (32 count 4 wall Improver)
- * Million Dollar Bill (32 count 4 wall Intermediate)
- * What It Takes (64 count 4 wall Intermediate)
- * Lucky Old Sun (32 count 4 wall Intermediate Night Club)
- Forgive Me Baby (64 count 4 wall Intermediate)
- My Angel (32 count 4 wall Advanced)
| Left to right : Kim Ray, Nicky Napier,Cliff Weston & Brian Bennett | |||
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| Afternoon Kim Ray Workshop | |
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Just for fun a few Wednesday nights ago as my back was really painful and I was sitting a lot, I worked out our music mix for the night (which was a request night) as follows:-
- Country Music -- 65%
- Pop Music -- 24%
- Irish Music -- 6%
- Latin Music -- 4%
STRIDE FOR SIGHT 2009
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Our annual charity walk in aid of Retinitis Pigmentosa was held on Sunday, September 27th and, as usual, went from the Shorehouse in Shoebury to The Ship in Leigh Old Town where liquid fuel was consumed in abundance along with sandwiches and nibbles kindly provided by Margaret supplemented with some of Wendy's now legendary lemon drizzle (lemon dribble !!) and fruit cake. A photo of the walkers is shown below courtesy of Margaret's husband Ted (well, all the walkers bar those taking photos anyway). I don't yet know how much money in total was raised by the event, but Margaret tells me that on the day £64.03 was raised from the collecting tins alone. Not a bad start. Wendy and I through the generosity of our sponsors raised well in excess of £100. |
Neil gets married
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I know it's not strictly line dance stuff, but our son Neil got married on Saturday 19th September to Jitlader, known informally as Yu. They got married at 10am at Braintree Registry Office.
All went very well with the wedding breakfast and evening festivities/celebrations being held at the Bull Hotel in Halstead. Just to be different for the evening buffet, we had a Thai caterer in to cook all the food fresh for every order. I have to say that the food was amazing (may just book them for my next barbeque!!).
Pictured centre photograph (left to right) Lois (our daughter), Yu and Wendy
