Summer Social 2023 - Graham's Review of the YearSummer Social 2023 - Graham's Review of the Year
Monday 5th June 2023 - Parish Church of the Ascension Main Hall 8pm - 10:30pm Bring and Share refreshments
The theme takes the form of a report on the year's activities, written by our teacher, Graham Hamilton. The dance programme is highlighted and will be danced in the order they appear in the script.
Graham’s Review of the Year
Our first Dance Class of the
season was held on 5th September, closely followed by Caroline’s
Tea Dance in Chorleywood on Sunday 11th. This wasn’t a club
function but a joint venture between Caroline and Katy Kendall from Reading,
who included one of her favourite dances The Aviator on the
programme. This was a momentous time for the country, coming just days after
the death of our beloved Queen Elizabeth II. The following night, we themed
our dance class as a tribute to Her Majesty and danced a number of dances
with Royal connections including The
Royal Yacht Britannia.
In October we held our Autumn
Social which used as its theme one of the games we played during lockdown,
based on Rhyme Time from Richard Osman’s House of Games, we had to match the
dances with a series of pictures, one of which showed a calendar with
November 30th ringed. This is of course, St Andrew’s Day, to
rhyme with Culla Bay.
There followed a quiet period
between October and Christmas without many functions to prepare for and we
took this opportunity to remind ourselves of a number of dances that are not
regularly done locally, including on 7th November
Gaelforce Wind.
Our activities for 2022 draw to a close with
our Christmas Dance on 19th
December where, full of festive cheer and prosecco, we enjoyed dancing to
recorded music from no less than 12 of the top bands, with the last dance
being A Trip to Timber Ridge
to the fantastic music of Jim Lindsay and His Band.
After the Christmas and New Year
Interval we
started 2023 with our traditional New Year Social and soup evening when
Caroline and Ludka treated us to some delicious soups. Rather than a normal
theme of having to work out the dances, this time we had to guess the New
Year theme from the list of dances which were acrostic with each initial
letter giving the initial letter of each month in turn, for example the
second half started with Jennifer’s Jig
for July.
The end of January is of course Burns Night and
we had our usual celebration at Northwood Golf Club on Friday 27th
January. At the following dance class we tried the strathspey
A Man’s A Man for All That
but I’m afraid my teaching didn’t do it justice so I’ll make sure I get it
right this time!
We were back at Allum Hall for our Annual Ball
on 25th
February where one of our feature dances was
The Raven’s Dance.
Numbers were a bit down on our pre-Covid levels but Caroline’s superb MCing
and the fantastic music of The
Craigellachie Band ensured there was a super atmosphere and the evening was
a great success.
In March, our Spring Social concentrated on
dances, such as The Wind on Loch Fyne,
that used to be extremely popular but suddenly dropped off everyone’s radar
and are now rarely, if ever, seen on programmes.
The last big function of the season was the
West MACS Ball on 22nd
April. This year the chosen charity was Pancreatic Cancer Action and a very
successful and enjoyable evening, driven by Caroline & The Craigellachie
Band again, raised £1,000 for this most worthy cause. The last dance was the
exciting Swiss Lassie,
as it will be tonight.
May was a strange month with the extra Bank
Holiday to mark the coronation of King Charles III and an outbreak of Covid
led to only one dance class in the whole month but with the Summer Social
delayed until 5th
June, the AGM on the 12th
and the end of season meal on the 19th,
there is still much to look forward to before the end of our 2022/23 season.