Hullo everyone, and welcome back to another fun-filled year of Scottish country dancing. I hope you all enjoyed relaxing during our extra long and unbelievably warm summer this year and are now ready to keep fit with good friends on Monday and Thursday evenings. It is good to see so many of last year’s beginners back with us again this fall; you are all making such excellent progress that we may soon have to scrap the beginners class!
During the summer we held a workshop from August 8th to 10th with Norah Link from Montreal as our guest teacher. This included a social on Friday night at Penny and Stewart Gillies’ house, intermediate classes on Saturday at Vanier with an excellent lunch organised by Ingrid, Brenda and Co., and a social with Corryvreckan at Vanier on Saturday night. Sunday morning started off with a well-attended class in English country dancing, and culminated in a pancake brunch in glorious sunshine at Brenda Burness’ in St. Phillips. Thank you to Stewart, Penny and Brenda for opening your homes to us all, to Corryvreckan for the wonderful live music, and to the catering c ommittee for outdoing yourselves with that wonderful soup, cheese and blueberry tarts at lunch time! Thanks also to Margaret Connors for all her help during the year and at the workshop in preparing posters, dance programs and booklets.
Your executive is in the early stages of planning another workshop for next summer with the dates set for August 6th to 8th. We are hoping to have Elaine Brunken from North Virginia as our guest teacher and to attract some attendees from outside the province. Please mark these dates on your calendar for next year - further details will follow as the planning proceeds.
If you have any suggestions or complaints please let one of the Executive know and we will have it dealt with at our next meeting. In the meantime, happy dancing everyone!
Pat Rivers, Chair
SOCIALS FOR THIS YEAR
November 1st - Beginners Social: 8.0 pm, Vanier gym. Beginners - this one is especially for you - a chance to strut your stuff and show Martin and Penny that you really have been listening!
November 29th - St. Andrews Ceilidh: 8 pm, Masonic Hall, organised by the St. Andrews Society.
January 3rd, 2004 - Twelfth Night Social: 8.0 pm Vanier gym. This one is a chance for you to display your finery, so pull out all the stops and let us see you looking your beautiful best! Instead of having our tea at Vanier after the dancing is over, we’ll be trooping over to Sue and Bill Scott’s house at 30 Monkstown Road to eat, drink and relax. So, bring your usual “goodies” to the dance, but plan to bring them and yourselves and your partner(s!) along for an “after party”. Let’s get the spouses out for this gala occasion!
January 24(?), 2004 Burns Supper: location TBA, organised by the St. Andrews Society.
March 6th, 2004 Mid Winter Romp: 8.0 pm Vanier gym. Chase away those winter blues while dancing up a storm to the excellent music from our own Correyvreckan.
May 1st, 2004 - Year end social: 8.0 pm Masonic Hall.
“LITTLE BOOKS FOR SOCIALS”
Margaret Connors deserves huge thanks for preparing those little coloured books for each social, as soon as she has obtained the programme from the devisor. This is not a trivial task, and one way that we can show our gratitude is to prepare for each social by spending some time reviewing the dance instructions in those books. It’s much more fun dancing at a social if you come prepared, and that’s what those books are for!
Keep yours in the bathroom or on your bedside table, and go over, each day, one of the dances you plan on doing. Beginners may not plan to dance them all -- but mark the ones you will be dancing, and concentrate on them. Even if you don’t plan to dance a more difficult dance, read it over anyway, then compare what you see being done on the dance floor with the instructions in the book. It will help you to learn the terminology, and you’ll bring that much more knowledge to class!
BRANCH TEACHERS
Do you have a question about dancing or dances? Feel free to consult us!
Penny Gillies: 726-1008
Martin Mulligan: 739-0166
Noreen MacLennan (retired): 722-6393 (Noreen is also our archivist)
Bill Scott: 738-3355
Sue Scott: 738-3355 (also newsletter editor)
NAME TAGS
It’s wonderful to see everyone back again, and to see a few new faces too. But (maybe it’s my “advancing maturity”) it’s hard to remember everyone’s name. If everyone wore their name tag to every class, we’d soon all be able to call everyone by name! Pity the newcomer, viewing thirty or so dancers, and no help at all with putting names to the faces! It could take years, without some help! So, please, keep your name tag in the bag with your dancing shoes, and put it on every time you come dancing. No one is so famous that they should be entitled to feel that “everyone knows my name, so I don’t need to wear a name tag”.
RSCDS WEBSITE
A portion of your dancing fee each year is forwarded to our umbrella organisation, the RSCDS (Royal Scottish Country Dance Society) in Edinburgh, Scotland. The society has recently introduced a new management scheme, very different from the old, top-heavy one. To learn more about the activities of the Society, consult its website http://www.rscds.org. The Society’s AGM this year is in early November, and we have an advocate attending who will express our views. We are particularly interested, this year, in the consideration of a proposal to revise the status of Branches (of which we are one). More on this in future newsletters!ST.JOHN’S (NEWFOUNDLAND) BRANCH
Did you know that our Branch has a website? It is managed by Margaret Connors. Thanks, Margaret! http://juniper.pharm.mun.ca/rscds-stjohns Corryvreckan, our own Scottish Country Dance Band has one too: http://www.math.mun.ca/~bshawyer/corry.html Martin Mulligan lists his dance compositions at: http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~mulligan/dancesSCOTTISH “STUFF”
www.scottishfactory.com (Nova Scotia)Beginners rep: ????:
A vacancy exists on the Executive for a beginners representative. This position entails attending executive meetings in someone’s home about every 1½ months, having input into discussion on matters of interest to the Branch, and carrying news back to your class. It’s a great way to get to know your fellow dancers better, and to learn more about the wide wide world of Scottish Country Dancing! Please let anyone on the executive know you’re interested.
EVENTS FOR TRAVELLERS
When you go to other places just about anywhere in the world, always keep in mind that there is probably a Scottish Country dancing group there -- a ready-made set of like-minded, friendly people with whom you could spend a happy evening. I always take my dancing shoes when I travel, and have met and danced with many, many wonderful people. If you are travelling somewhere, in North America or abroad, and on’t have your RSCDS bulletin handy to look up a group, give Robert MacIsaac, Margaret Connors or me a call -- we’ll probably have a phone number to give you. The Toronto and Ottawa Branches have socials every month, as well as several balls in the year. Toronto Branch socials even have “live music” just like we do.Nov.1, 2003: NY Branch Jeannie Carmichael Ball, West Point NY,
dancing to Alasdair Fraser &Muriel Johnstone. (Sheila Wilson, 212-744-1470)
Nov.8 2003: Boston Branch annual Scottish Concert with Alasdair
Fraser + Boston Branch Demo dancers, matinee and evening performances.
(www.rscdsboston.org)
Nov.15, 2000: Toronto Branch St. Andrew’s Ball, Ceilidh and SCD
(416-223-9361)
Nov.22 2003: St.Andrew’s Scottish Festival Ball, Pier 21, Halifax
Waterfront, 6 p.m onward.
Dec.13, 2003: Bon Accord Group Christmas Dance with the Macadians,
St. Matthias Church Hall, Halifax, 7:30 p.m.
March 20, 2004: Late Winter Social, St. Matthias Church Hall,
Halifax, 7:30 p.m.
April 17, 2004: Montreal Branch Ball, Victoria Hall
May 5, 2004: Bon Accord Group Spring Fling with live music,
St. Matthias Church Hall, Halifax, 7:30 p.m.
June 4-6, 2004: Montreal Branch Annual Workshop, John Abbot College.
July 28-Aug.1 2004: Halifax International Scottish Country Dance
School (Lydia Hedge 902-827-2033)