Dear All,
It hardly seems a year ago since I last wrote a welcome back to fall dancing....but here we go again! Welcome back everyone and I trust you all had a good summer and are keen to get back to poussettes and tournees! Since our last newsletter, we have had a very successful summer workshop under the leadership of Elaine Brunken from North Virginia. Elaine was a fabulous teacher and a great entertainer and, despite the thirty-degree heat and humidity, managed to keep us all smiling and dancing. The workshop started on Friday evening, August 6th, with the first class and an evening social at the home of Bill and Sue Scott - many thanks to the latter for their hospitality.
On Saturday morning Elaine led us through a new reel and strathspey and showed us, among other things, how to do four hands across and back without getting our hands in a total muddle! For that class we were joined by several of the ceilidh dancers from Corner Brook, one of who was eighty years old! Well done Marion. After lunch Martin Mulligan led a walk-through of some of the dances on the evening social program, after which we all headed home to try and cool off somewhat.
Bill Scott was an exemplary M.C. for the Saturday evening social and, of course, the dancers were accompanied by live music from Corryvreckan. As a tribute to the latter, Elaine, who had taught at the ISCDS workshop in Halifax before coming here, complimented the band on their fine music, their rock-steady tempos and their wonderful strathspeys. The latter were also joined by Alison Black on the violin and David Cameron on the base guitar for the evening - many thanks to them all!
On Sunday morning we had a somewhat less energetic class when Elaine taught The Lancers and emphasised the importance of 'a bit of attitude' or comportment. It was somewhat difficult to imagine ourselves in ball-gowns or tails and white shirts and long white-gloved hands when all of us were suffering from the heat and humidity. One of our male dancers, who shall remain nameless, went through a record number of shirts on the occasion!
As has become tradition, the workshop finished with 'Brunch at Brenda's' in glorious sunshine. Many thanks to Brenda and her assistant cook, Phil Hanley, for sweating over a hot stove so we could all feast on partridgeberry pancakes and sausages.
We had a total of 37 dancers registered for the workshop (although not everyone attended the classes), including dancers from Australia, Northwest Territories, British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Corner Brook! Many thanks to Martin for hosting Elaine, to Bill for being M.C., to Elizabeth for designing our wonderful puffin badges, to Margaret for producing the lovely dance booklets, to Ingrid for the liquid refreshments at the breaks and to Karen, Denise and Robert for their fine job decorating the hall.
This year we are bringing a new fee structure into place for all dancers. In past years each dancer has been charged a fee of $25 in September for membership in the RSCDS. All of this money has gone to headquarters in Scotland with local dancers seeing very little benefit from this. Through discussions with the RSCDS and at executive meetings, it has become apparent that this fee does not need to be mandatory. However, in order to retain Branch status, the members of the executive for each year have to be members of the Society. Therefore, it has been decided that all dancers will be levied a small amount ($5) to pay the RSCDS membership for the current executive instead of paying $25 fee so each dancer can be a member. Because of this change, we are pleased to be able to set a lower overall fee for the year. Dance fees will now be $60 for the fall term and $60 for the winter term. Such a move does not preclude any dancer taking out membership in the RSCDS themselves. In addition to the new fees which will be paid by all dancers, an additional drop-in fee of $5 will be charged for any dancer attending an extra Monday or Thursday class.
We have had to abandon Vanier School as a location for our socials due to problems with liability insurance so have now booked the Masonic Hall for our socials this year. The schedule is included below and we hope that you will all mark these dates on your calendars now and make a big effort to attend because this is where you get a chance to strut your stuff and have a lot of fun!
If any of you have queries or suggestions please bring them to one of this year's executive. In the meantime, I wish you a fun-filled year of fitness, footwork and friendship.
Pat Rivers
Chair
We would like to welcome any new members and hope they enjoy the exercise and fun of Scottish Country Dancing.
Six people were able to attend, four being sponsored through the Kuban Appeal which raised 3992.23 pounds sterling (the last amount posted).
It is a very detailed message of their visits to London, Bristol, York, Edinburgh and, of course, St. Andrews for summer school.
They stayed with a number of different dancers who they named, particularly Fiona Grant (who spearheaded the Appeal) and were entertained by various groups of dancers. They did an amazing amount of sightseeing, experiencing the usual sights of London, going to Greenwich, seeing the Abbey in Bristol. While driving north they loved the scenery and sheep on the hills, experienced driving on a motorway (on the wrong side of the road) and negotiating roundabouts. They heard pipers on the streets of Edinburgh, spent 2 hours at Edinburgh Castle and visited the Palace of Holyroodhouse, among other places.
They say it's impossible to describe the St. Andrews summer school experience in words. "One can only feel it having been there!" They were made to work very hard and also did highland dancing, being invited to join the demo. team, dancing on stage at Younger Hall. They taught a slow Russian dance at the ceilidh and danced a Russian Quadrille to lend a taste of Russia to the event. They also attended many parties and threw one of their own.
In their own words "One of the major and unforgettable experiences that we had in St. Andrews is meeting all the dancers there from all over the world. What a wonderful world Scottish Country Dancers make! Having been in St. Andrews once, you would want to come back here over and over again."
This was a wonderful experience for them, particularly those in the U.K. for the first time. For some it was the first time outside Russia. They invite dancers to dance with them in the south of Russia in Sept. 2005 when they are planning to have another Scottish Country Dance Holiday.
More details can be obtained from ilona@dancetour.co.uk or fiona@dancetour.co.uk
When it comes to the tourist game, nobody tops the Scot. The Italians, the English and the French attract thousands of visitors every year to see things like the Spanish Steps or the Tower of London or the Champs Elysees.
Not the thrifty Scotsman. He has built his tourist industry on things that don't exist, thus cutting down on a lot of the expense.
Instead of the Mona Lisa (which costs money to keep housed, cleaned, guarded, etc.), the Scotsman tells you to come to the Highlands and not see a mythical village called Brigadoon, a make-believe place that emerges out of the mists every 100 years or so for a single day and then disappears again. The advantages of Brigadoon are obvious. Since it doesn't exist, the Scottish tourist people can say it doesn't exist in any one of several locations throughout the countryside. But the French with their Mona Lisa are stuck with Paris as their chief tourist centre. They can't say the Mona Lisa is in Calais when any darn fool knows it's in the Louvre.
Besides a village that doesn't exist, the Scots have built a brisk industry around a monster that doesn't exist - the Loch Ness monster. I myself detoured hundreds of miles out of my way on the way home from London (where I saw Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and the rest) in order to tell the folks back home I went to Loch Ness and didn't see the monster. Not only didn't I see the Loch Ness monster, I spent two days not seeing him, which is longer than I dallied in front of Rembrandt's Night Watch in Amsterdam.
The best place not to see the Loch Ness monster is at a ruin called Urquhart Castle where the guide (after I had paid the 35p admission fee) admitted he had never seen the monster either. That's the awful part of the Scot - his honesty! He doesn't even pretend there's a Loch Ness monster, not after you've booked a room or bought a boat ticket.
Besides a town and a monster that are non-existent, the Scots are particularly proud of their scenery, which is also only a figment of some tour guide's imagination. Oh, it's probably there all right - but nobody ever sees it because of the weather.
We were on a bus tour of Edinburgh's harbour on a foggy afternoon and you couldn't see the driver at the front of the coach. That didn't daunt him.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he began, "you're looking at one of the finest views in the world. If it weren't raining at this moment and very misty, you'd see a wee island just where my finger is pointing, another one over there and behind them some of the most marvellous hills in the world."
We all craned our necks. "There are beautiful ships probably in the harbour right now and the water itself is so blue and clear it looks like a jewel." I thought I could see the water through the windshield wipers, but it turned out to be the rain, not the harbour.
Unfortunately, I also missed the view from Edinburgh Castle ("unequalled in Europe on a sunny day") because of the mist, and the heather on the hill ("beautiful and breathtaking - but not at this time of the year"). However, I did see the house where John Calvin may, or may not, have lived during his teaching career ("if he didn't live in this house, he lived near this house")
There are so many things not to see in Scotland, it took me over a week not to see them all. Scotland sure knows a tourist attraction when it doesn't see one.
After not seeing all these things in Scotland, you may wish to have a meal and find the menu items reading like characters from a Dr. Seuss book. Take this little quiz and learn the definitions the fun way.
The correct answer is always c.
Lorraine and Ian Gall are now proud grandparents. Their son Andrew and his wife recently had a baby boy, named Alexander Ian. Congratulations to them all.
Penny and Stewart Gillies' daughter, Joanna was married to Gordon Lo the weekend following our workshop. Fortunately the weather was lovely since they had changed the date so as not to clash with our workshop. This was really good of them and we would have felt dreadful if it had rained! Congratulations to Joanna and Gordon.
This is the last newsletter that I (Brenda) will produce. Mary Bridson has kindly offered to take it on in the future. I'm sure she would love to have any appropriate bits and pieces to include in future newsletters since it is often difficult to come up with material.