FEDERATION NEWSLETTER December 2006

By now the 2006 / 07 Dance season is well underway. I hope that you have all been successful in recruiting new dancers and are enjoying dancing with them.

Please make a copy of the Newsletter to take to your clubs. If there are members who would like to receive this by email ask them to let me know by sending me their email address. Thanks

Festival 2007 Report
Ann Clements for the Festival 2007 Organizing Committee.

The Festival 2007 Committee has been very busy with preparations for BC's first Provincial Round Dance Festival. It is now only 10 months away. Bright gold ribbons have been printed and are starting to show up at dances around the province. We already have a good number of round dance leaders enrolled so you can be sure of excellent clinics, teaches and cueing at the evening dances. Early registration is appreciated as George and Pauline Morgan want to design a program based on your input and requests. This is a festival for all round dancers. There will be a full program of teaches, clinics and dances for all levels that register. We particularly want to invite our Phase 2 dancers to attend and enjoy what may be your first festival. There will be programs specifically designed to keep you dancing, learning and having fun the whole time.

Introductory letters have been sent to leaders around the province by festival registrars Helen and Russell Maddeaux, urging leaders to let dancers know about the festival and encourage their attendance. We know leaders are the key to making the festival successful in so many ways and this is a very important role leaders play. Remember to tell your dancers registration fees increase from $35.00 to $40.00 per person on May 16th!

Especially for leaders and with the support of the B.C. Federation, we have planned a Round Dance Leaders' Education Day on Thursday, Sept. 6th. This is a separate event from Festival 2007 but timed to make it convenient for leaders to attend both events at one time. The Leaders' Day is modeled on the June 2006 Cuers' Conference in Lac La Hache which was so successful.

The Festival 2007 website http://members.shaw.ca/festival2007 is operational and filled with information. You can download all registration information from this site. Powell River organizers, Paul and Ann Clements have secured dance facilities at historic Dwight Hall which can be viewed on the website. Four sponsoring hotels have agreed to provide reduced rates for festival participants and camping is available.

September is a lovely time to visit the coast. Use the website link to B.C. Ferries to help plan a reduced cost coastal circle tour ticket. There is so much to do and see here. The outdoor activities are endless. Or you can spend your time browsing the boutiques on Marine Avenue and relaxing on an ocean side balcony. Whatever you choose, you'll find Festival 2007 is a great event to build your vacation on.

Dancing Keeps You Young.
The DVD produced by Lloyd Juhala is out and about. Please take time to read the purple paper insert in the jewel case, which explains the intent of the DVD and also gives some excellent suggestions as to the best ways to use this great recruiting tool.

After a showing and discussion, enough copies of the DVD were given to people from each Region for each club in their region at the ABC Seminar last August.

If your club has not yet received a copy, please contact the following:

Regions 1 AND 8 (Vancouver Island) Chuck Rieger (email available)
Region 2 (Vancouver and District) Mary Holz 604 - 490 - 1231
Region 3 (Okanagan) Beth McGifford (email available)
Region 5 (Northern B.C.) Helen Hall (email available)
Region 9 (Thompson Shuswap) Bill Morrison (email available) 250 374 0277

Mary Anne has more for you on the DVD in a second email letter.

ABC dancing

I have asked Nasser Shukayr and the other callers who conceived ABC if they will produce a DVD or CD to help new callers learn how to call and do an ABC type dance. I feel very strongly that this is one way that we might encourage new callers to get into calling. Hopefully a DVD or CD will be soon available.

Some see ABC as a threat to MWSD - but I see it as a huge bonus. Remember, ABC is presented to non-dancers outside of our Square Dance Club scene. Many of these non-dancers may only dance once or twice a year, some will want to dance once or twice a month and some will want to learn more and these last are the ones that will be directed to a Square Dance Club.

I would urge you, if a caller in your area is putting on an A,B, or C dance and you wish to support him or her, attend the dance in casual clothes and pretend you have never danced before! Only at an ABC dance - when those who come have attended an A, a B and a C dance - is it appropriate to mention the club scene and MWSD - let the caller do this. Please do not attend these A,B,C, dances with the intent of recruiting dancers to your club. Just go and have fun dancing. Let the caller do ALL the teaching!
This will seem very foreign to you, but these ABC dancers did not respond to your word of mouth or posters advertising your club new dancer nights, lessons, and so on. They just came to a square dance, not to learn square dancing!
Federation Web Site www.squaredance.bc.ca

The Regional Contact pages in the Handbook are now as up to date as the information received.
There is a lot of information on the web site that is out of date. I urge all Callers, Cuers, Clubs, Associations to check their information and make any necessary changes. Perhaps Regional Webmasters could help.

Moving and Grooving

We have now sent out 205 copies. Mary Anne and I did another workshop for student teachers at UBC Kelowna in November. We have taken out music licensing for another 500 copies (now the licensing minimum) and we are busy assembling the second 200 binders.

Do your local schools have a copy? If not, print the information from the website and take it to the school. If we can encourage children to have fun dancing, they will want to dance later in life. We have to look to the future.

Appreciation.

Your callers and cuers spend huge amounts of time planning dances, collecting music, and updating their equipment to take advantage of the extraordinary electronic technology that is available today. Don't forget to thank them at the end of your dance. Too often dancers rush off, leaving the callers or cuers to pack up their equipment wondering if people enjoyed the dance. If you enjoyed a particular piece of hoedown music or a singing call or some enjoyable choreography, make a point of telling the cuer or caller! A thank you and a word of encouragement does wonders for morale.

And let's not forget all the volunteers who are Club and Association officers. Are you offering to help - especially with promotion - and telling them they are appreciated for all their hard work?

Thank you to all Club and Association Treasurers who have been collecting fees. I hope all went smoothly again this year. The $7.00 (Society and Federation) not only buys your 3rd Party Liability Insurance and helps the Canadian Society, but it is vital to the Federation so we can continue to have the Infoline, the Website, SquareupBC, and various grants and be able to sponsor ideas that will keep Square Dancing alive and well in B.C.

Mary Anne and I wish you all a wonderful Christmas and we hope you all enjoy good health and happy dancing in 2007.

Nick Turner,
President
BCS&RDF
--
Nick and Mary Anne Turner
942 Soda Creek Road
Williams Lake, B.C.
Canada
V2G 5E4