Thank you so much to all the dancers who came to join Fred, Eddie and me for the 11th year of 'Let The Good Times Roll .....'. Quite a number of the dancers were there the first year which was quite an experiment. We had it in a church basement with high cement walls, it was rather dark and plain and needed a fair amount of decoration so lots of work went into decorating it. However, we arrived early the next morning to find all our decorations including Christmas lights had fallen onto the floor. Up went the ladders again and we managed to get everything back up just before the dancers arrived. That might have put us off holding the event again but we had such a good time on the day that we decided we would try it again the following year and we are still having a great time a decade later!!! We moved to a Legion Hall with large windows so there is lots of light, a tall stage so everyone can see and a wooden dance floor so getting this Hall ready is a little easier than the church basement was!!
We always start the afternoon off with a couple of nice 'n easy dances, this year Janet Martin from Fenelon Falls got us going with two great picks '25 Miles to Go' by Sue Ann Ehmann and 'September In The Rain' by Canadian choreographer Karen Tripp. Janet has a lovely personality and it shows through on stage. She got everyone smiling. Fred & I had written a beginner dance for the afternoon which Fred taught 'Dance With Us!' to a terrific track by Roy Torres, 'Don't Really Matter'. If you click on the dance name you will get the step sheet and see the video. I then taught an easy intermediate dance that I wrote for Linedancer magazine called 'Alpha Girls'. I was pleased to see that the dancers picked it up very quickly.
We had a special guest instructor from BC this year, Michele Perron. Michele is one of Canada's top choreographers, extremely well known internationally, and her dances have filled our dance floors for a long time. She treated us to 'Windy', 'Inner Ninja' and a new dance that the two of us co-choreographed for the event 'Call The Doctor'. Michele has a dance background and has taught ballroom and couples dancing as well so she had a few technique tips for us. We were very fortunate to have her at our event.
Dale McNeil as always had made a splendid selection of gift baskets for our fund-raiser. The money raised this year, $350, went to the Canadian Cancer Society in the name of Kathy Quinton. Kathy passed away a few months before the event. She had helped us with this event right from the inception and was often the first person dancers saw when they entered. She will be dearly missed. For the 50/50, one happy dancer went home with $140 and the other $140 went to the Canadian Cancer Society in the name of Ray Turcotte. Ray was a good friend of many dancers.in particular those who attend 'Dancin' For Miracles', we will miss him very much. Many thanks to Valarie Keller for donating a complimentary pass to 'Dancin' For Miracles 2014' as a prize for the 50/50 and to Louise for her splendid hand painted platter.
Fred did a terrific job of DJing the evening dance. We had prepared a play list beforehand of requests that had been sent in and posted it on both Fred and my websites so dancers could review a little if they wanted to. We also placed a copy on each table. Fred played every dance on that list and many other requests and classics besides, he also led a number of the dances so the less confident dancer had someone to follow. A dancer who has only been dancing for a few months said she had danced all the five dances she knew plus she had ventured up onto the dance floor to follow Fred!! So she was very happy!
Eddie as always kept both Fred and me on track and kept an eye on everything. Thanks to Penny and Lorraine who came to help set-up on the Friday and with the take-down on Saturday night To Sammy Buckley who together with Lorraine checked everyone in, to Cynthia who was always on the go making sure there was plenty of water, chips in the bowls and so on plus all her help at the end of the evening. To Ernie who did lots of heavy lifting on the take-down on the Saturday evening and to everyone else who offered to come in early to help and who periodically came up to see if there was anything they could do. We are indeed very lucky with our friends and want you to know that we really appreciate you.
And, of course, thank you so much to everyone who came and made the event fun, we couldn't do it without you and you are the ones who put smiles on our faces!! Hope to see you again next year.
PS Sorry I haven't got as many photos as usual, I was rushing around too much to think of taking them! If anyone would like to be the official photographer next time, do let me know as I do a rotten job of it!
LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL ....
Toronto 2013
