I'm pretty sure that 90% of the people that managed to survive tonight will be as shattered as I am, in fact more so because I hardly danced at all. A massive well done to everyone who got up and giggled their way through the more challenging dances - way out of their comfort zone for most people but brilliantly tackled all the same - and we all have to start somewhere - If we start at 'disaster' level, then the only way we can go now up !!! :-)  At one point we had 4 full sets up, that's pretty amazing when we only had 35 attendees. It was lovely as always to welcome visitors and yet again I have to thank the class for making visitors so very welcome, irrespective of whether they can dance or not. 
It looks like I resurrected the Glasgow Highlanders just in time, it wasn't done perfectly but the very fact that when everything went pear shaped people got themselves back together and managed to carry on shows that the class hasn't forgotten much and the 'shape' of the dance is still fresh. The other 'new' dance was the Strathspey 'The Valentine' - which demonstrated quite clearly that just because a dance is slower, it doesn't mean it is easy.... I confess I had forgotten how very challenging this dance could be; so more congratulations to the set who managed to complete it and equal congratulations to the 2 other sets who made such wonderful and entertaining attempts, and managed to keep their sense of humour throughout - that is the true challenge and the reason we continue to have such excellent evenings together, it there any other way you can exercise and laugh so much too.
See you next week I hope for another scintillating evening :-)

Well, I'm back... as usual straight into the swing of things; the Burns Night at Elea Golf Club was, as always, a great success - thanks as usual to all the staff at the Elea and to the brilliant sponsors 'Blevins Franks' who always do us proud both with treats on the night and wonderful draw prizes. If anyone has any photographs I would love to be able to include them on this site so please send them to me at [email protected] (thanks already to Liz and Irene). Anyone looking for pictures and other memories of previous society events can usually find lots to interest them by clicking Events -> Past Events (on the tabs above) then clicking on the appropriate poster - for example there are now a few little video clips of the last St Andrew's Ball that can be found by clicking on the 2016 Ball poster on the Past Events page.
The 30 people who joined us for the class on Tuesday evening, despite the pretty chilly weather, kept themselves warm with a great night of dancing; especially well done to the newer dancers in the class who joined in valiantly despite so much that was new ... and managed brilliantly. The 'new to us' dance Red House was tackled well and shouldn't provide any difficulty now that the class has got the first attempt under it's belt, I think it might turn out to be a 'keeper'. 
We have just over 2 weeks until the Society's AGM at the UKCA, hopefully all our members will be able to attend because it's always a very pleasant morning with excellent camaraderie and Debbie's food is, of course, consistently delicious, contact Irene in the usual ways if you want to be added to the list for the meal. See you on Tuesday Jx

I am typing this from the UK having just heard from P that he's survived the dance class and hopefully so has everyone else. I'm sure that everyone enjoyed themselves and thanks as usual to all the people who have helped  with the beginner's bit and keeping P on track.  I am back next week and will try and get on line again to update the programme  - in the meantime I hope everyone who is going to the Burns Night has a great time. 

Happy New Year to anyone I haven't already greeted, it seemed a really big gap from finishing the dancing last year to our restart this week - but now it's as though we've never been away. It was great to have such a good number at class, including some excellent newcomers, despite the cold and stormy weather; there was so much lightening during the dance session that I was expecting the electricity to fail at any moment but we survived it all and had an excellent nights dancing dispite the chaos that always accompanies the first class of the new year. Membership renewals are now due, despite the ever increasing benefits of being a member the membership fee is still only €15, the same as it's been for at least the last 8 years - excellent value; you easily get your money back and more over a year of dancing and events. Burns Night tickets are now available for any purchaser and are, as predicted, in high demand so get your now if you want them. I'm running out of time here so have to cut it short. I hope to see you next week if not before.