Well that's it for this season and it was a super night. We had a very good number of people joining us which helped create a great atmosphere, and we were also joined by a holidaying dancer too, who was as lovely and generous with her encouragement as all our dancing visitors seem to be.
Despite having an extended break to enjoy the wine and nibbles supplied by the society we still managed to dance everything on the programme and even encore the lovely 'Scott Meikle' (who I'm sure must be a super lad too ;-) ), well done to everyone who had a go at a super dance that was definitely stretching their level of experience for some.
We are now looking forward to the first class of the next season which will be on the September 4th -5 weeks away (but who's counting)!
I hope everyone has a great summer and for those lucky few who are going to St Andrew's for the RSCDS Summer School, that you have a really good time. Don't forget that there are the Tattoo Night and the St Andrew Society Ball to look forward to - details are under EVENTS -> FUTURE EVENTS on the links above, tickets are already available for the former and pre-bookings are being taken for the Ball. Keep cool, I look forward to seeing you in September if not before. Jx

It was great to welcome one of our youngest ever dancing visitors to the class this week, thanks very much to her Grandma (although it was very difficult to believe she's a granny) for bringing her. She'd never done Scottish Country Dancing before (though I found out later that she does do highland dancing) but you wouldn't have known because she was brilliant and it was lovely to have her in the class - it would be great to think that she may decide to try a bit more when she gets back home. It's so much easier to learn when you are young - but that doesn't mean it's not possible when you are older, it just usually takes a tad longer but it's great fun along the way and the health benefits are huge.
We had a request for Ramadan-ce to be on the programme, which is a super, but challenging, (especially with so many of our more experienced dancers away) so very well done to the' demo team' who attempted it, it might have ended up as a slight variation on the original but we kept going, recovered well, and ended up with the right person, in the right place at the right time which was pretty amazing- because it wasn't always the case with some of our other dances - we are definitely good mixers!
This week was a free night, and it will be the same for our last class of the season next week - good to reward those faithful souls who are still supporting us, though I confess I am finally looking forward to a bit of a break (next week will be our 29th class since January) I have really enjoyed having a few more weeks of dancing than normal. I hope everyone who is here will be able to come to next weeks session - but if not we'll see you in September, the first Tuesday class is on Sept 4th, Sunday class Sept 9th. The beginners Monday class restart date will depend slightly on the temperature and how many are interested - hopefully we'll have lots of keen returnees. J xx (by the way, last week the website had a relatively low number of visitors, but I've noticed that in a week we've added almost exactly 100 more, I hope it means they are all interested in dancing and we'll see them in September too ... well maybe not a 100, but who knows :-) )

Despite speculating last week that our numbers might be up again at our next class we were actually very slightly fewer - but we still had an excellent, and slightly hilarious night, again managing to complete an additional 11th dance within our normal time frame and managing to get 2 sets up for all the 3 couple dances. The missing dancers were missed! But we know they'll be back and it was great to welcome some of our 'beginners' back - true gluttons for punishment as, with the numbers being down, they got propelled through dances that are definitely challenging for beginners - but it's excellent experience for them and they are managing brilliantly (though they themselves may not be entirely sure of that!) 
The last 'Sunday Class' of this season was held last Sunday. We covered some really lovely dances, one of which will be introduced to the Tuesday class next week. All the dances we did are shown on the Sunday class page (under Dance Classes above) as well as the proposed date for the next Sunday class. Remember that if there is a particular dance you would like to do, either on Tuesdays or Sunday I am very glad to receive suggestions and will always include them on the programme if I can - though it is difficult to include too many unfamiliar dances all at once it is great to include something new when we can. There are now only 2 more Tuesday classes to go before we have a few weeks off for Summer so I hope you can make it. Jx

At 5:30 pm on Tuesdays we usually have at least half a dozen people and often more, either early arrivals or attendees and helpers for the 'beginners/newcomers' bit, but this week we had practically no-one; then we were joined by a lovely new lady who, despite having no idea of this type of dancing, was very keen to give it a try - she did really well, and probably had no idea how quickly she was managing to pick things up compared to most absolute beginners because there was no-one for her to compare herself with. People trickled in and we finally had more than enough dancers for 2 sets but this was the first week that our numbers had dropped below 20 for a long time. It doesn't look like being the final end of year 'drop' quite yet however because later on we were very glad to welcome yet another newcomer to the class who has previously been learning at the Monday sessions (and didn't he do well) and I know that several regulars are elsewhere or hosting guests and are hoping to be back next week so we could even be back up to 3 sets. You never know. We managed to fit in one extra dance this week - I'm not sure how many people noticed but there were 11 dances on the programme instead of the usual 10 - and that was despite having 3 hilarious attempts at Polharrow Burn. We'll try it again next week and see how it goes, in the meantime we all need to concentrate on surviving the heat. Jx

Well not really... but it was a really, really good night (though surprisingly chilly towards the end). The pictures and a few notes about the evening are HERE but I didn't include a dance list for those of you who enjoyed the dancing and didn't think to keep the programme fans - here's the list of the dances we did in case you can't make them out on the picture. "The Loch Ness Monster; The Gay Gordons; Butterscotch & Honey; The Borrowdale Exchange; The Riverside (danced to Marian Anderson's music for Elephant Stampede); A Highland Welcome; The Ring of Brodgar; T.A.G and Southern Rose Waltz". I'd like to say another big WELL DONE to our guest dancers especially Molly and Jess who were great. 
Tickets are now being sold for the Edinburgh Tattoo night - more details can be found via  Future Events