Biggest class ever ...?

Even without including a number of people who just popped in to say hello and didn't stop, this was the largest class I've ever experienced, despite many people happy to sit and watch we had 3 sets up for every dance, except for Stuart's 'advanced' 5 couple dance and even for that we had 2 sets.... it was frantic, noisy, difficult to control, tiring and fun!  More brand new dancers swelled our ranks and visitors, dancers and non-dancers kept pilling in... and then 2 very cute dogs with Keith T attached to the ends of their leads - we weren't sure how much to charge them so they got to stay for free :-)  With so many people (and dogs) things inevitably slowed down, so yet again, we didn't complete our programme - which doesn't matter at all, occasionally, but to try and ensure we do get a few of the more interesting dances back into the evening I am going to try readjusting the programme slightly - at least until our numbers settle down again.
The plan from next week is to try returning to the 'Early, Easy' format and have all the simpler dances during the first 1/2 of the programme. We'll take a break as close to 7 p.m. as possible, and then, irrespective of whether we have completed the first 5 dances we'll start the second half of slightly more challenging dances so that the more experienced/confident dancers get a bit of practice too. Everyone is obviously still encouraged to dance for the whole evening, and 'simpler' doesn't mean 'boring', nor does 'slightly more challenging' mean all the dances are 'difficult' but if people just want to do one level of dancing they don't have to stay all evening. In the past we have really needed everyone to stay to ensure we had adequate numbers to make up sets and just to maintain the atmosphere but we don't have to try so hard at the moment and doing it this way should make it slightly easier to teach. Our other issue this week was the unwelcome return of the 'ice-rink floor' hopefully it will be improved by next week but luckily it didn't handicap our intrepid film stars who danced as main set for a replacement 'Ring of Brodgar' video - it should be available as a teaching link in a few days - well done everyone, I even saw some smiles! :-)