Our last dance was on Saturday 28th November 2009 at Ashton Masonic Hall. We had around 80 people on the night. As an antidote to the plethora of Christmas dances that would undoubtedly follow, we dubbed it the Definitely NOT Christmas Dance.
Dancing started at half past eight and went on until midnight, with a couple of breaks. There was no band this time, so we had recorded music throughout. We had a mixture of ballroom and latin and included a few sequence dances.
We think that the evening went well and we received many appreciative, and much appreciated, comments. Our only real concerns were a few technical hitches with the music.
The Photographs are now available - click here to view them.
Once again the venue received plenty of praise from the guests. And again we would like to add our appreciation for the helpfulness and friendliness of the staff. They did however thwart our efforts to have a completely Christmas free dance.
With no band there was a lot more music to sort out. I tried to make the music as varied as possible, with a mixture of strict tempo and original artist, classics and modern, familiar and new. I wasn't short of tracks, but separating the wheat from the chaff was a major task.
We tried to cover all the main dances, but we put a strong emphasis on the more popular ones: Cha-Cha, Waltz, Quickstep and Jive/Rock'n'Roll. We also had a few sequence dances.
As mentioned we had a few technical problems with the music. Firstly, a few tracks jumped which must have been disconcerting for the dancers. Then the St Bernard's Waltz had a false ending half way through which caused some confusion as most dancers sat down but a few started dancing again. The most embarrassing point came after announcing the barn dance, when Windows Explorer froze so I couldn't cue up the next track. As I struggled with the ailing system a rumba suddenly started up. So everyone did a rumba while I got things sorted out for the barn dance.
We thought it would be good to split up the evening with a couple of breaks. These we filled with an ice breaker game, and a quiz. Not everybody agreed: some just wanted to dance all night; some didn't like the ice breaker; but mostly we had positive comments.
This page was last Updated 23rd December 2009.