Surprise! This is Gareth's dance class, but guess what? No Gareth!

Would you believe I flew north for the winter? Actually, I have been in Brisbane on a training course.

For the last two weeks, Ev and Jackie have managed the group with general rock 'n' roll practice sessions.

I will be back in charge of proceedings on Tuesday 7th September. Regular lessons will re-commence then. Many thanks to the girls for taking care of things while I was away. Also, to Lawrie for helping them manage the sound equipment.

Here's a photo of some of our dancers on the night of Tuesday 17th August 2010. Not everyone was willing to be snapped.

Spring is just around the corner in Australia. Some of us wish it would spring forth a bit quicker. Believe it or not, many of us find Adelaide's winter temperatures of 15 degrees Celsius (6 overnight) just too cold. We are spoiled by our wonderful summer sunshine and our seemingly endless kilometres of golden beaches.

Numbers dropped slightly during the cold months, but have still held up very well. We also have a continuing stream of newcomers. That's always a promising sign.

If you haven't been for a while, come and join our merry throng as soon as you can. If you haven't been yet, check us out. I promise it will be worth it. Everyone learns something from coming.

Around thirty people attended our class on Tuesday 16th March. That's a pretty good result considering that in Adelaide we suffer from 'March madness'. The month is chock full of events, art festivals, car races and the like. Consequently, many venues notice a marked drop in numbers.

A continual surprise with our class is that numbers were almost exactly even males and females this week.

To help with keeping track of our dancers an send out email bulletins, I have constructed a new database. This week I began collecting any missing contact information. Please let me know if any of your details change.

While email advices can be very useful, they can also be unreliable due to frequent changes in people's addresses. Instead of relying on this except in emergencies, I hope to successfully encourage everyone to check this blog regularly.

This week's email contained information on how to subscribe to the RSS feed.

Not everyone is happy about hitting forty. But there are times when it's a good number.

On Tuesday 9th March over forty people turned up at the RSL hall for our dance class. Moreover, about ten of them were newcomers. Some had dance experience and simply wanted to learn our local popular style. Others, were completely inexperienced, but pleasingly, they learned very quickly.

A big benefit of large classes is that it rewards the RSL team for their faith in allowing us to use their facility. Turnover at the bar is necessary for them to justify making the effort.

Please don't hold back in encouraging your friends to join our happy group.

No more calls, folks. The slippers belonged to Lorraine.

A big turn-out this week of around thirty people shows that we are in expansion mode.

It seems that even Cinderella nows attends our dance classes. The pair of 'glass slippers' shown was left behind last Tuesday night. Hopefully the owner will lay claim to her (or his??) property.

A steady stream of newcomers is always a pleasing result. Welcome to Mark and Lee who joined us this week.

We are maintaining relatively even numbers with just a few spare females this week, but a couple of ladies are learning the lead role. It's an excellent way for ladies to broaden their dancing skills. They also find out just how difficult it can be for the man to lead well.

I am working on new fliers. Please let me know if you are able to hand some out.

Christmas is here and people will have their minds on other things besides Rock n Roll dance.

Despite that, our numbers have held up quite well. This picture is of some of our members who attended on 22/12/09. A few others had left earlier.

Ev helped us get into the festive spirit with some of her Cypriots of Egypt cooking. She brought some delicious shortbread cakes baked especially for us. Many thanks to her for her kind generosity.

We are looking forward to a big start for 2010. We have a large venue capable of holding a class up to around fifty or more and I will be campaigning hard to get them there. We will still have a class on 29th December.

Merry Christmas to all and best wishes for the New Year. May Santa bring you heaps of great rock n Roll dancing.

Our first night at the West Croydon/Kilkenny RSL hall was successful, but hot! Adelaide has suffered a heatwave and the temperature reached 39 degrees Celsius. Fortunately, the venue is well air-conditioned, so we didn't swelter too much.

There were a few anxious moments early on when it appeared that we would have no music, but fortunately technical problems resolved themselves.

The consensus is that it is a brilliant new home for our dance classes and everyone was enthusiastic to return. 17 students braved the heat. Some are shown here studying a new move.

The warm spring weather is keeping a steady flow of newcomers coming our way, helping to keep our classes fresh and interesting. On 21/10/09 we revisited some moves we had covered earlier, such as the swizzle-stick, neck-breaker and body whip. It was an enjoyable night, especially for me as a teacher watching the excellent progress being made by our more advanced members. Some of the class for that night posed for a photo-shoot. Many thanks to Big John for photography.