Our Annual Dance: A happy and fun night!

Our shared annual dance on Saturday 24 August at Ngaio Town Hall was a really happy fun night. Members of both Capital City and Johnsonville Clubs can pat themselves on the back for organising such a successful event.

An excellent turnout

Hisako dancing Barbara’s Strathspey with Elena and Ian with Prisilla

We had an excellent turnout of Johnsonville members (37 plus our two MCs, Jeanette and Rod), and fantastic support from dancers across the Wellington Region.

With 10 sets on the floor (as well as a few more people on the sidelines) the hall was buzzing with laughter, music and conversation.

It was a real treat to have past members attending – Hisako and Ian Ewing from Australia, and Judy and Don Keating from Waikanae.

Thank you for making the evening a success

Thanks to everyone who made the evening a success – MCs, musicians, volunteers and club dancers from Waikanae to the Hutt, as well as clubs closer to home.

Special thanks to the organising sub-committee – made up of John Jowett, Neil Bromley and Jeanette Watson from Capital City, with Allison Kay, Elizabeth Ngan, and Kristin and Rod Downey representing Johnsonville.  Loralee Hyde was comms person extraordinaire.

Setting up the hall

Everything went well. Aline Homes’ beautiful floral arrangements, Johnsonville’s tartan bunting, and Capital City’s stage banner set the scene.

We had plenty of volunteers for hall set-up and pack-up, masses of delicious food for supper, super fruit salad (as promised!), great music from Aileen, Don and Hilary, and a fun programme of dances for everyone.

Most importantly, we all looked after each other, and experienced dancers from all clubs made sure newer dancers were well supported. Congratulations to the 10 first year and three second year Johnsonville members who bravely came along to their first Saturday night dance, and never looked back once they hit the dance floor.

Making sure all our dancers had a good time

This year we tried to do everything we could to make our Annual Dance appealing to new dancers, and to ensure they had a good time when they came along.

Dancing Midsummer Common

Our Annual Dance e-news mail-outs aimed to give people all the information they needed in advance.

Rod and Jeanette elected to walk all dances for the first couple, allowing that couple to then dance from wherever they were comfortable.

Additionally we offered less confident dancers the option of adding a red dot sticker to their name tag, so more experienced dancers could buddy up with them on the dance floor.

A great response!

The response to all our preparation was a great turnout of new dancers, happy faces on the dance floor, and positive comments from both new and experienced dancers.

Andrew Macbeth’s photo shows a full hall, our colourful tartan bunting in service once more, and Capital City’s banner providing a great backdrop for the band.

Here’s a comment from one of our new dancers that says it all:

Such a fabulous night in so many ways. The hall looked magnificent, MCs Rod and Jeanette guided us through the programme with ease, supper – we were spoilt for choice, but the best part of all was seeing the smiles on each and everyone’s faces.

Please email Kristin if you have any comments, or suggestions of how we might further improve the organisation, information, promotion etc next year.

See lots more photos by Loralee of happy, smiling faces on the night.

Click here for more about our weeks of preparing for the dance

Download the Johnsonville Capital City Annual Dance Programme 2019

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