Ontario Square and Round Dance Federation
Newsletter – Fall 2017

Greetings to all!

September will see most clubs starting dancing for the 2017-18 season. Some of you have been dancing during the summer at different places and making new square dance friends. This is one of the joys of square dancing – meeting like-minded people all over the country and further afield!

The Ontario Square and Round Dance Federation (usually referred to as “the Federation”) is your provincial body that promotes square dancing, maintains the website and facebook, manages membership and insurance, offers financial assistance for recruitment and leadership training and manages the Trillium awards. The Board is made up of members from all local Associations (EOSARDA, T&D, SWOSDA and Northern Ontario). We urge you go to the webpage for more detailed information: http://squaredance.on.ca

Congratulations to the following people who have been awarded Trillium Awards:
Barry and Pam Clasper (T&D)– Merit Award
Richard Sharman (EOSARDA) – Merit Award
Jim and Grace Bagshaw (SWOSDA) – Long Service Award
Jack and Joy Glasman (SWOSDA) Long Service Award
Bob and Joan Hobson (T&D) – Long Service Award

New callers are needed in Ontario and to this end there are bursaries available to help towards the cost of attending caller schools, not only from Federation but also from the national body, Canadian Square and Round Dance Society. Up to $500 from the Society and $400 from Federation. EOSARDA also offer up to $250. Full information is available on the website. There will be a caller school next year in July, prior to the National Convention. Watch the website for more info.

Congratulation to Luke Periard and Ron Gardiner, both from Ottawa; Murray Pattenden from Newcastle; Janis Reed from North Bay and Marg Coahran from Toronto; who, this past June, completed the course at the Canadian Connection Callers’ College run by Joe Uebelacker.

Six clubs received recruitment bursaries from the Federation.

Dan Roy, web master for the Federation, requests clubs to submit videos, photos, articles, etc., for inclusion on the webpage; info@squaredance.on.ca. If you have been successful recruiting new dancers, please share this information with other clubs through the Federation webpage. If your club has celebrated a special milestone or other event, please share this with other clubs.

Membership. Ontario had a membership of 2650 (down 40 from last year). Canada wide, membership was down by 5%. Let’s try and reverse these figures this year! If everyone could bring in one dancer we could do wonders for this hobby of ours!

The Federation has allocated a budget for advertising at events which attract many visitors. For example; the Havelock Jamboree or other Fall Fairs. The timing should be July to early September to coincide with club start ups. A generic ad (not advertising a specific club) would be put in their program booklet. If you know of any such events which may be of interest, please contact Howard Lander. hjlander@gmail.com or 905 342 5450.

Federation Logo. Are there any graphic artists among our dancers who would be interested in developing a new copy of our logo? Contact Dan if you can help contact dan.roy@tnt21.com
member.

20th Canadian National Convention, London, ON – July 19,20,21, 2018 http://squaredance.ca/2018/
Please make this a priority event on your calendar.

SWOSDA is hosting the Convention next year and have been hard at work now for some time. Some important information: Hotels are now receiving reservations. The prices quoted on the registration form have been reduced and are as follows: Double Tree by Hilton is now $140 pn plus tax. Parking will be $5pn. Delta London Armouries Hotel, now $139 and the Holiday Inn is now $130 and includes a continental breakfast and parking. Each hotel has a limited number of rooms at the convention rate so book early. Besides hotels there is camping available; also very reasonable accommodation available at Western Ontario University and Fanshawe College residences.

Please encourage all your dancers to attend for this really great event and please register as early as possible. The Convention committee plan dance halls, callers, etc., many months ahead of time. To enable them to allocate the hall space and callers to any dance category, they need to know dancer levels and type of dancing early in 2018. At present no cloggers are registered so this may not be offered.

Please go to the Convention website for more information and also for information about upcoming Convention fundraising dances. http://squaredance.ca/2018/

Club Events
All local Association post an event Calendar on their respective web pages. Please try and get out to support the events, workshops and dances that various clubs host. Each year there are less of these due to the fact that many dancers are not supporting them. Encourage your new dancers by taking them to their first “outside” dance. Offer dangles to newer dancers who attend special events. One of the joys of dancing is making friends at other clubs.

On behalf of the Federation Board members, we wish you a successful dance year ahead.

Submitted by: Howard and Jean Lander
Federation – Public Relations and Promotions

NOTE- January SWOSDA is on Jan 18 (3rd Sat.)

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