This coming week will be the last week of our Winter Session. Here is hoping the snow will finally dissipate and we will begin to see some green around here instead of white. Perhaps our snow birds down south, can bring some nice weather back with them. We have missed you and look forward to seeing you all again. We know some of you don’t actually go south, but instead travel west and although you have had more winter than I’m sure you would have liked this year, you are getting a headstart on spring at least. Bring some back on your way home OK!
As discussed in our last executive meeting, fees will remain the same for the remainder of this year, so the spring session for 6 weeks will be $42/person or $84/couple. For those who wish to pay per day, the fee remains the same at $10/person or $20/couple. Gavin and Pat will be back at the beginning of our Spring Session, the week of Apr 5+6 and will accept session fees at that time. Just giving you all the heads up!
Come spring our 4-6 club will be resuming on Mondays from 1-3PM at the Greenboro Community Centre. The Spring session begins on Monday Apr 3, and we will also be running for 6 weeks. Your fees are the same as what are listed above. For our members who attended last fall’s session, you should have received an email from me this past week. We will continue to use Curt and Tammy Worlock’s Instructional Videos and will be starting with a nice Gloodt phase 5 waltz called, “Forever, You’ll Be In Love”. This should be a good coming back point for many of us and first week back, our program will contain all the dances we have learned thus far on Mondays. The program will be released next week, but for you eager beavers out there wanting to practice, there is a good starting point.
Hard to believe we are coming to our spring session already in our 2016-2017 season! Looking forward to less snow, more green, our traveling members coming back to the nest and catching up on all the news. Remember, with spring comes more dance events out there to attend! Please check out the Coming Events section of our website and see what’s coming up. See you next week!

Last week I was talking about St. Patrick’s Day, the beginning of spring and tulips. Instead we were inundated with snow enough to cause a cancellation of our Wednesday club. One foot of snow in places with about over two feet with drifting snow were what we found here in Winchester. The snow steadily continued on ALL DAY until around 6:30PM. For our Wednesday dancers, we hope that you were not too disappointed and managed to celebrate all that St. Patrick’s Day means yesterday. We did manage to proceed on Thursday. We were joined by Pat and Jill who even decorated the hall for us. Nice job guys! Jenny and Ziggy as always did a great job with refreshments with a delicious cake all in green and white. Special thanks as well to our own Daphne, who brought some cupcakes for us to enjoy! It was all good. I sampled both! I’ll admit it! As you can see from our picture here, a lot of our St. Patty’s Day decor flowed across the dance floor all morning. Everyone dressed with green and white, or green and black. Added to a festive atmosphere indeed! Thanks for the participation. Some of our music sounded a bit irish in nature as well-even between tips with a bit of “mood music”- “Black Velvet Band” and “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” to name a few. Lots of fun this past Thursday morning with lots of time for an “irish jig” and chit chat! Loved it all! Once all of our “picture takers” have sent me their pics, I will post them here. Give me another week or so. Thanks!
Next week, we will be back to our usual routine. Arlo will be joining me this week on the teaches for both our Wednesday and Thursday groups! On Wednesday night, we will be presenting a new phase 4 cha which will be basically a cue and do for everyone. We will look at a few components of the dance for review-primarily double cubans. On Thursday, we will be doing a review of viennese turns-both in waltz and quickstep and doing a general review of a dance which has been taught before, “Around The World”. Till next week-signing off!

Tuesday will be the day for romance, roses and chocolates, but we got started early at Capital Carousels with our Valentine’s Day dances at both clubs this past week. This week was all about dancing and Pat came up with some nice romantic dances for everyone. It was nice and relaxed and yet we still felt in the Valentine’s mood with many people coming dressed in red and white to add to the atmosphere. After some dancing we had a bit of an extended break time where people wasted no time by all the visit and chit chat going around while enjoying some very festive cupcakes, candies and of course coffee or tea. Thanks to Ian and Ann for bringing our special treats for both Wednesday and Thursdays groups. We still had a few people out this past week, but others returned and we ended up having a few more people overall this week, so thanks for coming out this week gang! We had a great time celebrating Valentine’s Day!
This coming week will be the last week we will be posting the signup sheets for requested teaches and also dances we want to hear more or less of on our programs. We are getting some excellent responses which will really help us with our teaches and programs. Pat has already incorporated some dances you have been wanting to hear more of on our program, so thanks for letting us know! We hope you will be noticing some changes as we go through the remainder of this season, and beyond!
So until we meet again my friends…have a very Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

At this point, all of our club members should have received word of the results of our current club meetings and survey via email or through a phone call. A special thanks indeed goes out to all of our club members for your input. It was most helpful. In general terms, our club will be continuing on through the remainder of this season at our regular club dates on Wednesday nights, Thursday mornings and beginning in the spring session, also Monday afternoons. Our fee schedule will remain the same as before and if you wish to purchase a session fee, you may do so with Gavin this week or pay by the week-your choice. For those wishing the session fee, you will receive credit for any purchased dance days so far this session. With regard to dance teaches, you will begin to see a reduced schedule of teaches and in their place some full dance program days. Along with some new teaches, you will also begin to see some reviews of dances already taught as well as some workshops on figures we have been having some difficulty with. In some ways, things are the same, and in other ways a few changes. Remember please that these changes will be in effect until the end of this current season and we will be meeting again in April to plan for next season. Based on our recent success here, we look forward to including you again in the process. Stay tuned!
Besides all the meetings, surveys and general discussion, the executive seems to have been also buzzing about something else! Have you taken a look at your Square Time lately? You now have two ways to look at it-either in paper form or online at EoDance.ca. We have had a change this year at our “Capital Carousels Journalist” position in the name of Linda Shannon. She has done a terrific job writing articles on what our club has been doing in the last quarter! She has really taken this position to heart and we appreciate her dedication to it. Thanks for keeping Capital Carousels in the public eye Linda! You are doing a great job! Be sure to tell her the next time you see her.
We are very fortunate at Capital Carousels to have many fine members, who volunteer their time to help with many jobs like refreshments, registration desk and pitching in to help at special events. Jobs like table setup, decorations, helping in the kitchen are all important tasks that are so easily completed when we have so many helpful people offering their services. Also from a cuer point of view, I’d also like to thank those guys out there who help me take down the speakers after dances. Although it is certainly something I can do, it is nice to have help with that “cumbersome” equipment. You guys are all champs in my books!
Thanks to all of you for your club contributions. You really help make us what we are!!

Welcome to dancing in 2017!! This past week, we began our year with a dance session and no teaches as we knew our club meetings, held on Wednesday and Thursday would take up probably more of our day than our break time could cover. We thank all of those who came out, but recognize we had some of our members (and executive), out with illness and also our members who are away for the winter months.
You know, you can never be sure how these club meetings are going to be received. I would have to say (and I’m sure others would agree with me) that our meetings were very successful!! In large part due to our members!! I was very proud to be a part of Capital Carousels knowing we have members who truly care for their club! It was terrific to have so much input from our members at the meeting.
Gavin’s input and Arlo’s presentation style also had a great deal to do with the meetings success and subsequent input from the members. Thanks guys and great job!
We gathered quite a few ideas and comments on both days. By now, you should have received your online survey asking you to complete the short questionnaire which will help us to determine our course through the remainder of this season. There is also a place to write in further comments so don’t hesitate to add them! For our dancers away for the winter, you are also encouraged to fill in the survey as you are also Capital Carousels members. We look forward to hearing from everyone. You will have until next Wednesday to finish and submit the survey. Please do so soon if you haven’t already. Wednesday will be here before you know it! The board will be meeting on Thursday after our morning club to review the findings and make decisions. We will, of course, be keeping you all in the loop!
So what happens next Wednesday and Thursday at the club? Well, as many of you know, Pat has been suffering with a bad cold through most of the holidays and it has really been hanging on into the new year. Because she has continued to feel “under the weather”, we have decided to have an all dance program for both Wednesday and Thursday this week and postpone the teach until Jan 25+26. At that point, we will start reviewing the mambo taught at Capital Caper, “One More Tequila”. That was a good dance and we look forward to having it on the program after our review. To refresh your memories on the dance, please check out Lyn and Mike’s DropBox site for the video.
That was a busy week for us indeed, but next week, we will be returning to dancing. See you at Parkdale and don’t forget to complete and submit your surveys!! You will be helping to shape our future plans!