As I’m writing this, it is a beautiful spring day. We’re mostly through our dance season and our 60th Dance-O-Rama is in the books. The Dance-O-Rama committee put in a lot of effort over the past year and certainly during the dance, and I think the results show it. Those of you who took the time to fill out a survey seemed to agree. There are always concerns with the venue and sound, which we will continue to work to improve. There are very few air-conditioned venues around with multiple non-carpeted dance halls that we can afford. Several alternates have been investigated over the last few years and we will continue to try and find alternate dance sites. Anyone with suggestions—and particularly willingness to go explore these potential venues—is welcome to help us.

Our activity continues only with more new dancers and callers and cuers coming into it. We had several new callers and cuers try out their talents at Cloverleaf’s Amateur night, and again at the Dance-O-Rama open mic session. I think everyone had a great time at these events and we need to continue to urge these individuals and others to keep going. As with everything, it takes practice. We did not have as many new dancer graduates this year as in previous years, but the biggest challenge as always is to keep the folks we do have dancing. Once again, this year we have several regional and national callers coming to the area to call dances (Reardon, Preston, Bower, Shoemake, Sikorsky). These great events are on top of the full summer schedule we have with RAF club and CCR dances. I hope to see everyone, but particularly our new graduates out this summer having fun and keeping up the dance moves.

Our next dance season begins in September with many clubs holding Open Houses, and our “welcome back” Federation Fall Ball. Find those friends and family with the dance moves and get them out on the dance floor. Get all your fellow club members and new graduates out to the Ball and enjoy the free dance—and get to know your fellow dancers from the other clubs.

I’d like to take this opportunity to recognize several folks. First is to add my congratulations to our most recent Daphne-Norma award recipients, Stu and Jane Jones. They have both been very supportive of Lurine and myself—as new dancers seven years ago and of my calling career. It has been great having Stu on the RAF board with me this past year. They certainly are deserving recipients of this award. Terry Pratt has been on the Dance-O-Rama committee with me the past three years as well as long before that. She will be stepping off the committee this year to deal with some stuff that life has thrown her and Joe. She has been very welcoming, and hard-working, and I’m going to miss having her around this year. I also want to thank Henry Capron and Carl Webster for their service to the RAF board this past year. I want to welcome new board members Gary Granath and Jeff & Debbie Blood. Also, I’m so glad that Eileen Webster will be joining the board as Communications Liaison, a position we have been looking to fill for quite some time. The board looks to be as strong as ever and I look forward to another great year of dancing.

See you on the dance floor!

Jim Gotta