President’s Corner—June 2023

We currently have 16 clubs in the Federation: Batavia Silver Stars, Boo Bull Squares and Rounds, Cayuga Cut-Ups, Cloverleaf Squares, Copy Cats, Dalton Gang, Fun Bunch, Grand Squares, Pairs N Squares, Penn Yan Friendship Squares, Shirts N Skirts (Fulton), Shamrock Squares, Silver Squares, Southern Tier Wheelers, Village Squares and Waterwheel Squares. It’s been fantastic to have our clubs back dancing. We hope you take the opportunity to dance with our member clubs. We have so many summer dancing opportunities this summer.

We want to highlight two fundraising dances are coming up in the near future:

Fulton Shirts N Skirts are sponsoring the Elaine Eno Memorial Dance on Saturday, June 3rd from 1–9p.m. in Fulton NY, all proceeds will be donated to the ALS Association.

Dalton Gang is sponsoring a benefit dance for CURE Childhood Cancer Awareness on Saturday, August 19th from 1–5p.m. in Bliss NY. all proceeds go directly to CURE.

If you can’t attend these dances, please consider donating to them. Our callers and cuers are volunteering their time to these events. Please check the Promenader for more details on these dances.

The Federation’s Dance-O-Rama (DOR) 2023, held on Saturday, May 6, 2023, was very successful. It was our 63rd Annual DOR. And was held at the Perinton Rec Center, 1350 Turk Hill Rd, Fairport NY. We had 170 + in attendance. We all enjoyed dancing to international caller and cuer Betsy & Roy Gotta and Western NY & Canadian Caller, Dave Eno. We were happy to recognize 15 of our 2023 graduates who attended DOR. Our clubs’ classes have added 27 new dancers to our dancing community. The Daphne-Norma Leadership Award, highest honor awarded in our square dance community, was presented to Anne Granger and Don Naulin, Co-Presidents of Silver Squares.

This year DOR 2023 Committee created a Federation Wall of Recognition honoring 14 of our current active WNYF callers and cuers. Each caller and cuer provided a picture and answered 8 questions for the committee. In addition, 7 of our callers and cuers were given plaques from the Federation for their outstanding dedication and support to our clubs and the Federation throughout the Covid pandemic and helping to get the dancers back to the dance floor. These honored 7 were involved with virtual calling or cueing over the Internet using Zoom, 2 years of Federation’s Summer Dances, the 2020-2021 Federation’s Return to Dance Task Force and/or 2022 Federation’s Promotions Task Force. We successfully achieved the goal of starting up square dance lessons again in Fall 2022. Thank you again to Ron Brown, Mike Callahan, Dave Eno, Jim Gotta, Chuck Meyer, Gill Porter and Eileen Webster for all you do for the Federation and our member clubs. This year the basket raffle and 50/50 were very successful. Thank you to everyone who participated in DOR, as volunteers, dancers, callers, cuers, etc. Without everyone’s efforts, DOR would not happen. Thank you!

Special thank you to the DOR2023 Committee for all their hard work and commitment.

They are a wonderful team, the DOR 2023 Committee members:

Linda English, Lorraine & Gary Granath, Anne Granger & Don Naulin, Donna & Rick LaDonna, Sharon & Chuck Meyer, Mary Jo Webster, Debbie & Jeff Blood

Upcoming Summer Demos: more details coming, please save the dates:

Greece Historical Society—Annual Strawberry Festival Fund Raiser Monday, June 19th 4–7p.m. (free admission if dancing only, if eating need to pay admission)

Josh Jensen’s Health Fair at Greece Ridge Mall, Saturday, August 26th 9 am to 12 noon. Currently checking if able to provide square dance demo.

We hope to see you on the dance floor this summer!

Debbie & Jeff Blood