President’s Corner—December 1, 2021

The past few months have been wonderful, seeing the clubs starting up and our dancers back on the dance floor. So many great pictures of the club’s Halloween Parties are being shared. It is so much fun to see how creative our dancers are with their costumes.

As with everything else, COVID has affected our club membership. Most clubs have noticed a decline in membership. At our Club Presidents, Callers, Cuers and Federation Leadership Zoom Meeting, held on

Monday, 10/25/21, we had an update on the status of most of our clubs.

2 clubs have discontinued.

3 clubs currently are not dancing due to lack of location, etc.

3 clubs have finished their Fall Season and will resume again in the Spring.

10 Clubs are currently dancing.

There are a few clubs whose dancing status we don’t know.

Cloverleaf Squares and Cayuga Cut-Ups are the only clubs with classes right now.

Cloverleaf has 12–15 class members and we had heard the class is doing very well.

Cayuga Cut-Ups just held their open house and hope many perspective dancers return to continue lessons. As we all know, the future of square dancing still is dependent on recruiting new dancers for lessons.

Showcasing Square Dancing is also very important. Most people think modern square dancing is what they did in elementary school many years ago. We hope our clubs are able to participate in any and all opportunities for demos. We are aware of a group that danced at the Strong Museum of Play in August and we recently heard of several other demos being planned. If you are willing to participate in demos, please let either your club leadership, Promotions Coordinator Eileen Webster or Jeff & Debbie Blood know. They always are a lot of fun!

A few months ago, we were approached about hosting a New Year’s Eve Dance. We are currently checking out the feasibility of having a dance. We have a caller and location. It hasn’t been determined yet whether we can also serve food. Currently the Federation and Copy Cats are co-sponsors, putting together a proposal and planning to seek approval to proceed within a few weeks. We have asked Club Presidents to poll their membership whether an afternoon New Year’s Eve dance would be popular with their dancers. At this time, we are considering dancing at the Penfield Baptist Church where Copy Cats dances. We will keep you posted on this potential event.

There are several milestone club anniversaries being celebrated this year:

Cayuga Cut-Ups celebrated 60-year Anniversary with a dinner/dance on Oct 2, 2021.

Copy Cats will celebrate their 50-year Anniversary with a dinner/dance on Saturday, 12/18/21.

Grand Squares will be celebrating their “60th +” Anniversary in Spring, 2022.

Nominations for the Daphne Norma Leadership Award are due by the end of February.

Please look around and take the time to recognize couples or individuals who deserve this honor and recognition for their dedication and service to our square and round dancing community.

Stay well and we hope to see you on the dance floor.

Debbie & Jeff Blood