President’s Corner—March 1, 2025

The Holiday Season brought many fun and festive dancing opportunities across our region. The Federation (WNYF) and Copy Cats Annual New Years Eve Afternoon Dance was a huge success. We had over 70 dancers, 7 squares dancing as we welcomed 2025. We enjoyed dancing with dancers from Cloverleaf Squares, Cayuga Cut-ups, Silver Squares, Southern Tier Wheelers, Batavia Silver Stars and Copy Cats.

Our clubs have many exciting upcoming dancing events planned: Valentines dances, St Patrick;’s Day Dances, Ice Cream Social Dances, Sport Team Dances, etc.

New Look for the Federation’s Website: squaredancingrochester.org

We are excited to announce the new look of our WNYF website. It is the key communication link for our dancers to stay connected, to know when and where the dances are and to stay current of what our 15 member clubs are doing.

We extend a huge thank you to the committee of 10 dancers that worked on this website project. They have been working on this redesign for over a year. The members of the committee were: Jim Gotta, Peter Emmel, Sid Marshall, Donna LaDonna, Rick LaDonna, Anne Granger, Carl Webster, Linda English, Debbie Blood and Jeff Blood.

Special thanks to Jim Gotta, Peter Emmel and Sid Marshall, without their support and dedication, we would not have been able to move forward with this new look.

The database Sid Marshall created over 10 years ago is still the foundation of the Federation’s website. We appreciate Sid’s efforts for originally creating this database and maintaining the integrity of it for all these years.

Jim Gotta developed the protype of the new website and spent over 40 hours programming to create this new user- friendly format. In January, Jim transferred over 1,000 files to transition us to the new website you now see at www.squaredancingrochester.org

We thank Peter Emmel for his continued support and dedication as he currently is helping all the clubs transition from the online Promenader newsletter to this new website format, where each club has their own Club page to maintain. He also is helping the editorial staff and proof-reading staff, formerly of the Promenader, transition to the workflow of the new WNYF website. Peter served as the Editor of our Promenader for over 10 years. Due to his dedication and devotion to square and round dancing, he worked with all the clubs and WNYF leadership to provide dance schedules, club news, articles, photos, dance flyers, etc. to our dancing community. His editor’s role has been a crucial role and he is actively helping us transition it to the new website.

Save the dates for a few upcoming Federation events:

DOR 2025

On Saturday, May 3, 2025, from 1–5pm WNYF will hold our annual Dance-O-Rama (DOR) at the Perinton Recreation Center. It is the 65th Annual DOR. Jason Raleigh National Caller from Ohio and our own Ron Brown will be calling. Mark Thone will be cueing. We will have a Graduate Parade for all new graduates since DOR 2024. The 2025 Daphne -Norma Leadership Award will be presented, the highest honor given in our square and round dance community. The Clubs received their DOR 2025 information in February and should be selling ribbons to their members. Ribbons are $10 until April 19th and $12 after April 19th.

Free June Dance including Amateur Calling and Cuer Opportunities for our Dancers

The Federation is happy to announce we are holding another Free June Dance on Friday, June 20, 2025 from 6:30 to 9:30pm at the VFW in Fairport. Last year this dance was so well attended, we are happy to be sponsoring another one this year. We are also asking any of our dancers who want try their skill as callers or cuers to join in the amateur calling and cueing fun and maybe win the roaring tiger award. Our beloved callers: Mike Callahan, Ron Brown & Jim Gotta will assist and guide our amateurs in preparing, just tell them now that you want to try calling or cueing at this June dance.

Volunteer Opportunities

Like our clubs, the Federation is a volunteer organization and we are looking for volunteers to help with our activities- we sponsor DOR annually, the New Years Eve Dance and now the recently added Free June Dance. We also help organize square dancing and western nights at several community events along with several promotional demos. We hold about 6 -7 Skype WNYF meetings and DOR meetings each year so everyone can participate from the comfort of their home. We have many opportunities for volunteers: the DOR Committee, or as a volunteer the day of DOR helping set up, clean up, or selling raffle tickets for the basket raffle or 50/50. We also need volunteers to join our Executive Board - If you are interested or know someone you think would be interested, please reach out to one of our officers:

Co-Presidents – Debbie & Jeff Blood

Vice President – Anne Granger

Co-Treasurers – Donna & Rick LaDonna

Secretary – Linda English

We look forward to seeing you on dance floor!

Debbie & Jeff Blood