June 2009
We performed 2 spots at the Beaufort Polo Club country fair and did a performance & workshop for Brinkworth Ladies ClubSaturday 23 May 2009
We performed in the area all day on Saturday 23 May. In the
morning we were at St. Aldhelm's Fair at the Market Cross at the top
of Malmesbury High Street. In the afternoon we were at the
Chippenham Folk Festival.9:30am / 10:00am Market Cross, Malmesbury
2:00pm - 2:30pm Chippenham Folk Festival parade down Chippenham High Street
2:30pm - 3:00pm Top of Chippenham High Street, by Starbucks
3:30pm - 4:00pm Chippenham Market Square
4:30pm - 5:00pm Rose & Crown, Chippenham
February 2009
Our latest revision of our website is complete.February 2009
We performed for the Mayor of Malmesbury at the annual Mayoral Ball.
January 2009
Our traditional late Xmas meal was a lot of fun. This year we were at the Rose & Crown in Brokenborough. The food was excellent and we happily recommend it to one and all!
2008 Season
We performed at a variety of events through the season. One highlight was our "Midsummer Meet" where we danced at the Star Inn in Hullavington along with members of Chippenham Morris and Hips & Haws.We also ran workshops for Malmesbury Carnival and the Hullavington Harfest, which were a lot of fun.
News - 18 April 2008
Our core repertoire for the 2008 season has now been agreed. See the entry on the right-hand side for details.
Our
new website design has now been completed - we hope you like it. The
web pages feature our new logo which was designed for us by Martin
Evans. For more information on our logo designs, please see the link on
the right-hand side.
Next Event: Malmesbury Morris Xmas Meal
10 January 2008
Our meal is at the Red Bull, Sherston Road, Malmesbury
Next Event: Teaching session by Torquil MacInnes
22 November 2007
Torquil will be coming back to teach the final dance from the
Malmesbury Tradition and to see how we're getting on with the other
ones.
Open Evening & World Record Attempt
September 2007
On
the 1st of September we will be taking part in an attempt to set a
world record for the largest ever Morris Dance with hopefully several
hundred dancers from sides across the country. This will be taking
place during the Moreton-in-the-Marsh Agricultural show.
On
Thurday the 6th of September we will be having an open evening where
you can find out more about Morris dancing and give it a try. This will
be taking place at 19:30 at our regular practice venue - the Reading
Room in Corston, next to the pub on the A429 just south of Malmesbury.
Our season is now in full flow
12 June 2007
We're
fully into our new season. So far we've performed at the Swindon &
Cricklade Railway, The Star Inn in Hullavington, St. Aldhelm's Fair in
Malmesbury, and at the Red Bull just outside Malmesbury on the Sherston
Road. We've also run a Morris Dancing workshop for the Great Somerford
Guides.
Unfortunately our performance at the Chippenham Folk
Festival was washed out with the heavy raid - better luck next year we
hope!
New recordings on the Music page
7 February 2007
Two new recordings have been added onto the Music page - "The Girl I Left Behind Me" and "The Quaker".
Preparing for a new season
January 2007
We've had our traditional January "Xmas" Dinner - excellent fare
at Amanda's in Malmesbury - and now we're busy practicing to get our
new dances ready for the coming season. If you're interested in trying
Morris dancing, get in touch and arrange to come along to one of our
Thursday night practice sessions.
Xmas Late Night Shopping, Malmesbury
1 December 2006
Our next performance will be at the Malmesbury Xmas Late Night Shopping on Friday 1st December.
Monthly meeting
9 November 2006
It
was decided at this meeting that we would alter our meeting times. We
shall now meet on Thursdays at 19:45 and continue until 21:15.
Sherston Scrump, Sherston, N. Wilts.
7 October 2006 - 14:30
We had a great time performing at the Scrump and being educated in the
subtle arts of Mangold Wurzel Hurling.
Morris Dancing Workshop
21 September 2006
We
had an excellent time learning the basics of our new dances, created
and taught by Torquil McInnes. It looks like we've got some great new
dances to work on for our new season.
Performances in July
We
had a busy July with many enjoyable performances. We are now preparing
for our visit to Malmesbury's twin town of Niebull in Germany at the
end of August, and then for Malmesbury Carnival where we will be
performing at the Market Cross during the Carnival procession on the
2nd of September.
Malmesbury C of E Primary School, Malmesbury
7 July 2006
We
performed at the Primary School's annual Fete with the kind assistance
of Lyndon Doddington who played Fiddle for us in place of Hilary who
was otherwise engaged.
Burnham House, Malmesbury
13 July 2006
Our second performance at Burnham House, we played a full set in the garden for the residents.
Little Somerford Fete, Little Somerford
14 July 2006
Our second evening in a row. We danced for the second year at this village fete near Malmesbury.
Dance out with Somerset Morris, Corsham
20 July 2006
We
had an excellent evening dancing at two pubs in Corsham with Somerset
Morris. Of particular note were their traditional Friendly Society
dances performed with two metre staves crowned with a distinctive brass emblems and
decorated with ribbons. Thanks are due to the Royal Oak and Hare & Hounds pubs for making us feel so welcome.
Dance out with Icknield Way Morris Men, at Bishopstone, nr. Swindon and Ashbury, Oxfordshire
26 July 2006
We
had another excellent evening, this time with the Icknield Way Morris -
the first side that we ever danced out with. They were very supportive
the first time, and very encouraging this time - noting that we had
improved quite a lot! It helped that we had a full complement of
dancers this time. We performed firstly at the Royal Oak pub in
Bishopstone, and then at the Rose & Crown Hotel in Ashbury. Some of
us stayed for a while to join the Icknield Way Morris for a session at
the Rose & Crown. Thanks to both pubs for having us.
Star Inn, Hullavington
22 June 2006
We
danced out with the Hips & Haws side from Chippenham and I hope a
good time was had by all. Particular thanks must go to the landlord of
the Star Inn for being so welcoming.
Chippenham Folk Festival
28 May 2006
We
made our debut at the Chippenham Folk Festival (probably our most
daunting performance since our formation) sharing a half-hour busking
spot outside the Rose & Crown at 15:30. Performing
at the festival means performing in front of lots of our peers in other
Morris sides. This means that this performance was a major landmark in the development of the side.
We performed three of our dances - Gloucester Hornpipe, The Rose Tree, and On Approval - and all went very well. The other sides were very supportive, especially the very vocal Exmoor Border Morris.
I think the general concensus was that we achieved a good enough
standard with our performance that we didn't look out of place, which I think we can regard as a major success.
St. Aldhelm's Fair
20 May 2006
Our
first performance of the year went really well with a full set of eight
dances (that's right eight - just count them!) at the St. Aldhelm's
Fair at the Market Cross in Malmesbury. The dancing seemed well
received by a decent crowd and not a single mature vegetable was cast
in our direction, by which I think we can assume that they liked what
they saw. This was great preparation for what we hope will be our debut
at the Chippenham Folk Festival on Sunday 28 May - time to be
announced.
Preparing for the season
Spring 2006
We
are currently preparing for the new season, working on current dances
and learning some new ones. Please see the calendar on the left hand
side for details of our upcoming performances.
Review of October, November and December
2005
We had some busy months with new members joining and multiple performances and workshops.
We
ran introductory Morris Dancing workshops for the Brownies at Lea
Village Hall, and for Malmesbury Primary School. Both of these seemed
to be well received and we had a lot of fun putting them on.
We performed
at Malmesbury Late Night Shopping which went well but made it clear
that we need to look at ways to make our presence felt at the start of
a performance, and also a way of increasing the volume of our band when
performing in busy and noisy settings.
We also performed a
special Christmas set for the residents of Burnham House which included
a rendition of the Somerset Wassail song by our dancers and a solo
performance of "Jogging along with my reindeer" by Ange.
During
this period we were also granted permission by Malmesbury Town Council
to use the town coat of arms in our logo. We'd like to thank the
council for this.
We
would like to say thankyou and seasons greetings to the very many
people and organisations who have helped us have such as successful
year, and we would like to wish everybody a happy, healthy and
prosperous 2006.
Morris Dancing Workshop at
the Reading
Room, Corston
10 September 2005 - 09:30
Our workshop went very well.
Torquil MacInnes from Chippenham Morris taught us three new dances and
worked on some of the technical aspects of Morris dancing. Tasty
biscuits and cake, along with tea and coffee, fueled the dancers and
musicians and the morning was complete when we retired to the pub for a
lunchtime pint!
With the workshop we have expanded our repertoire of full dances to
eight and we have plenty to work on through the practice season.
New name
8 September 2005
At our annual
general
meeting it was decided to change our name from "Malmesbury Mixed
Morris" to just Malmesbury Morris. We had the word "mixed" in our name
at the start to indicate that we wanted members of either sex, but now
that we are established and both genders are represented in our group
the "mixed" element seemed obsolete - hence the shortened name.
Malmesbury
Carnival
3 September 2005
One of our first ambitions when forming Malmesbury Mixed
Morris
was to take a full part in the Carnival proceedings. We can consider
that box well and truly ticked after a busy and hot Saturday.
In the afternoon we performed our full repertoire at a garden party in
Burnivale which went very well, even though we had to perform on grass
which is not the best surface for Morris dancing. The guests at the
party were very generous in their appreciation and we all had a nice
time.
In the evening we took part in the Malmesbury Carnival procession
through the town centre. It was good fun, though very noisy, with our
band bravely struggling to be heard over the marching band 20 yards
ahead of us. Various members of the Malmesbury populace were accosted
with leaflets advertising our workshop on 10 September and a bucket
load of coins were collected for the Carnival charities.
In addition to a performance and taking part in the procession, some of
our over-achieving members also managed to win two bowls finals and a
flower arranging competition!
Performance at Little
Somerford Fete
15 July 2005 - 18:30.
Our best performance so far. A nice evening was had by all.
Malmesbury / Niebull Twinning Celebrations
performance
30 June 2005 - 19:30
After
a false start the evening went well. We had our largest turnout of
members, and we were able to premier our new dance "On Approval" with a
double set of dancers.
St. Aldhelm's Fair performance
28 May 2005 - 10:30
Our performance went well despite some last minute line-up
changes. Special thanks go to Ange who stepped in at the last minute
despite only having had a shoulder operation a couple of days earlier.
Joint performance with Icknield Way Morris
Men
11 May 2005
We had an enjoyable evening with the Icknield Way Morris
Men at the Eagle Inn in Watchfield, Oxfordshire.
Election Night Special
5 May 2005
Our performance at the Radnor Arms in
Corston went well. Our first performance without large amounts of rain.
Malmesbury Mixed Morris on Radio Swindon
1 May 2005
Maggie was a
guest on the Shelley Keen show on BBC Radio Wiltshire / BBC Radio
Swindon.
Malmesbury Mixed Morris World Debut
Triumph!
23 April 2005 - St. George's Day
Our
first public performances at the Radnor Arms in Corston, and then
at the Market Cross in Malmesbury, both went well. Everybody had
a lot
of fun despite the continual rain, Malmesbury parking, carpark
resurfacing and a disintegrating stick.
