HISTORY OF WOLDS WEAVERS

How it all began....

Well, we finally made it…….on Friday 27^th March 2015 we graduated 26 new dancers into the fun and friendship that is square dancing! After the closure of our local club because of declining membership and reading articles in the LSD magazine about how difficult it is recruiting and keeping new members, it was with some trepidation in November 2013 that a handful of us, over a drink in the village local, decided to try and start a new club in the nearby town of Pocklington. We decided very early on to make it a beginners only club to begin with, choosing to concentrate the full evening to teaching the basics and getting the beginners dancing and enjoying the basic and mainstream programme as soon as possible. We knew that this was a risk if we didn’t get enough people wanting to learn so it was with much enthusiasm and energy that we threw ourselves into arranging interviews with local radio stations, articles in local newspapers, leaflet handouts at local events and supermarkets and posters in every conceivable place you could put one!

We booked a lovely (if a little expensive) hall in the heart of the town and with fingers crossed on January 17^th 2014 we opened the doors for our first night secretly hoping for a couple of squares if we were lucky. Imagine our delight and complete surprise when five squares of beginners turned up! None of them had any real idea what square dancing was so it was nice to teach a large group of people with no preconceived ideas who were all learning at the same time. Great fun was had by all that night and it was heartening to see them all turn up again the following week.

As is inevitably the case with all clubs, we did lose some dancers along the way but 26 members stayed the course, in fact they were so keen that we started putting details of the up-coming moves on Facebook with links so they had an idea what was expected beforehand! A lot of fun and laughter later, they learned the final moves early this year. We had a fun graduation night with judges and the usual fun and games (don’t ask!) but also had the traditional candle ceremony which was very moving.

Once we were almost through the course and were able to offer some ‘proper’ dancing, we had some experienced dancers come to join us too so we are now dancing 4/5 squares regularly. We have had many comments from visitors about the happy atmosphere there is at the club and the enthusiasm of the dancers. Whilst we are still focusing on mainstream we are now calling the odd plus tip for the experienced dancers so anyone wanting some extra dancing on a Friday night is very welcome.

We are very grateful for the support we have had from other clubs and callers in the area. We wanted to introduce the new dancers to different callers so that they were not thrown when it came to dancing at other clubs and dances so our thanks go to Ange Alexander and John Kozyra and also Gene Turner, Cliff Anderton and Di Green who have called for us occasionally and become regular visitors.

Wolds Weavers Banner

It is a tradition that all square dance clubs have their own banner and we were lucky enough to have amongst our members a very accomplished sewer who produced an outstanding banner for the club. Her name is Jill Usher and at our Yorkshire Day Dance she was presented with a bouquet to say thanks so much for her sterling handiwork on such a beautiful banner that Wolds Weavers are extremely proud of.

As is also tradition the banner was blessed by our caller on the night, James Wyatt and as a Southerner he was given the hard task by our then Chairman, Jack Gooch, of reading the blessing in as broad a Yorkshire accent as he could muster. The blessing read something like this (phonetically speaking):

Nah sithee, this 'ere banner wur med for us by Jill

She looked out from her own backyard tu t'Wolds at t'top a t'ill

She got Denise to draw the seyt, right grand it wur they sed

Then Jill set to weyve it all in green and blue and red

They browt it dahn tu t'square dance club so we could share that view

That's how Wolds Weavers got its name, now you can share it too.