Hi all,

Thanks for a constructive meeting/practice last night. To recap...

For the next 6 weeks (5 Mondays, 1 extra practice, 2 crawls) we'll work with a bigger group of people on the new dance. This will be: 1) Ffion and Jo, 2) Lindsey and Laura, 3) Becky and Reesha, 4) Hannorah, 5) Katherine and Kate. Everyone who is at DERT standard by the end of the crawl on 26 Feb will be given the chance to dance in the main set at DERT. There will then be 4/5 practices, 1 extra practice and 2 crawls before DERT.

In the meantime Sinead will continue working on the Westerhope with Janet and whoever isn't working on the new dance at the time. In six weeks' time anyone who isn't quite at DERT standard will be given the chance to be involved with the Westerhope. There are 12 dancers coming to DERT and 12 dancing/Tommying spaces to fill so hopefully this will work out ok. 

We'll aim to do a double Jubilee dance at the showcase but only if we have enough time to work on it in March.

Apologies for not having set the dates for extra practices yet. Becky and I will be doing this in the next couple of days so please make sure the information next to your name in the doodle poll is correct. http://doodle.com/zprf8i2xvhufnu3ikwh4ergc/admin#table The church have said that 10.30-5 on a Saturday is fine with them but on a Sunday we wouldn't be able to start until 2pm. Please let Becky or me know if this will be a problem for you. 

There are 12 dancers coming to DERT. At the moment Sue is unable to do much dancing so this means that if more than one person can't make a practice we might have a problem in terms of getting 2 sets going. If you're coming to DERT please please make sure to let me know if you can't make a practice. If you're not coming to DERT please keep coming to practices - it's very useful to have extra dancers and 'watchers', plus it's nice to see everyone!

Finally, last night we discussed characters. Sue and Reesha will be the characters for the 29 Jan crawl. Hannorah and Janet will do the 26 Feb crawl (or possibly 13 Feb if we go ahead with a crawl on that date). Please can you discuss among yourselves about whether you co-character as Tommy and Betty or do it individually? Our favourite ideas for different characters are a Bobbie (Lost of options for props - whistle, blow up truncheon, handcuffs) and pearly kings and queens. Hannorah will look into the legal issues around dressing up as both these things. Sue will lead on ideas for costumes, but this does not mean she has to sew things herself!! We should start any new costume with a size 12 jacket so it will fit most members of the team if necessary. We won't start any costume making until after the 26 Feb crawl when we'll know what combination of people we want as our additional characters. Still not sure whether we should have two characters at once. Need to think more about the role of the betty. This might become clear on the next two crawls!

Phew, think that's it!

See you next week,

Ffion x