Next FASH Event

The next FASH workshop is still a little way ahead - the first workshop of the '24/'25 season will be at Durley Memorial Hall SO32 2AD on the 6th October. Our caller will be Victoria Yeomans, with husband Dave Yeomans and local violinist Linda Game providing the music. The title of the workshop is "Old English and Modern American" and Victoria will be contrasting the dances of Old England and Modern America, Full details of all our autumn events will be included in the September issue of 'Solent Waves', and will also be found on our 'Workshops' page.

If you are not already on our FASH Supporters circulation list and would like to receive news of our events, please contact Daphne on info@fash.org.uk or phone 01243 531497.

We are aware that Covid has recently become more prevalent, so our document 'FASH Workshops and Covid19' is unfortunately still relevant. It details the precautions we take and what we ask you to do to protect other people.

You may have heard that local caller Ian Kirby is once again active in our area. Among other dances, he is calling for a Barn Dance at The St James Road Methodist Church in Shirley, SO15 5HE, on the 7th September. With him will be The Puddleglum Folk Band and the evening kicks off at 7.00 pm. Tickets in advance, at £10, from Christine on 07929 759901. Bring your own nibbles/supper; tea, coffee and soft drinks provided (regret no alcohol allowed). The organisers write "No experience needed!"

Note that this dance is on Saturday this week, and more dancers are needed or they are likely to have to cancel. Book your places now as they need to know how many are coming.

A reminder that Winchester Shape Note Singing has moved from Thursdays to Tuesdays. Now 2nd and 4th Tuesdays, contact Nigel Bowley winchestersns@aol.com for more details.

If you prefer contra-style dances, we have our local Solent Contra Dances with Barrie Bullimore calling. They are on the second Wednesday of the month at Shawford Parish Hall - details in the Dance Diary. The next one will be in September.

Have a look also at The London Barndance Company's website. They are again running live dances, mainly at Cecil Sharp House. All the dates and callers/bands are given on the LBC website; the dances can be found on the EFDSS website, which is the easiest way to buy tickets in advance (£15, members £13).

The regular contra dances at Egham (Ashford Folk Dance Club) have also restarted. These are afternoon sessions on the second Sunday of the month. More details here. These two contra sessions tend to be on the two days of the same week-end, and sometimes one caller leads both events.

A comparatively new website is now on-line: Friends of English Dance are putting together a directory of dance clubs, callers and bands/musicians to replace the well-established one, now no longer available, of "Set and Turn Single". If you run a dance club, are a caller or part of a band, do consider adding yourself/your club/your band to the site - it will take a while to collect all the information, but if everyone adds their own part it will soon grow.

Also on the site, you can find resources for dancers, callers and musicians, including videos, particularly for those new to English Country Dance, of many of the basic dance figures.

We have added a link on the 'Solent Waves' page to the 'Solent Waves' archive. All issues right back to number one have been scanned in and saved as pdfs. The most recent ones are in full colour, issues a bit further back are in black and white and issues prior to November 2013 are in greyscale as they were printed in blue.

Focsle Music now meets only at The Guide Dog - no more "Welly". For all the details see the Focsle website and their Facebook page. They have reintroduced the 'Live on the Lawn' sessions - more details on the website as the venue changes each time. Even with all these 'live' meetings, Focsle is still running the Wednesday Zoom sessions, although these are now only on the last Wednesday of the month. If you would like to be kept fully up-to-date, e-mail Paul and ask to be added to their mailing list.

The English Folk Dance and Song Society, EFDSS, has its full programme on-line now. Many song and dance workshops are included. See www.efdss.org and go to their 'What's on' page, or use this link www.efdss.org/whats-on to find out what is taking place in the coming months and to book tickets. Clicking on one of the headings in red you will find mainly what is taking place at Cecil Sharp House: gigs, workshops and dances separately. To see what dance events members of EFDSS have asked to be posted on the website, go to www.efdss.org/calendar-events, or click on the heading "The Folk Dance Calendar" in black. This part of the website has taken over some of what used to be the on-line calendar of "Set and Turn Single".