Next FASH Event

Our next event is our February workshop. On the 15th February at Durley Memorial Hall, Barrie Bullimore will be calling for a workshop titled "Love and Affection". He will be supported by Claire Coxwell and Judith & Rick Beton who will provide the music. In the morning he is calling "Dances appropriate to Valentine's Day"; in the afternoon he will call "Dances written for women, not necessarily romantic".

Full details of our '25/'26 workshop season with timings and venues are available here.

Our AGM was held on the 18th May via the 'Zoom' application. Minutes of the the meeting, together with copies of the officers' reports and the accounts, are available on the "About FASH" 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 07779 818638.

We are aware that Covid is still around, 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.

Note that the last meeting of Chichester Country Dance Group will be on Wednesday 17th December. Sadly, diminishing numbers mean that the Group will not be restarting in January.

We are sad to have to report the death of John Miller who died at the end of October after a long battle wih cancer. John danced for many years with King John's Morris men, and as well as a dancer, will be recognised by many as Father Christmas in the King John's Traditional Mummers' play. As well as playing in the Kings Band, he also called for ceilidh dances. He was a singer with a great voice and could regularly be heard at King John's 'apres dance' sessions.

Note that we have now confirmed the date for our February workshop next year (it will be on the 15th) and have changed the date of our April one to the 28th to avoid a clash with Bournemouth FDC's Day of Dance 2026 which has now been announced and will be on Saturday the 11th April. Also, the date of the Madding Crowd workshop in 2027 (yes, we really have to work that far ahead) has been confirmed and we have added it to the future dates section of our Workshops page.

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 - this first one this season is in October, on the 8th.

Have a look also at The London Barndance Company's website. They run dances with live music 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).

See also the regular contra dances at Egham (Ashford Folk Dance Club). These are afternoon sessions usually on the second Sunday of the month. More details here. These two contra sessions are often 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 from black and white originals.

Focsle Music now meets only at The Guide Dog - in theory no more "Welly". However, when Southampton Football Team are playing at home, it is often necessary to move the meetings back to The Wellington Arms. For all the details see the Focsle website and their Facebook page. Even with these 'live' meetings, Focsle is still running the Wednesday Zoom sessions, although these are now on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month. If you would like to be kept fully up-to-date, e-mail Lin 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".