Cane Country Squares

On the 5th of April we were back into our Friday club dancing after the Easter long weekend. We added some Easter celebration to our night with decorations on the walls and dancers wearing Easter themed hats. 

Some had put a lot of effort into their creations with flowers, eggs and Easter Bunnies being the most common components. Sandy even danced the first set with a rabbit face.

Mia enjoyed making hats for her whole family. The front table also had a collection of hats to borrow for the night for those that didn’t bring their own. 

Most of the night Matt called normal four couple squares for SSD but was up for some extra work, calling one set for a six couple rectangle.

Matt also workshopped Plus for Sue, who has not danced a full Plus program for some time. 

Just before supper an Easter Egg hunt was held. For those who couldn’t beat the kids to an Easter Egg, their was some small candy eggs and chocolate treats available with their cuppas.

After supper Sandy read a humorous poem and Matt announced coming dates. The learners ‘Come and Try’ nights have started with the final two on the 9th and 16th of April. May 3rd will be our next theme night and fund raiser, Dance for Heart. 

Check out the 2024 club night video page and the 2024 photo page to see more.

Bundaberg dancers joined in the fun with Hervey Bay Square Dance Club celebrating their 35th Birthday. Friday 22nd started the event with a group travelling from Bundaberg. 

More dancers from Cane Country Squares joined them on Saturday 23rd. Some stayed for the whole event, including a social gathering for lunch on Sunday 24th after the morning dance.

Saturday Morning was Mainstream and SSD level with Plus dancing after lunch. It is always good to see the callers have an opportunity to dance.

With the SSD level included in the program and it was great to see some of our new SSD dancers joining in. For some it was their first experience of an event with multiple callers and for others, the first dance away from home. We had great fun dancing together with Matt, Anita and brand new SSD dancers, Laura and Adrian.

Callers for the weekend included our own Matthew Mills, James Reid and Elaine Davis. All ran sessions individually and together. I really enjoyed Matt and James harmonising together and all three finishing up the event. 

I attended from Saturday morning but I was told all three calling together on Friday was particularly good.  

Sunday was an anything goes morning. Most dressed down to go straight from the dance to lunch, or the drive home. When Rob volunteered to dance the right hand side the mandatory petticoat came out for him to wear.

Matt workshopped Three Quarter Tags leading up to a bigger movement, Dilemma or Delight. It took some work but I really liked it. Elaine walked us through an old movement I had never done before, Carousel Promenade which I really enjoyed. Pam and I will be asking Matt to workshop this one back in Bundaberg. Another movement Elaine workshopped was a Grand Slide, starting with the ladies facing the mans side. It is an interesting movement with each person working as an individual.

Check out our 2024 photo gallery for more photos and check our 2024 video page for videos of the weekend, uploaded soon.

On Friday, the 8th of March we dressed in our club colours of green and gold for Cane Country Squares 41st Birthday. 

Dancing started at 6:30pm at our regular dance hall at 89 Targo St. While lower key than our big 40th event last year, it was a fun night for our local group. 

Our current learners group attended making two squares of SSD level on the floor all night. 

The hall looked great decorated with green and yellow balloons, our club banner, new printed table cloths and hand made banner.

The cake this year was a collection of iced cup cakes with letters arranged to read Happy 41st Birthday. Cutting the cake was Sandy, her son Scott, visiting from Brisbane, and Sammy, one of our new leaners.

Supper included a number of sweet and savoury treats brough in by members to share. At the end of our supper break, our lucky door, raffle and lucky spot prices were drawn. Sandy also read a humours poem while Matt attempted to act out elements of it with Sandy’s instructions.

Enough dancers stayed till the end of the night at 9:30 to still have two squares on the floor. 

We look forward to our learners group moving to our regular Friday night dancing at the end of this month with the new learner Come and Try nights starting on Tuesday the 2nd of April.

Our first night back for 2024 was postponed for a week while Matt was unwell. 

Matt did a great job calling on Friday night, while also trying to save his voice for this weekend. For the 10th and 11th Matt is a feature caller at the 20th Anniversary of the Logan City Square Dance Centre. 

We started the year on Friday 9th with two squares on the floor for part of the night. The ceiling fans ran flat out, but it was not as hot as it has been lately, so we didn’t need to close up the hall to run the air conditioner.

It was great to dance again and catch up with people we haven’t seen since last year. Some are still away so Matt is looking for an extra angle to dance the left hand side at our Tuesday night learners group.

We look forward to getting back to dancing with our learners. It may take a few weeks to finish off the SSD program before they move to the Friday night club dancing. On Fridays, Matt will teach them the extra movements that take them to the Mainstream Level. 

A number of us are planning to go to our closest clubs dance weekend, to celebrate their 35th Birthday. Hervey Bay Square Dance Club always put on a great event and the airconditioned, Senior Citizen Hall is an excellent venue. 

If you are not able to get to Hervey Bay on the Friday night, March 22nd, our regular Friday club night will still go ahead with recordings of Matt.

Mainstream is the lowest level danced at most conventions but Hervey Bay Square Dance Club is also including brackets for SSD. Some of our new learners have already expressed interest in going and keen to finish the program with enough competence to attend. 

Some registration forms will be available at our club or you can download a form here. Get in quick if you want the early bird special. There may also be some shared accommodation available with some members that have already booked cabins.

Like last year, Cane Country Squares will have a stand to promote the club at the Move It Expo, next Sunday 18th from 10am till 1pm.

If Matt’s voice holds up, we also plan to do a demonstration for the first time at the event. The decision on this part going ahead, and getting a square together, will happen this Tuesday night.

The new learners class for this year is expected to start some time in March after the current learners have finished the program. Check our Learn To Dance page for updates.

 At our club’s 40th birthday weekend we had a TV running a slide show of more than 100 photos from Cane Country Squares 40 year history. 

Our earliest photos begin in 1983 with our first club caller, Steve Shorey. Photos continue on with various dance events and theme nights till the end of 2022. Some key events are Shirley Kelly taking on the role of club caller in 1985 and Matthew Mills becoming Co-Caller in 2008. 

The old album photos were scanned (from back in the days we printed all our photos) and added to our collection of digital photos. 

The most useful feature added to these photos was the text written on each photo to give some of the information we knew about them, such as the event, date and some of people in them.

We have gotten a lot of positive feed back about the display and a number of enquiries about how other clubs could do the same, without using complex and expensive software. My software of choice is CorelDraw and Corel Photo-Paint but another similar, more commonly know program is Adobe Photo Shop. These are not cheap programs and require some time to learn how to use them.

The cheap way to add text to photos can be done with two programs that come with your personal computer running Windows. These are MS Paint and MS Photos. They have limited functions but can produce text written on photos and some basic photo editing.

I also cover saving the photos to a USB drive, to run your Slide Show on most current TVs. 

Click on the links to each instruction page.

View the slide show, extended with photos from our 40th Birthday weekend, as a You Tube video below.

Cane Country Squares 2023 break up and free Christmas Dance was held on Friday 8th of December.

The hall was decorated and dancers arrived dressed for the Christmas theme. Two squares danced most of the night with the new learners joining in. 

We had enough Plus dancers for one and a half squares with the half square getting up to dance at one point rather than just waiting for a chance to swap with someone after the first dance of a bracket.

It was a festive atmosphere with Matt calling to plenty of Christmas songs. The raffle consisted of an amazing collection of Christmas Hampers and there was a bottle of wine going to each of the two lucky spot and door prize winners.

The club’s donated clothing was also available on the night and it was nice to see some of the items, picked up on Tuesday, already being worn. 

Of course, supper was the expected, excellent spread of savoury and sweet Christmas treats. Thanks Matt, for a great year of dancing and thankyou to all who help set up and pack up the hall for club dance nights throughout the year.

The end of year newsletter and first draft of the 2024 calendar is out. 

As some event dates are confirmed the online calendar will be updated.

We wish you all a happy Christmas and New Year, during our break from dancing and look forward to seeing everyone again in the first week of February 2024.

Lots of Christmas theme outfits were worn on Tuesday 5th of December for our learners break up. It was such a fun night of smiles and laughter while dancing with two squares on the floor. 

Our collection of second hand and new home made square dance outfits were made available. A few ladies gave new homes to some of the skirts. We hope they get years of enjoyment dancing in them. The outfits will also be available again this Friday night. 

With some extra bling being tried out from our clothing collection. The guys in particular got into the fun of the night when a few of them had a go at dancing the right hand side of the couple, traditionally danced by the lady. It meant a few movements instantly had an unfamiliar direction for some turns and hand positions. As soon as they decided to have a go, the kids were fitting them out with skirts.

It had been 20 years since Nifty had danced the right hand side. He has spoken of it often as common practise in the club he had come from, having the opposite to most clubs, with more men than ladies.  Hilariously, Nifty was obviously out of practice, forgetting what side he was on and who his partner was.

Matt also threw in an optional new movement for the learners, adding a twill after a swing. It was not optional for the guys trying the ladies side, resulting in even more laughter.

The evening finished up with some special Christmas treats for supper. The learners are also invited to the Free Christmas Dance and club break up this Friday. Supper will be a much bigger deal, along with a Christmas hamper raffle, lucky spot and door prize.

Follow the link to our websites 2023 photo gallery to see more of the learners break up night.

Those who are new to the Cane Country Squares club may not be aware, we have a number of donated square dance clothing items and accessories available to dancers.

They are bought into dance nights a couple of times a year (depending on interest) or items from our online listing can be brought into the next dance night, following a request to view and try things on.

The current list of clothing can be found here. https://canecountrysquares.blogspot.com/p/pre-loved-square-dance-clothing.html

Don’t worry if you are not into the clothing worn at big dance events. Our regular Friday club night dances are open to anything from smart casual to the old school square dance outfits.

Some of our learners spotted new arrivals to the collection on Tuesday. 

These were donated by Dot, after doing a clear out of gear she doesn’t wear anymore. The new pre loved items are a few hand made circle skirts, needing a bit of repair to some seams, and a commercially made A-Line skirt. 

The traditional Circle Skirts are usually worn with a fluffy petticoat and have the potential of getting a horizontal spin line while twilling.

Dot also bought in a very full body green petticoat that has the volume to stand up on its own. 

This type will really only appeal to those who travel to dancing conventions, and like this older style. 

I do love these myself, so I have already traded it for one of my light weight green petticoats. 

This one, now in the available list, is much better suited to those starting out with layered petticoats.

If you want to know more about square dance clothing, check out our page describing clothing styles here https://canecountrysquares.blogspot.com/p/square-dance-clothing-styles-i-love-fun.html

I also do a bit of a review of some of the places you can buy Square Dance clothing, including some online stores here. https://canecountrysquares.blogspot.com/p/where-can-i-get-square-dance-clothing.html

Another page worth looking at, if you have basic sewing skills, links to instructions on how to modify skirts or make Circle Skirts and other accessories from scratch. 

https://canecountrysquares.blogspot.com/p/sewing-your-own-square-dance-outfits.html

Dancing was cancelled on Friday 13th of October, due to our hall being used for the referendum. 

What started as a Friday the 13th Black Friday theme, moved forward to the 27th, morphed slightly with a few Halloween decorations. 

Most came dressed in black to make calling more difficult for Matt. The normal technique, to track positions in a square, is to remember particular coloured outfits. 

Matt combined the usual fun of dancing with a few creative challenges. We joke that Sandy is always keeping score and could tell us if mistakes belonged to Matt or the dancers.

We had a good turn out. The SSD dance level formed two squares during the first half of the night with a full square of Plus able to dance all evening.

See more photos of the night in our 2023 photo gallery.

A reminder, that because this theme night was moved forward, the planned Sports Theme night for November 3rd will now be moved to 2024. This coming Friday night will now be dancing as normal, with your usual choice of square dance or neat casual attire.

December, Tuesday 5th will be the Learners Group Break Up Dance and Friday 8th will be the Club Night Christmas Break Up.

The 1st of September was our Hawaiian theme night. In the lead up to the night Matt spoke fondly of a Hawaiian shirt he had owned that Anita had thrown out. The theme gave him an excuse to buy a new one. 

The new shirt had to meet with Anita’s approval for wearing around town, so it was not as bold as he would have liked. A few flower leis got Matt’s bright colour fix for the night.  

Outfits worn on the night by dancers included bright and bold floral prints, a couple of grass skirts and of course, Hawaiian shirts and floral leis.

It was nice to have a visiting dancer and a number of spectators on the night. A few people popped in looking for a different dance at another hall on Targo St. We might see them again at our learners class starting on the 12th of September.

Follow the link to our 2023 photo gallery to see more photos of the night.