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

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 toge

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. We had more than eight Plus level dancers but not quite enough for two squares. A few of us swapped in-between bracket to take turns during the night. 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

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

 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 c

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 a