2026 September Newsletter
Cane Country Squares Newsletter
September 2026
2026 Update so far!!
We are halfway through the year. The winter period always impacts our sessions as many of us will battle sickness and other things that come from the cold weather.
Beginners class 2 of 2025 has finished the mainstream program after delays like the Bundaberg floods. Well done to them all! It’s been great to follow that up with just dancing for 6 weeks before starting the next class.
Our Friday nights have been impacted by the cold weather however we have been lucky to have the support of the Hervey Bay dancers coming along each fortnight. This has bolstered our numbers to two squares for those nights.
Our next round of beginners classes has started on August 18. Thank you to everyone for your hard work so far. Our come and try sessions have closed, it’s time to work through the programme and dance!!
2026 Dance Sessions
Just a reminder about the 2026 program:
Tuesday - 6pm start. Alternating Beginners with full New Mainstream.
Friday - 6.30pm start. Alternating Old Mainstream program & Plus.
Sun - 2pm start. A1 & A2. (2nd & 4th Sunday of the month)
Just a reminder that the hall is opened 15mins before the start of each session so we can start on time.
Emergency Call for Medical Aid
Process at large dances, like State and National Conventions.
1.When a dancer is in difficulty, a second dancer shall attend him / her.
2. Remaining couples are to join hands and take a step backwards. This will allow the injured person and attendant air and room.
3. Raise joined hands in the form of an arched circle.
4. On seeing the signal, the caller or hall monitor will immediately place an EMERGENCY CALL for MEDICAL AID.
5. Dancing should continue or resume as soon as possible so as not to attract attention to the person in difficulty.
Square Dance Attire - Part 2
In the last newsletter, I started covering the square dance attire, so we know what is involve for the state convention. The last newsletter covered the ladies formal attire.
This one will cover the man's attire and those who regularly dance the left/right-hand dancer position.
Here is an extract from our National Convention guidelines for full square dance attire for men.
SHIRTS – Shirts must be neat and tidy, have a collar, buttoned, long sleeve shirt, and tucked in complete with bolo tie, cravat or similar.
TROUSERS – Tailored trousers, slacks, or non-faded jeans/chinos shall be neat and tidy, Slashed, ripped or frayed clothing is not appropriate.
SHORTS – Dress shorts are permitted only in conjunction with long roll top socks.
FOOTWEAR – Clean shoes, dancing pumps or dress boots shall be worn and shall be of a type that will not mark or damage the floor.
HAT ETIQUETTE – The wearing of a hat is permitted when part of a demonstration or whilst on stage only. Hats must be of western style unless specific to a themed performance. Venue restrictions take precedence over this point.
Here is an extract from our National Convention guidelines for those dancers who regularly dance in the left/right-hand dancer position.
Ladies dancing in the left-hand position (usually referred to as the man’s position) should be welcomed without discrimination.
Such ladies may adopt either the ladies attire with the addition of a coloured material sash or, if they exclusively dance in the left-hand position, the attire set out in the dress regulations for Men and those who regularly dance in the right-hand dancer position are to follow the dress regulations for Ladies.
This covers the formal part of the dress code for the state convention.
These dress codes will be for night sessions unless there is a theme.
If there is a theme, consider it a neat casual style dress as a minimum.
The next newsletter will cover the relaxed dress code.
SD Tips
1.We all now know the arrangement to a singing call. There is an opener, two figures, middle, two figures and a closer. During the opener, middle and closer figures, some callers will call a weave the ring and instead of saying promenade, they will continue singing the lyrics. In these situations, assume it’s a promenade after a weave the ring. If you want to do a swing then promenade, that’s ok but remember to stay in time. The caller won’t wait for you.
2.When promenading, men/left hand dancers need to get their left elbows close to each other as this will help stay in time with the music and lower any additional steps required to get home. If only three men do this and one man doesn’t, it could cost you an extra two steps and then you have to hurry to catch up. Remember team work boys!!
Club Logo History
Club Banner
Each Club has a Banner for special occasions one of which is the Entry to the Dance Floor as a Dress Set, representing their own Club at Conventions.
Our banner appears in photos of Cane Country Squares first birthday celebration in 1984.
Name Badges
The earliest club member name badge was a pin button type, made with a clear plastic cover over printed paper, pressed onto a metal backing. This badge design most closely resembled the club banner. The colours of the few remaining have faded considerably.
Later Cane Country Squares had member name badges made by Crystalgem Trophies and Engraving on Tantitha Street in Bundaberg.
It was convenient for new members to go to the shop to have a club badge made from the design they kept.
The badge was a black, yellow coated plastic oval, engraved to show the design in black. The were available with a pin or magnetic fastener. In December 2024 the shop closed its shop front to work from a home office. They now exist as an online store with pick up and drop off points arranged around Bundaberg.
Cane Country Squares, single colour screen printed designs were created as early as 1984. The designs were screen printed in yellow on green fabric to give the Aussie Green and Gold we use as our club colours.
Green skirts with yellow prints of square dance couples and sugar cane are seen in photos at the clubs first birthday and in later years in ‘Dress Sets’.
Printed Logo
With no large scale, high resolution image of the logo existing, the use of this logo is limited to a small, printed image on business cards, letterheads and flyers.
A low resolution image was added to the club website and Facebook in 2015.
Over the last few years, design ideas have been presented to the committee to create a new logo while respecting Cane Country Squares history.
After the 2026 Move It Expo, a digital image was created from the current logo using Chat GPT, AI image designer. This has been added to Facebook and could be used for large screen displays.
New logos with features from the original Club Banner, club colours and sugar cane, now including dancers is being presented to members.
