“Friends” Line Dancers Update

By Margaret Sheard

It is always nice to hear from Janet Bartholomew about what is happening with the “Friends” Line Dancers and she has kindly updated me with what has been going on in recent weeks.

Janet and her husband Stephen have been back to the UK for a visit, unfortunately Janet picked up a ‘flu virus and spent the second week of the trip in bed, maybe the best place to be with the cold weather in the UK at the time.

While Janet and Stephen were away there were still things going on with the “Friends”, one of which was the Silk Festival at Bellapais and the girls did a great job in their absence.

There was also a festival at Bariș Park and Steve did manage to get to that one by the skin of his teeth. Janet says it was a beautiful day with an appreciative audience and entertainment for the children. It is a shame that these events are not made known in advance as there are a lot of ex-pats who would probably be very interested in attending.

Janet and Stephen would like to thank Sheila Richards for taking care of the group and teaching new dances in Steve`s absence, but they say she did not go soft on them, in line dance jargon, lots of tags and restarts included.

There are one or two things in the pipeline over the next couple of months and then there will be a break for the summer, the weather usually informs the group when it is getting a little too hot to continue so there is no set date for the recess.

The “Friends” are looking forward to a line dance holiday in October and this will be in Gulluk, Turkey. The “Friends” group are “early teens” in numbers but their friends from Denmark have a group of 110. Heading the Danish group will be Marie Sorensen, a well-known choreographer and dancer, and as they will have the hotel all to themselves there should be a lot of fun, with no-one to disturb.

There will be an end of season social evening probably early in June. There will be dancing but the group also cater for non-line dancers on their special evenings. There will be a raffle for the Kozan Donkeys which will boost the money already in the Donkey Box, also a table top quiz and a little karaoke. So plenty of entertainment to be sure of a very enjoyable evening.

The “Friends” Line Dance group certainly keep busy throughout the year as well as having a very nice social life together.