Line Dancing in the Salisbury Area mulepackers.co.uk
Line Dancing in the Salisbury Areamulepackers.co.uk

News/Photos 2024

New Year's Eve party 2024 at Harnham Hall

Although a lot of people were away with sickness and family commitments, we had fun at Harnham seeing in the New Year together.  We did an American Supper, danced a bit, chatted, drank and had a new funny game of identifying whose answers were on a questionnaire sheet.  At midnight, Nick arrived with his bagpipes and piped in the New Year, followed by our usual tradition of shooting the moon.  See photos and video clip below ...

Saturday 21st December 2024 - Mulepackers Christmas Supper/Dance

There were 34 of us at our Christmas Supper evening which started with an hour of dancing.  We then welcomed Ruth from the Laverstock Hall Committee to receive our fund raising cheque of £1750.00 for improvements to the hall.  Please see our charity page for more updates on this. After the presentation and photos, we all enjoyed our Christmas Supper, rocket balloons which were very hard to blow up, a party quiz and finally more dancing.

Mike thanked everyone for making the clubs so friendly and thriving and Fred then thanked Mike and Mel for their work in running the clubs.

We drew a charity nomination out of the stetson and Marianne's name came out, so we are doing another fund raising year for Laverstock Hall as it is in need of much repair and improvement - a pretty unanimous choice, so thank you everyone.

As usual the clearing up after the meal went like clockwork.  Thank you fabulous team for working so quickly and efficiently to clear up.   See photos below ... plus some of our Christmas week at dancing.

Sunday 15th December 2024 - 2nd session of Tree Planting

at Laverstock Community Farm

Several of us gathered at the farm to do our 2nd stint of tree planting at the farm.  Thank you Ray, Sue S, Emma, Jim and Sarah and grandchildren, Maureen D-V and Alan.  We were under quite strict supervision to get our planting right, but we planted a cider apple tree which will bear a Mulepacker plaque.  Mike took a lethal looking petrol driven hole digger and some of us were just a little more useless.  We certainly learned a lot about tweaking roots, fencing and tree grafts.  See photos below ...

Sunday 17th November 2024 - Tree Planting at Laverstock Community Farm

Mulepackers are sponsoring a tree in the orchard at the community farm and will have a plaque showing our groups' name and details.  Today was the first of our volunteer sessions to dig a hole or two.  Thank you Ray, Sue S and Emma for turning up with your big spades and forks.  (I turned up with wellies and a little trowel!).  We were allocated our tree spot near the entrance, so we will be seen.  We made our own flag pole with a nearby log and some buried pants we found, so that when the trees arrive next week, we have claimed our spot.  See photos below ... another planting session planned for Sunday 15th September 2024.

Tuesday 12th November 2024 - First Aid Training

Both Mike and Mel travelled up to Compton Bassett, near Calne, to refresh their Emergency First Aid at Work certificates.  This is renewable every 3 years.  Several things have changed since the last course and it was good to go over CPR and defibrillator use again.  Fortunately, both passed the written test at the end of the day and are now current again for the next 3 years. 

Tuesday 5th November 2024 - last dancing at West Grimstead

After many years of dancing at West Grimstead village hall, we have changed venue for Tuesday evenings dancing to Harnham Parish Hall (St. Georges). - commencing 19th November 2024. Many people were finding the drive out to West Grimstead in the dark too much, especially in the winter with roads being bad.  With the recent feedback of people not prepared to make that journey and numbers subsequently dropping at that particular venue, we had to change halls to keep it viable.  We will miss the lovely floor, the fairy lights, the fire bell and all the happy memories associated with the hall.  Apologies to those from Grimstead and the Winterslow area who will have further to come - I know it is a wrench and so hard for us to please everyone.  Hoping we can make dancing at Harnham an exciting new start for everyone.

We are hoping to book Laverstock Village Hall on occasional Wednesdays so that we can run workshops for those who said they would prefer more daytime dancing.

Halloween Evening dancing 31.10.24

 

Several dressed up for the usual dancing on Thursday evening making a good fun evening.  See photos below ...

Social Dance at Alderbury, Saturday 19th October 2024, Cole Jackson

 

Another good evening at Alderbury.  Cole Jackson, who was unfortunately feeling a bit under the weather, sang a good range of songs for us and entertained us for two sets.  We were supported by Two of a Kind, Netley and Western Wranglers.  Many thanks to Denise for standing in and doing the raffle for us.  Special thanks to Wendy and Jan for working tirelessly in the kitchen throughout the evening.  Thanks too, of course, to those who arrived early and stayed late to help us set up and pack up at the end.  It makes the evening so much easier for us.  After costs deducted, we are able to give our charity (Laverstock Village Hall Refurbishment Fund) another £145 - so excellent as our numbers were a little lower this year due to illness and holidays.  See photos below ...

June's Charity Garden Party, Sunday 25th August 2024

 

Huge thanks to June who opened up her home and garden for dancing, drinking and eating to raise funds for our 2024 charity, Laverstock Village Hall improvement fund.  Supported by her family and neighbours, she was the perfect host, and put on a lovely spread of food and drink.  Her total raised was an amazing £485 which has really boosted our charity fund!

 

We were so lucky it didn't rain and, for most of the afternoon, the sun shone even though the wind picked up a bit later on and we were glad of the hot drinks.  See video and photos of the afternoon below.

Impromptu Garden Party/Dancing at Mel's, 4th July 2024

 

Our usual hall at Laverstock was being used for voting, so as it was a dry evening, we decided to gather at Mel's garden for some dancing, eating, chatting, boating and swimming.  We charged a small fee and were able to give this to our 2024 charity.  Much laughter doing the Barn dance over the bridge, the "river cruises" and the wild water swimming.  Shame it wasn't a bit warmer!  See photos and film clip below.

Tea Dance at Alderbury Village Hall

Sunday 12th May 2024 - Mickey Page

 

We held our afternoon tea dance on 12th May at Alderbury Village Hall and were entertained by Mickey Page who is a favourite of several of our dancers.  He is down to earth and sings in his likeable Hampshire accent.  He sang a lot of our dances (Codigo, Galway Girl, Into the Dark Night, J'ai du Boogie, Just a Memory, Just Want to Dance, Nickajack, Old Soldiers, Ribbon of Highway, Telepathy, Things, Til You Can't, Whiskey Bridges, Memory Lane, Save It for a Sunny Day ... a really good range). 

We had gorgeous cakes, tea and coffee served all afternoon by our lovely volunteers; Tish, Tracy, Carol and Teresa.  They worked tirelessly under pretty hot conditions.  So many thanks to the ladies who go the extra mile making fabulous cakes: June, Mary, Sheila, Teresa, Sarah, Carol (sorry if I have not noted any other names) and those who bought them too.  Cake and hot drink were included in the ticket price, but after that, all the refreshment money contributed to our overall total for the charity.

The raffle raised £132.  Thank you, as always, to Marg for selling tickets and to everyone who brought raffle prizes.

It was lovely to welcome back Ray and Karen and AJ, plus all our supporters from Netley and Southampton areas to make it such a good turn out.

Thanks also to Jan and Pete, Mike M, Emma, Dave & Elsie and, in fact, everyone else who helped set up and clear away at the end.

We ended the dance with Best of Friends which was quite emotional as Mike was unable to dance due to a back and hip injury and then honoured the Trilogy.

We made £301 towards our 2024 charity fund, so big well done everyone!

See photos below ...

 

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