Dear all

How are you keeping? I hope happy and well despite this difficult time. It’s been so very long!

Thank you for all for the messages enquiring about classes starting up again. It’s great to know there’s still a passion and enthusiasm for this wonderful dance form out there and that you’re all raring to go.

We closed our classes due to the COVID pandemic on the eve of our 10th birthday back in March 2020. What should have been a year of celebration turned in to a year of a very different kind.

This community has meant so much to me over the years and I’ve missed all of you, as well as the dancing, enormously.

These last 2 years have been particularly tough for me personally, working in the NHS, and supporting a close family member and her children through a brain tumour diagnosis and the last years of her life. I know I’m not alone in facing tough times these last couple of years but I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t taken a toll on both my mental and physical health.

It has also been the reason why I’ve been unable to keep up the regular correspondence and online classes/ catch ups over the last year or so that I would otherwise have wanted to do. I’m so very sorry for that but hope you understand and have been able to enjoy some of my occasional posts and links to our Facebook page and group along the way.

Right now I’m taking some time to process my bereavement and heal, though I am starting tentatively to look ahead at when and how our classes could return.

Step one for me will be teaching an intro to Balboa workshop at NottingJam this February!!

My current aim, COVID and life willing, is to be back with Lindy Hop and Solo Jazz in some capacity before we start our 12th (10 again) year, around March 2022. I’ve got lots of ideas and am starting to feel excited about it but please bear with me, I need to take my recovery one step at a time and we all need to be careful through this latest COVID wave.

For those of you with itchy dancing feet, why not look at booking on to NottingJam 2022, a local workshop weekender hosted by The University of Nottingham’s Swing Society. It’s been revived this year and will be held on 18-20 February (hopefully on the other side of this latest omicron wave).

There’s an intense beginners Lindy Hop day, a range of individual taster workshops of other swing styles to try, history talks, and activities around the City. It looks perfect for new comers and those feeling rusty.

Bookings are now open. More details here: https://facebook.com/events/s/nottingjam-2022/1040233296519268/ (which I understand can be accessed with or without Facebook login)

I’ve been assured that they will have good COVID protocols in place, including proof of clear lateral flow tests (and whatever else the guidelines say at the time), but I’d also encourage you to get your booster vaccine if you’re medically able to and haven’t already.

In the meantime I want to wish you all a very wonderful Christmas time and let’s raise a glass to a healthy and happy New Year for us all.

Also if there’s any interest in a zoom catch up over the holiday period let me know.

Thank you again for your continued support and enthusiasm for this dance form, it’s culture, our community, and our classes.

My love to you all and I’ll look forward to seeing you in 2022!

Lisa x