June 6th saw 59 of us turning up at the St Peter’s Centre Oadby for the LDG@80 Ceilidh social and what a fun evening it was. After a quick welcome and introduction from the President, Peter Brown, no encouragement was needed to get people up for the first dance, everyone just piled in for the “Gay Gordons”. Our callers, Gordon & Jen from “Ceilidh Noches” were very impressed at how well everyone took to the dancing and followed the instructions. It was suggested that as bellringers we were used to someone ‘conducting’ and just did as we were told.
After four dances, the half-time break was an opportunity to re-fuel on cobs, pork pie, sausage rolls and other snacks and catch up with friends. The raffle, run by Sally Brown, had plenty of great prizes donated including a ‘Tour of Taylors’ kindly donated by the Loughborough Bell Foundry.
On to the second segment of dancing and the food had obviously done its job as there was no let up in enthusiasm, we had a full floor for all the dances again. The evening eventually ended with a rousing chorus of “auld lang syne” which although we usually associate with New Year/Hogmanay, it is also a traditional ‘farewell’ song to mark the end of events.
As we wandered off into the warm early summer evening, (via the merchandise table that Sally had kindly brought with her), the BRF was £153 better off from the proceeds of the raffle and the general fund increased by £134 as the surplus on the evening!
Huge thanks to all of you who supported this event and made it such a success.
Many thanks also to Andrew Young who helped secure the venue at ‘mates rates’ and organised the handy parking, and to Peter Brown for helping me set up the hall and make all the cobs!
Gordon & Jen said they had a great evening and would be happy to do again so watch this space……………….
Annette Tudor-Brown