President of Square Dance Society of NSW 1988 to 1991 and Vice President of Square Dance Society of NSW 1987 to 1988 and 1991 to 2004

In 1988, shortly after I became President, a National Square Dance Convention was held in the Basketball stadium at Homebush, Olympic Park. We were the first external organisation to hire the venue, as it was very new, and I personally ended up writing the contract on the venue hire. This became a regular duty for Society events. Fortunately, Ron Piggott was the previous president and the convenor for the convention, so my responsibilities were relatively minor but, with 2500 dancers attending this was the largest convention on record for Australia and it kept us busy.

When I took the chair as president, our Society was on the verge of bankruptcy. The main problem was that Review invoicing was in limbo. Fortunately, with caller support and new invoicing, the Review was traded out of trouble.

The committee and people running our functions became concerned about our legal liabilities and a decision was made to incorporate. We already had a constitution of sorts, created by Fred Meads, but it needed a major overhaul to fit in with the requirements of the Office of Fair Trading. A sub committee was formed with me, Gordon Hearne and Bruce Clark to write the new constitution and to officiate in the incorporation the NSW Square Dance Society. On 2nd May 1991, we became incorporated. Our official title was “The Square Dance Society of N.S.W. Inc.”

In those days, National Society meetings were held twice a year. We held the AGM at the National Conventions, and a semi-annual meeting was held in the states on a rotation basis. NSW had not been represented at the National Society level for some time, so I started as NSW representative in 1988. NSW has been represented ever since then. Travel to the semi-annual meetings was at the state rep’s own expense. This was later subsidised by the NSW Society.

As an incentive to attract new members and to protect ourselves, we introduced Public Liability insurance in 1989 as part of membership. This protected members whenever they were attending a Society event and it has proved valuable over the years.

Pauline and I tried to visit as many clubs as possible to officiate at birthdays and special events. This kept us very busy as NSW had forty-five registered callers and a lot of clubs. I was even invited to open a Victorian State convention.

The South Pacific Square Dance Review was a national publication produced by NSW and offered and distributed to all the states, even though many had their own publications. It was a folded A3 size (A4), newspaper type publication and it was compiled manually with physical cut and pasting done with pre prepared and printed adverts and articles.

Because of my computer expertise, which was rare in those days, I volunteered to generate artwork for Review advertisements and for function tickets. We then reduced the format to an A4(A5) folded and stapled booklet with a glossy cover I was responsible for it nationally and reported on it to the National AGM. I ran the Review meetings at National Conventions for most of my tenure as President and Vice President. At one of these meetings, I proposed a core Review be made available for inclusion in other state square dance publications. Unfortunately, this did not get off the ground until many years later.

I ran many National Convention AGM meetings at National Conventions, and I often performed returning officer functions at the elections.

In August 1988, the new SDS NSW Inc. and the callers, together, put on a harbour side demonstration dance at Darling Harbour where two hundred and twenty dancers took part with onlookers invited to join in. Society dances were held four times a year and callers were asked to volunteer their time for these functions. This placed many of them in a difficult situation if we wanted them for a time coinciding with one of their own functions. We decided to pay them for their services at our functions and this removed most of the issues.

With so many callers and clubs and Society events, date clashes started to become a problem, so we established a central calendar of events. A simple call to the contact could find a clear date for a planned function, so avoiding potential date clashes.

In 1991 I was granted the honour as a Life Member to the NSW Square Dance Society for services rendered.

All told, my tenure as President was tumultuous and very busy but it was also very satisfying to lead our wonderful activity forward. It was an honour to be elected and to serve our dancers and, even though our numbers and clubs have fallen drastically nationally and locally, I look forward to continuing to square dance and support SARDA into the future.

Source: Let’s Go Dancing July 2022