I first commenced square dancing in1946-7. I was attending a dance class to learning how to Ballroom Dance. During the second year the teacher, Percy Jupp, introduced us to a new form of dance sweeping America – square dancing.

I was one of about ten and we liked it so much someone bought some records and so we formed a club of about twenty people and held monthly dances in a private home in Neutral Bay. The club grew to about twenty-five attending at different times and as we had no hoedown records, I had a go at calling them from literature we had. This was before the new craze hit Australia.

When square dances were held in halls, we closed our club and danced to a new caller, named Garry Cohen, who commenced calling at Balgowlah. Garry’s club closed after a few weeks. (Garry was in the winning team of the Women’s Weekly competition held to promote square dancing by the promoters.)

By then I commenced my architectural course and for some years that restricted my square dance activity.

In December 1954 I was approached by club member and friend Harry Jackson who felt we should organise a square dance organization to replace the rapidly fading public interest in square dancing due to the new rock and roll craze and the promoters leaving square dancing. I said it couldn’t be done due to the difficulties between callers largely because of their previous distrust caused be the Paradance activities. In February 1956 I had a further conversation with Harry advising I had changed my mind but we needed to carefully plan the move. So, we held a series of meetings inviting a select

group of dancers who were followers of all the major callers to explain the idea and explain it to the callers. On a Sunday in July 1956, we held the meeting of the square dancers’ society at the Homebush RSL club. We planned it that there was a representative of every major caller on the committee so they would not criticise the Society. I was the first president but resigned to go overseas in late 1957.

In my opinion square dancing would not have survived in NSW without the society. As things settled down over the next few years and caller suspicion subsided the format was changed to include the callers.

In an endeavour to publicise dances and let dancers know what was going on I wrote the first square dance magazine in NSW “Let’s Go Square Dancing”, the forerunner to the South Pacific Square Dance Review. It was typed on stencils for a Gestetner machine by Madge Griffith and the society secretary Bruce Hinton and helpers copied it off. (There were no photocopiers in those days and printing press products were too expensive for short runs.)

Television was coming and one of our dancers knew people at channel 7. The result was an invitation to appear on the first four Friday nights of television in Australia on Sydney Tonight.

I organised several teams for auditioning and the studio selected four, each with their own caller, Allan Blackwell, Ron Jones, Garry Cohen and Vince Spillane. I was interviewed and also went up into the production box to advise in the best viewing positions for movements such as dip and dive in Red Wing.

A few weeks later channel 2 contacted me and we did some more shows. However, they were much stricter in what they wanted and so there were no interviews, just dancing. About a month later Garry Cohen secured a series of shows from channel 2.

The first national square dance convention was held in Canberra in 1959 and was as a result of a Sydney dancer who had moved to Canberra, Frank Gilfelt, discussing with the National Eisteddfod committee the possibility of including a square dance segment in their yearly competitions.

Upon their agreement he sent a letter to the Square Dance Society of NSW asking if they could supply teams. I was given the task of replying. Four callers agreed to have their demonstration teams participate. Graham Rigby in Brisbane was also contacted and agreed to participate.

The competition was held over the Queen’s birthday weekend. On the Saturday afternoon a square dance evening for all dancers was arranged to be held in the small Town Hall. The next day a barbecue was held in the Cotter Dam Park as well as an impromptu meeting. At that meeting the success of the weekend and attendance by dancers from two states and one territory was considered sufficient to call it a convention and it was decided to have a similar function the following year in Sydney with Bill Rolph offering to run it. The next convention after Sydney was run by Graham Rigby in Brisbane but then came the problem of where to hold the 4th. Newcastle offered and this is why Newcastle has had its own place in running conventions rather than just being part of NSW.

By then news had reached other states and so Ron Whyte of Victoria offered to hold the next convention followed by Colin Huddleston in South Australia. Eventually Tasmania and Western Australia joined leaving the Northern Territory, which will hold their first convention in 2011.

By the time we reached Adelaide I became aware that the sums of money were handling was in the thousands and growing each year yet we had no constitution and this was dangerous, in particular for the committee. I brought up the need to operate under guidelines but the move was defeated when Graham Rigby opposed it. Later I suggested to Graham I was going to spread a rumour that he was cooking the books for the next convention to be held in Brisbane. At first Graham asked why I would do that. I said I wasn’t but how would he defend the committee if I did? The next year I moved the constitution again and Graham seconded the motion.

Then at the second convention to be held in Canberra, Gail Giuliano brought up the idea of a manual to guide future Convention committees. It had merit so over the next two Conventions I worked on the draft and it was adopted but it took several more years before all parts were completed and even caller and round dance groups were still changing parts. These documents are still being constantly amended to keep up with changing circumstances.

At a meeting in Tasmania a motion was carried to create an award for recognition of service to square dancing called Patron. It had become obvious there was a need for a governing body to meet to sort out the various problems that needed solving rather that have lengthy annual general meetings when everyone would have their say resulting in the meetings taking too long and not all business being concluded. The idea was put forward that a select group of dances with prior experience should solve these problems and report their determination to the annual general.

That group would consist of all past convention convenors plus those that had been awarded Life Patron for service to the movement. That group is now known as the Convention Board. It considers all matters concerning running conventions including analyzing application to run future conventions, alterations to the constitution and manual and the like and reports back to dancers at each annual convention.

-Jim White