It appears that Roy Welch was the first caller of Newport Ocean Waves. It is noted in the Australian Square Dance Review February 1966 that Roy was running a club at Newport Surf club on a Friday night listed as Newport Beach. It may have started earlier but I was unable to find anything further.

According to Graham Rigby’s Great Australian Square Dance Callers “Roy was literally born to dance, learning tap, ballet and choreography at the age of six, and ten years later, he was ballroom dancing and teaching. In 1952 he started square dancing at Alan Blackwell’s Belmore club. by the late fifties he had decided that calling was for him. He graduated from a Ron Jones callers’ school and after graduating took over the Rhodes club from Gary Cohen in 1963.

In May 1970 Roy Welch and Wally Crichton called for the Newport Beach club for a few months before Roy handed it over to Wally Crichton in July 1970. By October 1970 the name of the group changed to Newport Ocean Waves which it has retained to this day.

A little bit about Wally….

“Wally Crichton and his future wife Dawn were both members of square dance families, learning in their early teens and then dancing to the top callers when it was all ‘big time’ in Sydney. Wally returned in 1962, joining Ron Jones’ second callers’ class and graduated after twelve weeks of training. His plan was to introduce square dancing to parts of the North Shore of Sydney. His first club was the Chatswood Whirlaways. He joined the Navy and came back to square dancing in 1970 when he took over the running of Newport Ocean Waves. He called for the group for twenty-six years. Wally was the longest serving caller for this group.

The July 1971 Australian Square Dance Review notes in club news for Newport Ocean Waves that ‘elected at our annual meeting: President Norm Wright; secretary, Peggy Vaggs, assisted by Zilla Blackwood; treasurer, Thelma Coppins; committee: Les Coppins, Mavis Sharpe, Ken Rigby, Gordon Ambrose, and Grace Thomason. Our club had a very good year, with increasing member-ship, and our beginners very enthusiastic and learning well. A very warm welcome to Daphne and Bill Rigby from New Zealand. They are staying with us for six weeks, so we will be seeing them at most of our clubs.’ Some quite familiar names are noted there and one could assume that the club has been run by a committee since the early days.

In October 1991 Richard Dale joined Wally Crichton as caller for Newport Ocean Waves for a few years however, I was unable to find any reference of Richard as a caller apart from it being noted in the NSW Diary Richard also called at Artarmon on the second Saturday of the month.

n October 1991 Richard Dale joined Wally Crichton as caller for Newport Ocean Waves for a few years however, I was unable to find any reference of Richard as a caller apart from it being noted in the NSW Diary Richard also called at Artarmon on the second Saturday of the month.

July 1997 Square Dance Review notes a BBQ being held at North Curl Curl at the home of David & Betty Phillips where Dawn and Wally were presented with a clock made from a Mallee tree root. Wally’s resignation as club caller was accepted with regret.

In August 1997 Ray Fairhall took over as the club caller for Newport Ocean Waves. Ray also ran a club at Pymble called the Australian Square Dance Club on Monday and Wednesday and then called for Newport on Friday. March 1998 Club news read, “Good to have Ray back on board. Our Christmas party was very well attended. Gordon and Jan Hearne and their son where very welcome guests as were all our other friends who joined us. Christine had to leave early to attend to her firefighting duties.”

On the 20th March 1999 Ray was the feature caller for a fundraiser organised by Newport Ocean Waves “Kayaking for Chemo”

The Australian Square Dance club organised a square dance at Lord Howe Island in May 2000 with Ray as the feature caller.

In January 2000 Steve Dean took over the calling at Newport Ocean Waves. Steve and Vickie both graduated from a Ron Jones caller school in 1982 and opened their Hillbillies club at Beecroft. Steve continued calling for Newport Ocean Waves until the end of 2007 when Ray Fairhall returned to the microphone in 2008 and continued till at least February 2009. March 2009 has no caller listed for the club and club news indicates that Ray had resigned as the caller for Newport Ocean Waves.

It is noted from June 2009 that “Newport Ocean Waves Square Dance Club is changing its dance night. After over 40 years our Club will hold its regular weekly dance on Tuesday night instead of Friday. This action has been taken to fit in more suitably with our new caller and hopefully be more successful in attracting beginners. The change will occur on the first week in July 2009.”

The new caller for the club was James Brooks. James notes that this was his ”first real experience as a caller.” He had previously attended caller training schools. The first being a week-long school in 2007 with Brian Hotchkies.

In June 2011 it became a CD club until 2019 when Brian Hotchkies became the caller for Newport Ocean Waves.

As I looked through the magazines to research this article, a couple of names were quite dominant. Those names were Doug Lewis and Bob and Christine Mitchell. Doug’s name appeared as contact as far back as 1997 and I have been told that Bob Mitchell has been club treasurer since 1994.

2025