We now hold a Friday Freestyle on the second Friday of every month at the Airmyn Memorial Hall.

The dance floor is of ample size and even when we had massive turn out, there was still plenty of room to dance.  The venue is amazing, it has a wonderful atmosphere and since the acoustic tiles were fitted, the PA system sounds even better.  We use drapes to lower the high ceiling which help to create a more cosy feel to the place and yet the air circulation and the air conditioning isn't impeded.  We use the latest lighting systems, all laser and LCD; we believe that creative lights, good sounds/music, large wooden dance floors and friendly faces make for a great freestyle...

There is no bar which at first we thought might be a drawback but in fact everyone we've spoken to prefer it - they can bring their own drinks which are much cheaper than bar prices PLUS they won't miss dancing to their favourite tracks while waiting to be served at the bar!

We do provide teas and coffees and a cake for no extra charge, so that's good value we think at £6 entry on the door (for Hessle Jive Club members, £8 for others).  The freestyle runs from 8 pm until midnight.  Despite us providing our home-made cakes, members have started bringing along their own nibbles and some tables are now stocked up with sausage rolls, savouries, etc..  Please do remember that it is not necessarily a bring and share event, bring your own for your own table but having said that everyone I saw was happy to share their goodies with whoever asked.  All this makes for a party-type friendly atmosphere and a super event to look forward to every month.

The Airmyn Memorial Hall, a fantastic venue, just a three minute drive from The Vikings Hotel and still in Goole where we used to be, at the little village of Airmyn. 

Remember: Second Friday of every month!

Lisa Graydon runs hugely successful Curly Wurly Sunday in Huddersfield
 

Thank you to everyone who supported Hessle Jive Black Tie Christmas Ball and helped to make it such a fantastic night.

We have received many texts and emails from those who attended saying how much they enjoyed the evening, thank you so much!  It was indeed a wonderful evening I've put a few pictures below to give an idea how well suited The Vikings at Goole is to holding our twice yearly black tie balls. 

The tickets always sell out very quickly and we will be announcing the date of the summer ball soon (as soon as we can find a date that is convenient to most and doesn't clash too much with other events) and if you would like to attend the Summber Ball, I do urge you to get in quick when the date is announced.  Despite rising prices, we are keeping the ticket price the same, at £26 per head which includes a three course meal (at least), coffee and wine on the tables.  More details to follow in due course...

One of the tables:-

Just before serving food:-

After the meal:-

We're all looking forward to the next one!  It's the friendliest ball around, so much fun!

Check out Hessle Modern Jive on Facebook for lots more pictures taken by Sally.

Rod.

Wow!  What a fantastic night we had on Wednesday 31st August.  Lazy Dave joined us all the way from Bedford for his Hessle Jive debut.

Lazy Dave has been perfecting his smooth style of jive for over 7 years and his easy teaching style and humour makes for a fantastic class.

We really hope to have him back again soon.  A huge thank you to Dave and a huge thank you to everyone who came along!

It's amazing to watch this video and to realise that Laura and Keith Davies had never danced together before (apart from Laura being a demo for Keith's Class just before this demonstration dance took place).  Laura had no idea of the moves that Keith was going to lead her into so this video is proof, if any were needed, that Modern Jive is truly a lead and follow partner dance...

Click here to view the video

Yes it’s our Laura, who has made an excellent start as our new manager, but she’s going to be a new teacher as well now.  We are very lucky at Hessle Jive to have some really excellent dance teachers and also Laura promises to be one of the best!

Laura has been training and working hard at being a dance teacher now for the greater part of last year. She is of course, a fantastic dancer herself but being a dancer and being a dance teacher are two quite different skill sets and I can assure you that Laura is excellent at both.

Laura is a great fan of Simon and Nicole and is particularly interested in teaching a smoother style of Modern Jive similar to the way that Simon and Nicole dance and teach (they are ten times UK Modern Jive Champions so a better role model there couldn’t be) PLUS Laura has been personally tutored by the legendary Roger Chin as well having dance teacher lessons from our very popular teacher John Holgate from Harrogate Jive. I am really looking forward to being there myself on her full Class night and I understand that her demo is also quite a useful dancer himself! (NOT me, LOL).

Some of our members have expressed an interest in Lindy Hop and have asked for a Lindy Hop class but Wednesday Class nights have always been reserved for Modern Jive Classes and that's what most of our members expect and new members especially.

So we have asked Andy Toogood, an exprienced and renown dance teacher and Lindy Hopper to hold a Lindy Hop workshop for us and this will take place at Hessle Town Hall on Sunday, 11th April between 12 noon and 4 pm.  Andy has kindly offered a reduced rate for us as he is a special fan of Hessle Jive Club and so he is only charging £25 if you find someone to book as a mixed gender pair or £15 per person for this Lindy Hop Beginners' Workshop.  Please go to the desk on a class night if you want to reserve a place on this workshop.

Some of our members have never seen Lindy Hop (or seen it dance properly, so we invited Mike and Ronnie who regularly dance Lindy Hop at Swing Jive Leeds (and elsewhere...), to come along and give a Lindy Hop demonstration dance.  They were very well received by our members last night (Wednesday 31st August, 2010) and a video of their dance can be viewed by clicking on the link below:-

Click here to view the Lindy Hop dance video

For those who want to go to Lindy Hop Classes, we recommend Swing Jive Leeds who hold classes every Monday night at Moortown Social Club, Cranmere Gardens, Leeds, LS17 5LA.  Their website is www.swingjiveleeds.com and you can contact them at joyce.swingjive@ntlworld.com. Their Beginners' Class starts at 8 pm.

Mike and Ronnie, who danced for us last night, refused payment for their services and suggested that we make a charity donation instead, which we will do.  They came over from Leeds especially to dance for us and we are extremely grateful to this enthusiastic and lovely couple.  Well done Mike and Ronnie and THANK YOU!

Helen and Gus used to be competition dancers together and came back together for one night especially for us at Hessle last night.  Although they haven't danced together for over a year and only had a few minutes 'rehearsal' together (and the music was selected literally seconds before they came on), they did us really proud.  Thank you Helen and Gus!

Enjoy the demo...

Click here to view the video

Leo and Becky came along on Wednesday 28th October and treated us to a great demonstration dance, a beginners' class, an intermediate class and as a bonus for us, they also took an additional advanced class in the bar area. 

We've had some very positive feedback from our members who were enthusiastic to see them return and the couple told us how much they enjoyed the evening and are looking forward to returning as soon as we have a space in our dance teacher schedule.

They run a company called Dance FX which holds dance classes and dance events around the Lincolnshire area.  They are really nice people, superb young dancers, full of enthusiasm and we are looking forward to their return - watch this space...

Keith Davies and Bev (from Revolution Dance) in cabaret

On Wednesday (14th October), we were treated to a great night when KEITH DAVIES and Bev from Revolution Dance in Manchester came along to Hessle to teach both the Beginner and Intermediate classes. Keith is an excellent teacher and a fantastic professionally trained dancer.  We have received many very positive comments about the challenging and superb classes that he delivered.

Keith and Bev then went on to give us an amazing cabaret. 

Click here to view the video of their cabaret performance.

As usual with Keith and Bev, they came onto the dance floor after their classes and cabaret and danced their socks off with the many members who literally lined up to have a dance with them.  A fantastic night and we thank the couple very much for making the evening such a success.

Click here to view

Many thanks to Laura Shepherd, Sam Knight, Tracy Lund and Tracy Oaks-Milner for volunteering.  Well done girls!

By popular demand, videos of Intermediate Classes will be posted each week from now on.  Our members have asked for this because it helps them to remember the moves, maybe go over them again at home.  How many times have we all learnt a good move and then promptly forgotten it again!

Each week before the Beginners' Class begins, you will be able to see a recording of the previous week's Intermediate Class over and over and practise the moves to music if you want to (the only way to remember a class is to dance it in Freestyle!).

There already exists a bank of Basic Class move videos (on the yellow folder on the left, 'Videos of previous classes').  There are only 20 basic moves and they are all covered by various dance teachers.

We hope you enjoy the videos and find them useful.

We're pleased to announce that this week (on Wednesday 26th August), we have yet another new face taking the classes at Hessle.  New to us that is, but not new to teaching.

Many of you will already know Janice Bywater who runs Northern Jive which has successful venues at Doncaster, Askern, Wakefield and Barnsley and has also recently opened a new venue at Hatfield Woodhouse. 

Janice has been involved with Modern Jive for over 10 years now, starting out at Blitz Jive in Sheffield.  She did her instructor training at Blitz and left Blitz in 2007 to open Northern Jive.

Janice's intermediate classes concentrate on delivering moves that are smooth, stylish and achievable in freestyle (i.e., without your partner having rehearsed the move with you and who may not have danced with you before...)  That's what most of us want in an Intermediate class!

Hope to see you there this week and help us to give Janice a warm Hessle welcome!

We are very pleased to announce that we have a new teacher coming along to Hessle this week (Wednesday 12th August).  New to us, that is because Viv is  actually a very experienced teacher. 

Viv qualified as a modern jive instructor in November, 2005 and these days she teaches most weeks at the well respected SPINZ Jive at Pudsey (Run by Matt Judge who has guested as a Special Teacher at Hessle) where they had the recently held the successful 'Day of Jive' with fabulous cabarets. 

Viv also makes regular appearances at Northern Jive which has several venues and is run by Janice Bywaters, who incidentally, is also coming along to Hessle to teach very soon (more of this in later newsletters). 

You may remember Jatinder who has been a Special Guest Teacher for us a few times now and who runs Alive for Jive at Chesterfield, well Viv also teachers there on occasion as well.  These are all great clubs and we delighted to be amongst them to have Viv come along to us as well now.

We think you'll really like Viv if you don't know her already; she has a smooth easy style and brings warm humour and a great sense of fun to her classes.  She loves tango, cha cha and rhumba and often modifies routines to suit modern jivers. 

If you are wanting to have private lessons to speed up your dancing progress, then don't be afraid to ask Viv about this on Wednesday because she comes highly recommended as a provider of private lessons and has in the past, choreographed 'that first dance' for newlyweds for example. 

Viv also choreographs team cabaret routines and last year she ventured into the rather glamorous art of Burlesque, running workshops in Leeds, Sheffield, Lincolnshire and Cambridge; Viv says "It's not what you've got, it's the way that you use it!"   Now there's a thought...

Hope to see you at Hessle this week and that you 'use it' as well!!

 
Viv Bolton and her demo Chris

We now have an official page on Facebook and if you are a Facebook user, do please apply to join the Hessle Modern Jive group where lots of members are now swapping messages and keeping in touch with what's happening at Hessle.

Watch video of Gus dancing at Hessle Modern Jive Club

We would like to thank all of those who came along and supported our Freestyle on 27th June, it was a fantastic night out and a sell out. 

Our thanks must also go to Carol of the Hase Pub who prepared the wonderful buffet and the staff behind the bar who worked hard all night serving us drinks, the Beverley Dancewear company who came along and put out a stunning array of discounted dance shoes with additional special 25% discount for our members who purchased that night. 

Also our thanks to Peter of The Ski & Rock Co who brought along with his promotional videos and leaflets and finally to Tequila Sunrise the band who came all the way from Hessle to be there! 

I dare anyone to say that they ever went to a better freestyle than we put on that night for £6!  It's only because our members turn out in number each and every week that we have been able to provide such value, well done everyone and here's to the next event (watch this space...)

Also, please see the entry below regarding the charity raffle, well done everyone!

Our thanks to Matt and Sue Judge who came along to Hessle Town Hall last Sunday (8th June) and held two workshops for our members. 

The beginners workshop last three hours at the end of which many of the participants expressed a renewed confidence in their dancing abilities.  Matt was able to give individual attention to any student that required help with their techniques and style.  The kind of groundwork that simply isn’t possible cover on at class night.  If you missed the beginners workshop and would like to be included on the next one, please let us know as we will not be arranging another until there is sufficient demand from our members for one.

The Blues workshop was a very enjoyable 3 hours and again, style and technique was the order of the day and leaning new Blues moves was only part of the workshop.  For those that took part in the workshop, a video of Matt and Sue dancing the moves taught is available from rod@hesslejive.co.uk.

Please let us know if there is any other type of workshop that you would like and if there is sufficient demand, we will arrange it.  Some have already asked for a dips/drops/seducers workshop.  Anyone second that?