Scottish Festival
On Sunday 14th February the Canterbury West Coast Centre of the Piping and Dancing Association participated in a Scottish Cultural Festival afternoon. The venue Riccarton House and Bush was picture perfect and the afternoon remained fine and sunny. It was estimated some 2000 people attended.
Scottish Festival Photos
Shelley Reid Marries Stuart Easton
The wedding was on 16th January. 2 other Academy members were bridesmaids, Sister Kendall and cousin Brodie Reid. She had a guard of honour of local dancers.
Auckland Summer School 2010
Tutors:
- Mrs Adrienne Haberfield
- Mrs Kimberley Mavor
- Mrs Susan Edwards
May Exams
2010 Summer Fling - Christchurch
2010 was a very successful Summer School this year attracting 165 participants (10 observers and 155 dancers). Numbers being well up on 2009 with some classes numbering well in the 30’s. This year we had dancers and observers from all of New Zealand including Auckland, Wellington, Hawkes Bay, New Plymouth, Tauranga, Blenheim, Timaru, Oamaru, Ashburton and Invercargill.
| INITIAL | Jenna Welton | Christchurch |
| PREPARATORY | Charlotte Thieme | Christchurch |
| GRADE | Annabel Watts | North Canterbury |
| GRADE | Nicole Bond | Oamaru |
| GRADE | Emma Trafford | Ashburton |
| GRADE | Larissa Banks | Christchurch |
Youth Representitive Report - Sept 2008
Hi Everyone,
Firstly I want to thank everyone that got involved and voted for Youth Representative. It was great to see that there were more votes lodged this time around. It shows that the youth are becoming more active in our Academy.
I want to thank Shelley for all the hard work she did in the role as Youth Representative. She did an excellent job at representing the youth and encouraging everyone to become more involved.
My goals as your new Youth Representative:
* Listen to your opinions and then act as your voice.
* Encourage junior members to become more actively involved.
* Encourage more effective communication and understanding between the Executive members and the youth members of the Academy.
* Create a more vibrant and stimulating atmosphere for youth members by introducing events and workshops specifically directed to the youth.
* Be an easy to talk to, approachable, sociable person in the Highland Dancing community.
Conference this year is being held in Christchurch from 26 to 28 September 2008. My first job as Youth Representative is to run the Youth Forum at Conference. The Youth Forum will be held at 8:00 am on the Sunday morning. I know it is early, but I hope that all the 30 years and under people will attend.
If anyone has any topic/idea that they would like discussed during the Youth Forum, then please email me. If you are unable to attend Conference you can still email me with your topic/idea and I can present it for discussion on your behalf.
Lastly, all the best to those sitting exams in the next couple of weeks.
Hope to see you all at Conference in Christchurch.
Kim Burnside
2020 Conference postponed
Executive regrettably advise that this year's conference in Queenstown is postponed until 24-26 September 2021 and will still be held in Queenstown.
We appreciate the short notice in advising those attending of our decision, but we wanted to wait in case the decision last Friday would change to Level 1. Unfortunately for us this did not happen. While the Government plan to review the decision on the 14th of September, there is no guarantee that the current levels will be altered. We consider this is the right decision for the safety of our members and their families at this time.
Solo Seal will still go ahead on Friday the 18th,and more information will follow on this.
Our sincere thanks to the Southland Teachers and Judges for the work they have done in preparation to host our 70th conference. We know our members will applaud their efforts.
This decision has been a real challenge for your Executive, involving many meetings and serious discussion. At the beginning of this year none of us could have anticipated the paths that we would all travel and the sacrifices that would have to be made. These are extraordinary times.
Annetta Cowie
President
