August 2026 Newsletter
Information below on:
Class Changes
Merchandise
2026 Regular Socials - How they work
Right Dance Wrong Class
LDSA Travel - Future Holiday Destinations
See you on the dance floor,
Liz & Peter Heath and the Instructor Team
Class Changes
All classes are running as usual apart from:
West Croydon Easy Class will not be running on Tuesday 29th Sept and Tuesday 6th Oct. The hall is unavailable due to a movie being filmed there.Here is our seventh newsletter for 2026.
Ingle Farm Easy Class is now run from 7:00-8:30pm on Wednesdays permanently.
Windsor Gardens Monday and Wednesday is in a new hall at 1 Pittwater Drive, Windsor Gardens. This is at the request of the council, who need access to our original hall for another group for a couple of months.
Merchandise
We have a number of line dance items available to purchase to enhance your experience.
Line Dance Essentials Book This book documents some of the theory and terminology associated with line dancing and some of the skills needed to become or recognise a good dancer, choreographer and instructor.$25
Boot Socks These come in various colours and are used over the top of your "sticky" shoes to enable better turning and sliding when dancing. I recommend using a bright coloured pair so you don't forget to take them off when leaving the venue. They are $15 a pair. I also recommend that the first time you only use one, on your left foot, till you get used to the sliding effect.
Ladies Black and Green Chiffon Tops You no longer need to decide what to wear to class. These are specially designed and made for our classes and are cool and airy for great summer wear screen printed with our logo on the front. $25, Sizes 12 to 24
Unisex Green Polo Shirts You no longer need to decide what to wear to class. These are locally supplied and screen printed with our logo on back and front. $25, sizes XS to XXXXL
Black Sleeveless Vests You no longer need to decide what to wear to class. These are locally supplied and embroidered with our logo on the front. $25, Limited sizes M, L and XL
Black Long Sleeved Jackets Limited sizes embroidered with our logo on the back. $55, Limited sizes L, XL, XXL
2026 Regular Socials - How they work
Socials are an integral part of our line dance organisation. They provide an opportunity for our dancers to test out their knowledge and skills, check out their options to stretch themselves in a higher level, and meet other members of our community from different regional areas.
The bulk of the programme for the social is chosen from request sheets that are submitted by those attending when they arrive at the door. For this reason it changes every time, so you don't know what you will dance till the day. Each primary dance will be walked through a minimum of two walls to refresh the memory. We attempt to give each requester at least one dance from the 5 that they can nominate, but if you decide to ask for 5 "esoteric" dances, there is no guarantee. There may be some secondary dances (split floors) danced down the back, but those may not be walked through if there is not the resources to do so.
The new Intermediate selection process was a winner, so we will fine tune it and proceed with using it.
The social dates for the rest of this year are:
Sunday 20th September 1:30pm to 5:00pm
Sunday 25th October 1:30pm to 5:00pm
Sunday 29th November 1:30pm to 5:00pm
The Address is: West Croydon and Kilkenny RSL, 19 Rosetta St, West Croydon.
Dancing starts at 1.30pm and concludes at 5pm at a cost of $18 (cash only). The program is run by request, and everyone gets a request form when they enter, to nominate 5 dances they would like to do. We try to ensure that you get at least one of those, but we only do about 5 level 6+ dances during the session, so don't just ask for really hard ones (or lots of unusual ones), or you could miss out altogether.
We have a break about half way through, where we share a combined afternoon tea for 20 minutes. Please bring a small plate of food (and a plate to eat off) to share with your fellow dancers. Also bring a coffee cup if you wish to take advantage of the free tea and coffee provided. We will have minimal fridge space, and a pie warmer, but no oven, so please don’t bring food that needs cooking or defrosting. We feel this is good way to assist people to mix and chat. Doors will open 30 minutes before the starting time.
Right Dance Wrong Class
Unless it is a brand new beginners only class (when everyone has just started at the same time), each class has a spectrum of customer abilities. There will be newbies that are just starting out in the class, there are old guard that have been there forever, and everything in between. There are those wanting to be challenged, and those just wanting a relaxing time. Our job as instructors, and my job as the dance programme coordinator, is to keep as many of these customers as happy as possible, and keep the organisation healthy.
In LDSA, we do our best to present the best available material, both new and old, that is at a level appropriate to the advertised class level. The instructors have regular meetings where we test out new dances, prior to introduction to classes, to estimate the appropriateness of the choreography and music for the suite of classes that we offer. We do this to ensure we have a realistic graduation of difficulty from one class to another. We don't always get it right, but it is a better system than trusting the choreographers level suggestions. Please realise that any dance is easy, once you know it, and especially if you dance at a higher level as well.
Some dances can have a unique combination that appears to be easy, but when tried out on "real" dancers creates chaos. It takes real teaching experience to be able to judge these things accurately, and even then, we still get caught occasionally. Sometimes I have to bite the bullet and remove a dance from the original level and move it up because it was obviously inappropriate. This causes angst from the dancers that learned it, as they don't like losing something they been taught. We have done this twice over the years... The Ghost Train Shakeup, and the Nancy Mulligan Shakeup. If we didn't do this, we would be closed by now.
When a dance is introduced to a class that is outside the scope of the general class ability, there can be devastating long term consequences that are triggered. We have seen it so many times over the decades, which is why we are strict about what dances are done at each level. This is what happens...
We try to teach the class the dance.
The weaker / less experienced dancers get frustrated and sit down.
The stronger / experienced dances get it and love it, because it satisfies their thirst for a challenge.
The stronger dances then add it to their "request" portfolio, in addition to any other "harder dances" that were already on their list.
The dance is then done frequently as a request, and those that didn't get it the first time sit down again. Those dancers that never got a teach don't have a hope, as the experienced dancers don't want "another" walk through... "We know this one".
Eventually the request selections all get too hard and newbies to the class don't stay.
The experienced dancers get what they want, so there is no incentive for them to move up levels.
The class then degrades in size, and eventually, due to attrition, the class closes.
Buy the time this happens, the higher level classes that were supposed to have been fed by that particular class have shut, due to lack of new people to replace their attrition. With nowhere left to go, the remaining dancers stop being dancers or have to dance a lot further away from home.
Prior to me generating an automated level checker computer programme, our organisation stagnated for 10+ years, and many of the higher level classes (the source of potential instructors) shut down through lack of customers moving up through the levels. It has taken 10 years of careful selection of material (and removal of wrongly leveled dances) to finally get the required people moving through the levels. This is essential to keep the organisation healthy, and to generate new instructors to keep the dancing available for future generations.
If you are getting bored and want a challenge, move up. If you don't want to, or can't for personal reasons, then please respect the rules of the class and stop trying to make it something it is not.
We have been going for 32+ years, and there are no other groups even close to our level of teaching experience, or dancing resource and experience, and we intend to provide that well into the future after the current "fad" has died away as it did in the 90's.
LDSA Travel - Future Holiday Destinations
So, our recent travel experience is complete, and we are starting to firm up our 2027 adventure.
It is based around a cruise from Athens to Rome via the Adriatic Sea, including visits to: Kotor (Montenegro), Dubrovnik (Croatia), Split (Croatia), Venice (Chioggia Italy), Šibenik (Croatia), Bari (Italy), Crotone (Italy), Messina (Sicily Italy), Naples (Italy Including Pompeii visit). We will be doing a 4 day land tour of Greece prior to the cruise, and 2 days touring in Rome after the cruise, before we spend 7 days on the islands of Malta (maybe with a Balloon flight) then return home. We will be cruising with Viking again, as it is a smaller ship that can get closer to the destinations (especially Venice where we will be for 3 days), without kids or casinos. We have used them twice, and their quality and attention to detail is impeccable.
After that trip, we have a number of options for subsequent years, and none are locked down. I would like to gather suggestions or expressions of interest from anyone that may like to join us, if the offering interests them. We don't revisit destinations that we have covered over our 20+ years of travel, so here are some places we haven't been and would like to visit (actual itineraries are not available or even scoped out yet, these are just concepts at the moment):
Scandinavian Sea Cruise with Finland (Northern Lights) before and Switzerland after (or Iceland instead?)
Indian Brahmaputra River Cruise (including some land to Taj Mahal, Delhi, etc) with Sri Lanka before and possibly Myanmar (Burma) or Nepal after
Alaska Cruise with Rocky Mountaineer Train Trip in Canada before and maybe Northern USA (Yellowstone, Craters of the Moon etc) after
African Safari to Kenya and Uganda with Madagascar before and Reunion after
Western Mediterranean Cruise (Rome to Lisbon) with Doha (Qatar) before and Marrakesh (Morocco) after
Land/Sea tour of Indonesia and the Philippines including Resort stays
Relocation Cruise from Hawaii to Sydney via Tahiti and New Zealand with Hawaii before
Please respond if any of these suggestions interest you. We plan to be doing them all at some stage, but can only do groups if there is sufficient interest.
The advantages of our group tours are:
Peter does all the work making arrangements, converting currency, organising catch ups, modifying itineraries, etc
We use a reputable Travel Agent who we have had a very long and wonderful relationship with.
We have a reputation over 20 years in providing exiting and customised group tours to many varied destinations
We maximise the experiences in the limited time we have in the destinations. You will never see "a day off to relax in your room" in one of our itineraries. We assume you are there to absorb the destination and maximise your value for your travel money.
By having our own itinerary, (own guide and driver when applicable for land tours), we can modify the itinerary "on the fly" if the majority of travellers are "templed out", "castled out" or "beached out", and find an alternative attraction to replace "just another.temple/castle/beach etc"..
We share the cost of the driver, guide etc, to make it more affordable for all and safer than not having one.
