Wii Dance 2 Competition – Wednesday 10 November 2010

November 21st, 2010

I’ve had a Wii machine for nearly a year – a thoughtful Christmas present from my husband – and I figured that I really must put it to more use (feeling a bit guilty actually as when I now turn on the Wii fit the electronic voice says “hello it’s been 340 days since your last visit”). Well what better way than to set up a dance competition with my friends.

Despite a very wet and cold autumnal evening, 7 of us managed to get into the spirit of fun by huddling round the TV set in my kitchen to prepare to release our inner Anne Widdecombe. Obviously we did also give ourselves some additional energy by consuming the remnants of the trick or treat bucket from Halloween!

Anyway, our eagerness could not be contained and after a quick rejection of the warm up exercises provided on the disc (please do not do this at home kids) we set about choosing our tracks. The aim of the game is to choose a favourite track from the 45 songs on offer and to dance in rhythm, as closely as possible, to the on-screen coach. The flow of your body movements is sensed by the Wii remote and you are scored accordingly and the amount of energy you put in is also detected so that ruled out sitting in my chair and waving my hands about!

As the organizer, I felt it only right to be the first up and so I chose “Wham – Wake me up before you go go”. I practiced being Pepsi and Shirley many times in the mirror when I was younger so it couldn’t be that hard? Huh was I in for a shock. There were lots of moves as this is a fast paced song which only highlighted my unfitness and lack of co-ordination. Eventually, the track came to an end and I slumped down in my chair pretty breathless. However, I proudly achieved a score of 8129 points from just 1 song so my taking the lead had paid off.

One by one the other girls each got up and strutted their stuff. Our screams of laughter could probably have been heard down the street as it was a real hoot. Amongst us was Clare, a professional dance teacher, and she proved why she is just that by managing to copy her routine perfectly after about 10 seconds of dancing to The Pussycat Dolls “When I grow up”.

My all time favourite though has to be Emma who proclaimed “I love Boney M, I’ve got to do Rasputin”. When the coach appeared on the screen, he looked like a Russian dancer and I said “ooh can you imagine if you have to do that dance where you squat down, with crossed arms and kick your legs out”. Well, guess what, that’s exactly what she had to do. It was hilarious and we all fell about laughing as Emma tried to follow the moves.

Another fun evening for St Albans Circle and I think there may be some last minute requests on Santa’s wish list for Wii Dance this year.

Sharon

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*NEWSFLASH** St Albans Circle raise more than £3,000 at the Masquerade Halloween Ball held on Saturday 30th October

November 14th, 2010

St Albans Ladies Circle raise over £3,000 for their nominated charity Paul Strickland Scanner Centre at their annual charity event the Masquerade Halloween Ball. Community Officer Lisa Perkin explains how it was all possible.

‘When planning the event we wanted to make sure that we held something different, something that didn’t compete with any other local charity events. We also wanted the best chance of attracting lots of people to raise as much money as possible! The Halloween theme made sense because there were no other local events like this. So following a council vote we decided to run with a formal Evening Ball. Adding the masquerade part made it a bit novel and hopefully attractive to potential ticket purchasers.

I set to work and took responsibility for the overall project management of the event. We realised early that our Halloween Ball was going to be something a bit special! With lots of help and support from the other members we managed to agree; a venue including food menu and drinks, cupcakes, room set up and decorations, DJ and compere, speeches, children’s dance act, auction prizes, goodie bags, photographer, and jewellery stall. We all chipped in with ticket sales by approaching our family, friends and work colleagues. We managed to sell a total of 70 tickets, which was a HUGE success given that it was our first big event.

The night started with a real buzz as people arrived to an introductory bucks fizz. Whilst waiting to be seated guests were invited to have their picture taken by the photographer and to buy jewelry from the jewelry stall in the foyer.

The dinner tables were decorated with Halloween confetti, lit pumpkins and candles. Guests were also treated to a goodie bag and a wonderfully decorated cupcake.

To get everyone into the Halloween mood a group of dancers aged 9-12 years old, all dressed as ghouls and ghosts, performed a spooky rendition of nightmare before Christmas. This was followed by speeches from our Chair, Monika Raisys, and Rina Rawal the fundraising manager for the Paul Strickland Scanner Centre. They reminded everyone in the room why they were there and to dig deep into their pockets.

As the guests tucked into their Halloween inspired dinner the girls set to work in selling tombola tickets to the tables. The prizes included champagne, vouchers for clothes/cosmetics, cosmetic gift sets, whisky, wine, chocolates, books, salsa lessons, swimming and gym membership, to name but a few! As coffee and mints were served the people with winning tickets were invited up to the tombola table to collect their prizes.

Once all the tombola prizes had been claimed we started the auction which included, skidpans, pleasure flight, salsa classes, Ann Summers hamper, Jane and Dada necklaces- modeled by circlers!, weekend in windmill, dinner at the 6 Bells Pub in St Albans, pole dancing lessons, Zumba dance classes and colon hydrotherapy. There was a real tension in the room as some of the auction prizes reached over £400.

Following the auction the DJ kicked off with Michael Jacksons ‘Thriller’. All the girls and their wonderfully generous guests danced the night away knowing that they had raised a shed load of cash for a worthy cause’

St Albans Circle would like to thanks all those that attended the ball. In particular we would like to thank the following:

Adam Nash

Aylett’s Nursery – www.aylettnurseries.co.uk

Ann Summers – www.annsummers.com

Ben Santos Richmond

Black Iris Flowers

Benefit – www.benefitcosmetics.com

Buzzy Beads – www.buzzybeads.co.uk

The Bodyshop – www.thebodyshop.co.uk

Burston’s Nurseries – www.burston-nurseries.co.uk

Butlers

Costco’s – www.costco.co.uk