At our AGM we gave a brief review of the past year in Swing Soc, and here it is again for anyone who wasn't there to hear it.
We started the year knowing we expecting we would have to build the society, reaching out to new people, as there were going to be very few returning members. For this reason, Welcome Week and the Welcome (freshers) Fair was important, and we took the opportunity to hold demonstrations. The fair itself went well, there was great footfall, and we spoke to lots of new people, and completely ran out of all the leaflets we had printed. Despite our lack of numbers, we think the performances were successful, especially as we hit the jackpot when one of them was the last slot on the second day, so we were performing as everyone being encouraged to leave was walking past us. Refreshers was less successful, although we did feature on university and student's union social media!
Our success at freshers fair was followed by a great turnout to both our taster sessions, so much so that we had to think on our feet, and adapt our teaching style to suit. This continued into the regular lessons, of course numbers dropped off somewhat, but we quickly realised there was a reasonable core group coming to most lessons. We introduced solo jazz in October, which has grown in popularity through the year, and have taught a mix of Lindy Hop and Charleston. Beginner lessons have been generally well attended, and the improvers lessons which started in January also proved popular.
Lessons isn't everything we're about, we wanted to foster a welcoming environment where friendships could form, and to build confidence with social dancing. This started with our vintage shopping trip around town ending in Curious Manor, free pizza after class and an after class trip to Mooch, which proved popular with the postgrads. Not all of these events had large turnouts, and we learnt from that, but nonetheless they were successful.
At Christmas, we held A Vintage Christmas, a collab with CathSoc, featuring a taster Lindy Hop lesson, as well as food, social dancing and games. This was certainly a success, there was a great turn out, and it was fantastic to see the interaction between the societies and so many people trying social dancing, many for the first time. I think we even picked up a few new members as a result of the evening.
Throughout the year, we've been to York (twice: Jorvik Swing and Whip-ma-whop-ma-hop) and Leeds (Swing Fling) for workshops and weekends, and we've got a group going to Leeds again over Easter for Swing Revolution and hopefully to Durham Summer Swing. This has been an amazing chance for new and old dancers alike to experience different UK swing scenes and learn from the best. We've even had representation in competitions! Hopefully this will continue into the next academic year and we'll only get stronger.
All of this combined, along with some luck, has helped to build the society. I was really impressed by the turnout to the last Late Night Lindy, where students were probably a third of the people attending. And we are pleased that, pending results in the election, the committee is going to increase in size next year, which is very promising for the future.
After Easter, we're going to trial changing things up a bit, keep an eye out on social media etc for more information. In the mean time, we'd like to hear from you, so we're launching the Big Swing Soc Survey, to get feedback on what you thought went well this year and what you would like to see more of in the future!
Thanks for a great year!
