Bubba’s Country Music and Line Dance Club Christmas Dance Party
We had been really looking forward to Friday 4th December at Andy King’s Line Dance Club with Speed Limit performing at Reed Village Hall in north Hertfordshire.
The dance party is an annual event thoroughly enjoyed by everyone and this year also had a poignant element to it as we had lost one of the club members to cancer earlier this year. One of the aims of the evening was to add to the Cancer Research fund raising associated with Andy’s sponsored diet which started on 14th November 2009 in aid of Cancer Research in memory of Jill Barnes who bravely and with immense dignity lost her battle earlier this year.
The first set from Speed Limit included their latest popular song addition entitled Boots, and many established favourites including Beer for my Horses and Waylon Jennings, Dreaming my dreams. Concluding the first set Angie and Tony surprised our host Andy by getting everyone to sing Happy Birthday and then we were all treated to the Reed world famous ( courtesy Helen West Country Music show on Radio Cambridge at 12-00 noon, Sundays) roast potatoes!!
We then had a tops and tails competition with the chance to win a Christmas Teddy Bear to raise funds for the Cancer Research and Russell winning with his final choice of heads or tails.
The winner of the “Name the Teddy” competition was Hayley who chose the name Liam.
The second set started with Angie encouraging everyone, dancers, first time visitors to a Country Music event and some listeners to join in the Farmers Wife fun dance immediately followed by a Barn dance thereby engaging absolutely everyone with lots of fun, enjoyment and so much laughter and good humour.
A sample from a fine selection of the songs from Speed Limit included Ride the River, The Wild Wood Rose, Louisiana Hot Sauce, Smokey Places, Nowhere Train and the Gulf of Mexico giving the chance for experienced and those new to line dancing a chance to join in, show their new found skills and also learn some new steps including especially for first time visitors the Cowboy Charleston.
Building the party spirit the second break saw the presentation of a magnificent birthday cake to Andy and the circulation to everyone of some home-made mince pies followed by a very well supported Raffle and a “Roll a £1 at a bottle” competition to help swell the Cancer Research fund. The bottle of Whiskey was won by “Smokey Places” Pete.
Speed Limit’s final set included Angie encouraging many people to provide individual singing contributions to singing the Christmas Carol, I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas in which Gilbert starred and joined Angie on stage.
Speed Limit completed the evening with many requests and dedications to those present including Come Dance with me, Mercury Blues, Little Peace concluding with Mr Man in the Moon, ending their evening with their traditional encore Voices of the Highlands.
The contribution of the “Tops and Tails”, the “Name the Teddy Bear” and “Roll a £1 at a bottle” amounted to £114 which will be added to Andy’s sponsored diet fund raising.
The dedication to the fund raising cause coupled with Andy’s disciplined approach have resulted in a phenomenal weight loss which will be declared early in the New Year. The final amount raised for the Cancer Research Fund will be declared in early February when all the sponsorship has been gathered in and Andy will hold an event at Reed to present the contributions raised to the Cancer Research Fund.
Having discussed with Andy we think there are so many people to thank in addition to Angie and Tony for making this a wonderfully successful and truly memorable evening that we think it is best not to mention names of the helpers but to say a very sincere thanks to all the kind and generous friends Andy has taught Line Dancing and the many friendships this trio have helped develop over the years.
What a wonderful evening we all enjoyed, whenever Andy, Tony and Angie get together to present an evening of Country Music we all know we will have memories to last for the rest of our lives.
This “Speed Limit - Country Cowboy” evening together with all the magnificent friends we have made over the years was, for us, exactly what we love about the Country Music scene. Brilliant!!
Your friend
Tom Harland
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