Concept, Goals, & Dreams
"Steppin' Out" started as a little dream.....a little dream 2 instructors had to give their beginner/improver classes a special night out of dancing.
Linda's students were after her to plan a dance so that they could practice what they had been learning. She approached John, our DJ, requesting him to play for a dance for her classes. He suggested having a combined dance with both Linda and my students, as I (Terri) had been talking about getting some groups together to dance. It had begun.........
Linda was the driving force behind setting up the first social dance. She found a rental hall centrally located in our area and booked it. I suggested inviting several instructors that attend my intermediate class as they all have beginner/improver level classes. We not only invited those instructors and their classes, but Linda also found and invited several other local instructors. Now our work was just beginning. We wanted to make sure all the dancers would be able to stay on the floor as much as possible...there is nothing worse than going out for a fun night of dancing and spending the time in your chair! We emailed the instructors requesting a list of dances their students knew. We compared lists and came up with a group of dances shared by either all or most of the classes.....this became our base playlist. We added favorites from each class to the playlist. Linda and I began working on teaching our classes some dances from everyone's list, building more for our shared dance list. I made a logo, flyer, and tickets for presale. The logo chosen was "Steppin' Out" as this is what we were working toward......a night for our students to "Step Out" of their classes and enjoy a night of open dancing. Linda picked up prizes for drawings, refreshments and kept all the instructors up to date with all the plans.
The night of the first dance came - beyond our wildest dreams!! We had 183 dancers, 5 instructors involved...our hard work had paid off......the floor stayed full and everyone was smiling...the night was over to soon.
I approached Linda with the suggestion of planning a monthly dance. I still laugh at the look on her face..... the first dance took tons of time preparing, but I knew we had the hardest part done. If we planned another dance, we'd only have to add in new teaches from the instructors to our playlist. Linda booked 4 more dates for the hall, one in each month that had an available rental day. We decided we wanted a team of instructors working together.
Yes, it had begun........
The Beginning
The Concept
The concept of "Steppin' Out" is simply to have a group of instructors working together ....sharing teaching tips, ideas, new dances, etc.....helping each other so that we can give our students more and connect our little corner of the dance world...social dances with empty tables and a full dance floor all night.
We want to progress as line dance evolves.....definitely will have the tried and true classic standard dances (these have proven to be successful at teaching basic steps and rhythms) but we want to keep moving forward - learning new dances, new styles, new music.
This website will serve as a connection for our instructors and all our students - one place to find out information about all the "Steppin' Out' activities and information for each of the instructor's own classes. We have a set playlist for all "Steppin' Out" events and the instructors vote on dances to add each month and retire to keep it manageable.
The Goal
Our entire team has one goal - to give our students the BEST possible dance experience!
The Dreams
More and more dreams are coming as our group continues to grow....
Future workshops geared toward the beginner/improver
More social dance events
Expanding our "Steppin' Out" group both locally and beyond (We're already in 6 states and the UK ! )
The expansion will give us chances for Road trips and know that we'll stay on the floor
with the "Steppin' Out" shared list.
Watch out!.........we've only just begun and we've "Just Gotta be Steppin' Out!"
