Having (somewhat reluctantly) been forced to move away from our original “home” in Gateshead the committee have decided to retire “Gateshead Ceilidh Club” and rename it as “Tyneside Ceilidh Club” which is now enjoying a new home in West Jesmond.
One thing has not changed – the enjoyment that everyone present gets, as you can see in the photo. Ignore the scowls on the musicians, we havent yet learnt to play and smile at the same time!
The “trial run” at our Christmas Ceilidh proved a success, and yesterday (1 March 2022) our “inaugural” Gateshead Ceilidh Club ceilidh showed members are ready to get back to dancing. The dance was well attended – numbers were just right for the limited space of our current venue. We hope (and expect) that our monthly ceilids will continue, so we are looking forward to our next on April 5th.
Its been smashing meeting to practise again – but on 7 Dec we had our first ceilidh after the lockdown – and our last for 2021. It was a great success (albeit a bit low on numbers) but we all had a smashing time and we hope to re-start monthly ceilidhs in 2022 – watch this space!
Its been a challenging time for us all but Robin and Rachael have done a brilliant job providing new and interesting tunes both as dots and recorded “playalong” mp3’s for us to practise, and leading sessions on zoom.
However its great to be able to have the experience of playing together as a band once again, and hear just how good we sound as an ensemble.
Our meeting venue – the Royal British Legion club, West Jesmond, NE2 3EX – have been fully complying with Covid regs and we’ve all felt very safe with the “hands face space” system.
There is one new innovation that has come out of this difficult time; Rachael has ben able to “televise ” our live meetings on Zoom to make them accessible for members who for any reason cannot be there in person.
New members are always welcome so if you play an instrument (not percussion, sorry) and can play in keys of D & G just contact us and we can give you more information, and some music to get you started.
We really enjoyed our first “together” practise of the year on 29 June. Lets hope tomorrow night 13 july goes as well!
June 29th and after 15 months we are once again able to play together as a band.
We have been enjoying our zoom meetings very kindly arranged by Tina, but it cant match the experience of playing together so we are all looking forward (with some trepidation) to the demands of playing as an ensemble.
Hopefully many of our members who have chosen not to participate in the zoom meetings will be able to join us as they are greatly missed.
Following government guidelines the committee have taken the decision that The Redheughers are unable to meet for practice sessions etc. for the present.
We have no way of knowing how long the current situation and restrictions will be in place, but of course members will be contacted when we know more.
The committee are considering how best to deal with the threat of Coronavirus, especially as some of our members are in the “at risk ” category. (No names!)
I’ll update this news as more information becomes available.
Our private ceilidh at the Linskill centre on 14 March was a great success – despite the virus it was well attended and most of the guests were up for the dances. This may be our last ceilidh for a while though, so at least we ended on a good note.
As of 14 January our new venue for practice sessions is the function room, upstairs at the Royal British Legion club, 3 West Jesmond Avenue, Newcastle upon Tyne. A big improvement on our previous room, the acoustics are excellent.