Mike Verdone, President
Gerald Camillo, Treasurer

Joining the Board

Tom Savage, President
Edna Free, Treasurer
Naomi Mart, Member at Large 

Our web master, Bob Sitko, will be attending board meetings as a member of the Publicity Committee. Welcome aboard Bob. I appreciate your willingness to attend and participate in the discussions and problem solving so necessary to the successful operation of Chapter 632.

The new board will have its first meeting on Sunday, January 11 at the Richland County Library on Assembly Street in Columbia. We will meet in the “Baker and Baker Meeting Room” from 3:00-5:00.  I would like to thank Bob Sitko for arranging with the library for the use of this room.

The Barn, 680 Cherokee Lane, Columbia, SC

The group lessons will begin promptly at 8:00 and will last 30 minutes.

Bob Wall will teach the Four Count Hustle

Acting in his capacity of the Chair of the Program and Entertainment Committee Ron Morton arranged this lesson with Bob Wall at the dance last Saturday evening. Ron has the sole responsibility to arrange for the provision of all future group lessons. 

Members: $4; Non members: $7; Students: $3

On December 31, 2003 we had a total of 100 members. New members during the month were Jerry Evans, Ken Rose and Bob Sitko.

There were 65 present for our annual Christmas Dance on the 13th. Mike Verdone was the DJ. The food was outstanding thanks to Janet Girard and her volunteers. Sheila Brown taught a fox trot group lesson. Later she did an exhibition with Kunihara Kubodera, Warren Wintrobe and Doug Copeland. All four dance instructors from the two local dance studios were present for the entire evening.

Doris Wood and Tracy Steele of the Columbia Ballroom Studio did a dance demonstration at the Presbyterian Home located on De Vega Drive in Lexington on Friday evening, December 10th,

Organized by Emma Sharpe, the Fancy Feet Dancers did an exhibition at Kathwood assisted living facility on Trenholm Road in Columbia on Saturday evening, December 6th. Deborah Thomas took photographs. Bob Sitko has put some of these pictures on our web site. Click here to see them.

Doris Wood asked that the following be published. “On December 20th, Lee Minghi and Paul Lagatore (Columbia’s Ballroom) presented a thirty-five minute dance exhibition at the annual Lexington County Senior Citizens’ Christmas lunch at Seven Oaks Park”.

Nisha & Barbara Kubodera, and Grace Verdone renewed their sponsorships by contributing $80.00 each to the chapter. They will receive free admission to all the dances in 2004.

I will make the effort in January to purchase name tags for those of you who do not have one. I hope to have the new tags available by the first dance in February.

Deborah Thomas, who is Chair of the Publicity and Chapter Newsletter Committee, will do the newsletter in 2004 beginning with the month of February.

We have the use of the barn for two dances a month January through December.
The cost is $80.00 per dance, the same cost as last year.

Mike and Grace Verdone will continue this year to teach dancing at the Tri-City Leisure Center located at 700 Dreher Road in West Columbia. Waltz/rumba will be taught for six weeks followed by swing/foxtrot for six weeks. Call the leisure center at 939-9309 for further information, or email Mike Verdone.

Mike and Grace have been teaching in the Greater Columbia Area for several years. They have been assisted in the past by Pamela Melton and Gerald Camillo. More recently they engaged the assistance of Deborah Thomas and Richard Durlach to teach the swing at Tri-City Leisure Center.

The number one priority for chapters by National USABDA is that chapters “offer inexpensive weekly group dance lessons especially for beginner dancers and to aggressively promote these weekly beginner classes to the public.” 

What Mike and Grace are doing as amateurs provides a source of income for the chapter. They receive 80% of the total paid by the participants to the Tri-City Leisure Center. They give the entire amount to our treasurer for deposit in our bank account.

Stephanie Muga is close to finishing 12 specially made CDs for our ballroom dancing. Thanks Stephanie for all the time and effort you have put into doing task that you were authorized to do by the board on November 15.

A group of DJs will provide the music at our dances. Heading the list is Mike Verdone, Al Jayne, and Stephanie Muga. Cyndy Harris and I are in training with Stephanie to perform this task.

As you know, Doris was the editor of the newsletter in 2003. What you may not know is that she volunteered to do this task in addition to being the secretary.

I am sure that all you agree that Doris has done an outstanding job. Like the editors who proceeded her, Kay Roberson and Pamela Melton, she has discovered that doing the newsletter takes an enormous amount of time, and that it is never finished until it is printed and sent out.

Doris decided in mid-December that the time had come for her to relinquish the responsibility for this task. It was not an easy decision for her to make since she really enjoyed doing the newsletter.