Monthly Archives: April 2016

Big Busk & Bishops Castle

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Well, we’ve started our 2016 dance season with two fabulous local events.

Nothing delights us more than dancing in our lovely town of Shrewsbury, so it was a real pleasure to take to the streets on April 2nd as part of the Big Busk. The Busk is a celebration of th life of Ben Bebbington (you can read his story here) and it’s a charity event that raises money for our local shelter for the homeless, The Ark. It’s a wonderful atmosphere in town – there’s music and dance everywhere all day, and every second person you see has an instrument slung across their back!

We have supported the Busk in various guises since it began, and this year we were dancing in the Market Square, and at the top of Pride Hill – two great dance spots for us. We did start in the rain though, as you can see from these slightly dismal photos!

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It perked up a bit later on for our second spot and we drew a good crowd.

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All in all, the Busk raised £10,000 – good show everyone!

The following weekend we were delighted to be asked by the Shropshire Bedlams & Martha Rhoden’s Tuppenny Dish to join them for a birthday celebration in their home town of Bishops Castle, along with the other local sides The Ironmen & Severn Gilders, and Leominster Morris. Great to have all the Shropshire sides together! We danced all over town and finished off with cake. Crikey it was a chilly day!

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So all in all, two great dance outs to start our year! Next up, the fab Dudmaston on May bank holiday. If you’ve had the National Trust Spring Leaflet for Shropshire, you might notice one of our musicians cheekily featuring!IMG_0038

Shrewsbury Morris Start 2016 Year Oop North!

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So, 2016 is our 40th Anniversary year and we’re looking forward to a twelve months packed with fun and lots of dancing.

We’ll be performing in and around Shrewsbury as always, as well as in Quatt, Whitchurch, Cardington, Bishop’s Castle, NT Dudmaston and Leicestershire.

We also have a few fun things in store such is “40 dances in 40 local locations” and a big birthday party in Shrewsbury Square on Sat 2nd July.

But we started our activities as always with our annual walking weekend, this time in Yorkshire. Kindly arranged as always by Sue and Steve Mulcock we all decanted North at the end of March and invaded the sleepy but lovely village of Malham for a weekend. We always stay in YHA accommodation and this was
very good as usual. The team combines socialising, music and some team “togetherness” with a bracing, challenging but fun walk on the Saturday of the weekend.

Ray had come up with another excellent walk which stretched the fitness of some of us but provided great views of the wonderful Yorkshire countryside. Most people (and children) managed the first half (from Malham to Settle) and we had a lovely team lunch in a super pub in Settle. The second half was undertaken by a few hardy souls and we returned to Malham via a different but equally superb route.

The Sat evening was a mixture of a fabulous team curry cooked as always by Steve followed by a great music and song session.

It is the last time that Sue and Steve will organise this kind of weekend, having decided to hand the baton on to someone else after nearly 20 years of organisation, negotiating with the YHA and attempting to keep everyone happy (not easy). They’ve done a magnificent team job for Shrewsbury Morris and we thank them very much for their efforts.

Our first dance outs are 2nd April for The Big Busk and 9th April in Bishops Castle for a gathering of local sides – needless to say we are really looking forward to getting the new season underway!! Come and see us :))) We’ll be posting from those events shortly.

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