Are we still checking on those we know don’t have someone else to check on them? Please keep that up or if you are not doing so – please start.
Now – what have you been doing since we aren’t dancing? Are you trying out this “couples” square dancing? Are you working on other hobbies? Can we see what you have been doing? Please consider taking a picture and sending it in with a caption to Kathy Roberts to post on the Federation Facebook page or sending to Tim Roberts to put in the OFN.
Who does your club flyer? Can they gather pictures from the club and put together a “what we are doing” flyer to post instead of a dance flyer?
Let us at least hope for good weather so that we can at least be outside in our yards instead of just stuck in the house.
Karyn Buchheit
Many of our clubs dance in Grange buildings around the state. The state Grange organization has issued some guidance based on the Governor's guidance. Their documents are included in the articles below.
If your county is not yet in Phase 2, then a Grange cannot rent to you at all. If your county is in Phase 2, then they can rent the hall for a dance, but with restrictions. Total occupancy must be based on the 6' distancing rule. So, take the hall size, and divide by 36 (square feet). For a 30' x 50' floor, that means only 42 people can be in the building at once. Everyone attending will need to fill out a form giving their name, address and phone number, in case they need to do "contact tracing". These forms must be kept for 60 days.
Dancing events fall under the guidance for gyms. What that means is no bodily contact except for household members. This would seem to prohibit ALL square dancing, until we get to Phase 3, which means until a vaccine is available.
I'm afraid we are in for a long dry spell.
Click here to find out how to get your information into the OFN, including dances, lessons, photos, flyers, advertisements, and caller/cuer information.
We have set up an email mailing list to notify people when a new edition of the online OFN is available, and for other important news about the OFN. To subscribe to this mailing list, just fill out this information:
The next Federation meeting would have been at Summer Festival. In view of its cancellation, we will probably hold another teleconference in July.
The 2020 Summer Festival, which was to be held at the Seaside Convention Center in Seaside on August 21-23, 2020, had to be canceled, due to the governor's orders on large gatherings.
Oregon's Mid-Winter Festival 2021 will be held January 22, 23 and 24, 2021, at the Linn County Fairgrounds in Albany. See the article elsewhere in this issue.
The 73rd Silver State Festival in Sparks, NV, scheduled for May 8 to 10, has been canceled.
The 69th National Square Dance Convention® in nearby Spokane, Washington, has been canceled. Refunds will be issued.
The 70th National Square Dance Convention® will be held in Jackson, Mississippi, June 23-26, 2021.
The 71st National Square Dance Convention® will be held in Evansville, Indiana, June 22-25, 2022.
The 72nd National Square Dance Convention® will be held in Mobile, Alabama, June 21-24, 2023.
The 73rd National Square Dance Convention has just been awarded to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for June of 2024.
All clubs in the Oregon Federation are required to maintain their status as non-profit corporations with the State of Oregon. The Secretary of State's office mails out a renewal notice about a month before your registration expires every year. The following clubs expire this month:
July 1 -- Blue Mountains Council
July 9 -- Rogue-Sis-Q Council
July 14 -- Beachcombers
July 18 -- Star Promenaders
July 23 -- Eager Beavers
July 23 -- Sagebrush Shufflers
July 24 -- Buzzin Bees
July 25 -- Umpqua Area Council
Download a complete list of the Federation club dances this month, all sorted by date and city.
Everything in the When & Where is extracted from the state directory information. If you find that your club information is wrong, you can fix that by going to the directory information area and fixing your data.
Click on the title to see the article.
The Wonderful World of Dance is excitedly planning our upcoming festival. At this point we are all systems go. If things keep going the way they currently, are the fairgrounds is opening in July and will be ready for all of us to come dancing. We are looking for volunteers to help and appreciate early registrations. Our website recently got an awesome upgrade so head over and check it out, https://midwinterfestival.com. Looking forward to seeing everyone on the dance floor once more.
Sincerely,
Lisa Kious, Bill & Lisa Coen
2021 Chairman
We have received several documents that could be useful to your clubs in deciding what the near-term future holds.
The Oregon State Grange has issued guidance to all Grange masters and members to help them know how to handle hall rentals during the reopening. No Grange can rent to outside organizations during Phase 1, and even during Phase 2, there are very stringent guidelines about cleaning, both during and after rentals, and about tracking those who attend events. https://ofn.club/content/2020-07/Reopening%20guidance.pdf
The Grange is treating dancing rentals as a "gym" event. Here's the state guidelines for gyms, which puts an upper limit on attendance based on hall size, and prohibits bodily contact between members of different households. https://ofn.club/content/2020-07/phase%201%20fitness_dancing.pdf
United Square Dancers of America (USDA) has produced a document on "Discussion Items to Start Dancing" that could be a good starting point for a club meeting about our future. Click on the thumbnail to read the document.
https://ofn.club/content/2020-07/Discussion%20Items%20to%20Start%20Dancing.pdf
The California Square Dance Council has also produced a document for their members on procedures and guidelines. Both are worthwhile reading to guide is into dancing again. https://ofn.club/content/2020-07/ReopeningSquareDancing_Considerations_CASDC_V1060120.pdf
For the second year in a row, both of the scholarships offered by United Square Dancers of America (USDA) have gone to Oregonians.
Julia Buchheit will receive the $1,000 USDA scholarship. Petrina Hucbheit will receive the $500 USDA scholarship. Both are members of the Silver City Squares.
Congratulations to both young women!
Grace was born on May 21, 1921. She was born and raised in Creston, Iowa. She moved to Oregon in the late 1940's where she lived in Hillsboro for approximately 70. years. She worked for many years at Tektronix and later retired from there. She danced for many years at Pumpkin Ridge Grange and the McMinnville Grange. She also loved to square dance and belonged to the Eager Beaver's Square Dance Group. She loved to be outside working in her yard and taking care of her grapes. She enjoyed waving and saying "hi" to her neighbors when she was out in her yard. For many years she invited friends and neighbors to come over and watch the Hillsboro 4th of July Parade from her yard and then they would enjoy a potluck lunch after the parade.
Grace passed away on Monday, May 25, 2020. She is survived by 2 sons, l daughter, 5 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. She will be laid to rest in a crypt at Valley Memorial in Hillsboro, OR on June 3, 2020. Grace was buried in her Eager Beavers club outfit.
You can download this list of callers and cuers who are available and ready to call or cue a dance for you.
Callers:
Cuers:
The Umpqua Council has chosen the July Oregon Round of the Month: "All His Children II", Phase II+2 Waltz (box finish and interrupted box), choreographed by Karen and Ed Gloodt, music by Henry Mancini and his Orchestra. Download your cue sheet here.
For more information on the Round of the Month, please contact .
Everything in this section is taken from the state directory information. If you find that your class information is wrong, you can fix that by going to the directory information area and picking to the "Lessons" tab.
August 21 (3rd Fri)Click a thumbnail to download the flyer.
Click a thumbnail to see the full-sized picture.
Click a council name to go directly to that section.
We trust everyone is doing what they can to be safe and that everyone is well and healthy.
Our hall in Springfield was closed around March 9 and will remain closed until further notice. There is nothing at our hall for the month of June. After that, we will see. It's a little difficult to social distance with square dancing. I was talking with a dancer who said if we did "Grand Square" it would take a long time and a big space We both got a laugh out of that. Round dancing is tricky as some of our round dancers do not dance with people living in their households. You can never be too safe with this virus business.
Wishing you all good health,
Christina Corelli, Secretary
When we do get back to dancing, we will look forward to greeting any new or old advanced dancers in our area or any willing to drive in from out of area for our dances held Sunday afternoons once or twice a month from 2 to 4PM at the Emerald Square Dance Center at 2095 Yolanda in Hall B behind the center in Springfield.
Meanwhile we hope all are staying safe and that this too shall pass.
Gaynor Hintz
Club reporter
We held elections in March with most of our board remaining in place in their same capacity with the exception of Don Schimonitz who rejoined the board once again. We appreciate his volunteering to help guide our club—at least we will be grateful once we get back to having regular board meetings and dances.
Stay well, fellow dancers,
Gaynor Hintz
Club Reporter
We are dark the full month of June.
One of our members, Patrick Finn, moved to Wisconsin. He had a small farm with animals in Lebanon and before that, Myrtle Creek. We had a farewell 'party' in the parking lot with six vehicles in a huge circle and 7 people sitting on tailgates chatting. Social distancing at its best! Patrick was there with his dog, Molly. Molly is a Lab/Mastiff mix, so is huge. She's a sweetheart! We took this opportunity to bid Patrick farewell and good luck. We're happy he's in Wisconsin close to family, but we miss him. FYI, Patrick's animals did not go to Wisconsin. They have new homes here in Oregon.
Stay safe and healthy,
Christina Corelli - Member-At-Large
Carmen
We decided to try our 44th birthday dance on June 25 when hopefully Marion County is in Phase 2 and we can have 50 people in the dance hall. There is plenty of room for social distancing and we have a full candy bowl for refreshments temporarily. Come and see us, bring your own refreshments, no fresh food and surfaces will be disinfected after everyone leaves.
Stephanie Lozano is taking the summer off to care for her husband John, who had major heart surgery on May 4. He is home and working on getting his strength back.
We look forward to seeing some intermediate round dancers to get some floor time in and getting to see people after being home for so long.
Marilyn Schmit
Stay safe, stay sane and stay in touch.
Sheila
We will be looking for a new club cuer this fall as well as a caller. Frances is moving to California to be close to her family there. So once we are able to hold dances again, we will be doing guest callers and cuers for a few dances.
Our usual parades and demos are still undecided as the groups putting them on have not yet made a final decision on if they will still be happening.
Hope to see you soon.
Petrina Buchheit
Although not in our council, we’re looking jealously at Re-Vu-NQ in Salem for getting back to dancing. Just call Marilyn Schmit (503-508-0539) for reservations. Ah, yes, whoever would’ve “thunk” we’d have to have reservations for a dance? - Gotta be flexible!
And speaking of being flexible, let’s not forget the Boring Barn is holding line dance class. I can’t find anything about them, but if they were a federated club maybe I could? Anyway, contact anyone at the Cut-Ups for more info.
As I think about it, it would be a great time to have a flash mob downtown. Of course, we’d still need to practice social distancing - unless we gather after about 8:PM. (grin). And by the time the police made their way to us, we’d all be standing around saying, “Dance? What dance? I don’t see any dance.” Who knows? It might even bless us with free publicity from the overhead helicopter and furnish us with a few recruits for our classes. All we have to do is find a caller who will bring the sound equipment on a bus!
Jim Schira
Our board is the same as last fiscal year, since we never held elections.
Jim
Sooo what’s happening in your area? In our local counties of Clackamas, Marion, Multnomah, Washington and Yamhill, there are no square dances, grange events or other county fairs/events (including the Oregon State Fair) happening right into early September.
In the Square (and Round) dance world: we greet with hugs (or handshakes), we dance holding hands and with other partners to form a circle or square. We could cut out the hugs part, but without contact and voice communication, we cannot dance! Thus Chaps and Petticoats, made the decision to close through August. We shall concentrate our energies on gearing up for square dance classes come mid-September.
In this ‘alternate universe’ time, Maplewood Grange is also closed to rentals (that’s us) until the “lockdown of mass-gatherings” and full-building sterilization policies are lifted, as there is not enough staff to provide (nearly) full-time janitorial cleanliness. On a positive note, however, the lockdown has allowed us to pool our man-power and make much-desired improvements to Maplewood Grange...we hope to share the upgrades with you in the near future...hopefully September.
We are glad to have the OFN as a means of staying in-touch.
Stay healthy,
Betty Chipps
Ron Rasmussen
In the meantime, our new officers will assume their responsibilities in July. We are fortunate to have some terrific people on next year’s board; some of them are new members and some are returning board members. We are looking forward to the fresh ideas and enthusiasm this new board will bring to the club’s activities.
As we move forward, we are grateful for the service many of our board members have provided this year and in previous years. Gil Shoemaker, our past president, was a constant source of new ideas. Tom and Liza Halpenny, our current and past secretary, have kept the club in the twenty first century with their knowledge of computer technology and social platforms. Tom is an amazing secretary who keeps our club information on our web page and on Facebook. He and Liza are also the ones who introduced the board to Zoom which has enabled our meetings to take place. David Whalen, as treasurer, has kept our financial issues in order. This can be a particularly time-consuming activity, and he has devoted considerable time to making sure our finances are in good order.
Beyond our club, special thanks should be given to Jim Schira who is the PAC area editor for the OFN. Jim sends humorous and thoughtful reminders each month, collects the articles, and sends them in to the OFN. A huge thank you also goes to Tim Roberts who is the OFN editor. He does an amazing job of keeping our club news and information available to all dancers. We also appreciate how patient and informative he is when helping technologically challenged contributors with questions about how to get information or pictures correctly sent in for publication. Oregon is truly fortunate to have him at the helm of the OFN.
With people like the aforementioned club officers, council, and state members who contribute so much to our fine activity, there is no doubt that once this COVID -19 is contained, square dancing will be back there for everyone to enjoy.
Jean Tolstrup
Bottom line is we miss you all, hope you remain healthy and we will let you know when we can dance again.
Carol Mendenhall
Because of this virus at home we have stayed
The dance halls are silent where once music played
While six feet apart we just can’t promenade.
It’s been 12 long weeks since we chained down the line,
Or you swung your partner, while I swung mine.
But if you asked, we’d say we’re doing fine
Though not really sitting on cloud nine.
No May graduation, with cake and balloon,
And we canceled our dance in June
We hope in September we can resume,
But can’t say for sure—it’s still far too soon.
So many activities they’ve had to annul
Life without dancing has sure turned out dull
Though once our social calendars were full
We’re now stuck at home, just shooting the bull.
Can’t wait for the day they reopen the halls
And once again they are ringing with calls
In the grand scheme of things, not dancing is small,
But we sure miss hanging and laughing with y’all.
Keep up the hygiene and washing of hands
To check the virus’s spread through our lands
Soon we’ll be back to left allemands
And yellow rocks will be part of our plans.
SYIAS!
Jeff Knapp, President
Hope to be dancing again soon and hope everyone is staying well!! We will be having a Boatnik Meeting soon and finalize flyers for the 2021 Festival with Jet Roberts & Rey (Sherry) Garza.
We hope everyone is doing well and staying safe. We recently learned that the county fair has been canceled, which means we will not be dancing anytime soon. At this point in time it appears it will be Sep. or Oct. before we will get back to dancing. Our Birthday dance is usually in Sep. I guess all we can do is hope that dance happens. There will be lots of things to look at before we make a decision, for example, where to dance, a caller, and what current regulations we will have to look at. I do want to say that when we do have a dance it will be FREE, to all dancers. It will be our way of welcoming all of our friends back. We are being very cautious about when and where to start back. We are watching what other clubs and callers are doing before we jump back into things. Whether a person believes this whole thing is some kind of big scam, political, driven by Politicians, large corporations etc. I personally don't want to be the one in a thousand club or caller that has a dancer become infected with this virus. For me it is hard to grasp how all of this has impacted our life, mainly because it hasn't hit home for me, meaning I don't have any family or friends that have this virus, and most of the cases are hundreds or thousands of miles away. Our group of dancers are very special to us. One had a double lung transplant, one has terminal cancer, one has advanced Parkinson's, another person's back had been broken in two places, two are considered legally deaf. As you can see my group is fragile so being cautious is a priority. Please stay safe, strong, and keep faith that God will guide us and our leaders thru these weird times.
Hope to see you soon
Dean & Sherrie
It is with a heavy heart we announce the Club voted on June 11, 2020 to cancel this year's Diamond Lake Festival. Be assured this decision was not made lightly. We reviewed all the Phase 2 guidance papers, called their hotline and worked out an easy way to square dance without touching.
Under the guidelines, it appears we could have technically held the festival, but realized it would not take much for just a few people to mess us up if they ignored the festival rules. This could potentially result in the Forest Service "pulling" the permit under which the Diamond Lake Resort operates, putting their entire organization at risk. With major concerns over putting the Resort at any risk, concern over the Phase 2 restrictions, and concern over spreading the COVID-19 virus itself, we concluded that we shouldn't hold the Festival this year.
So, let's look forward to next year's Festival and make up for lost time with Ray Brendzy and Christina Corelli.
The Teddy Bear & Alzheimer Benefit Dances are still on hold. We hope to get them scheduled as soon as we can have a dance or two. Stay tuned for more information on these two very worthy causes.
Mary Moody is going to have her "Annual Memorial Day Picnic" on August 16th.
The Stars had a "Game Night" on June 26th. It was very interesting, with social distancing and all. Everyone had a good time anyway. I imagine it was more because they could get out and "socialize" instead of staying home.
You know what, this is getting "OLD" - the canceling or postponing everything.
See you in a square
One of our TVC clubs is exploring the possibility of beginning to gather for Round dance only. Limiting the number of couples to meet guidelines along with keeping the dance circle large to comply with distancing may be a starting point. Like square dancing, round dancing is also a contact sport but with cohabitating couples it should not be a problem.
Please stay safe until we can meet on the dance floor again.
Ferrous Steinka
We are closed until who knows when. We probably will be in the fourth stage of the governor's plan which means into the summer season. As we are dark because of high temperatures in the grange hall, it seems most likely we will start again in September. If things go exceedingly well, however, we could try to dance once or twice before September. Everyone is anxious to get back.
In the meantime, stay healthy!
Nick Johnson
We are still hoping to meet up for our Picnic August 12th at Noble Woods Park. Here we will be outside and even be six feet apart and will bring our individual food and drinks instead of a buffet. A final decision has not yet been made.
When, o when, will we dance again? No one knows but I think we may have to take some remedial lessons by the time we do. I hope the callers will take it easy on us.
While we wait to dance reach out to someone by phone, text, email, or what ever you fancy just to say “How are you?” Help out the postal service by mailing a letter. In the meantime hold out hope to attend planned dances in the future.
We lost two dear long time members in May. Don Layton and Grace Phares. Grace was 99 years young, and was buried in her burgundy and white club outfit.
The following message is for your information when life as we used to know begins again: We dance on most holidays. Even if you have a job, you can join us once in a while. Our three callers keep us on our toes as each week one seems to have some new twist to keep our minds sharp. All plus dancers are invited to dance with us on Monday afternoons, 1:00 p.m. - 3:00, at the Aloha Grange, 3425 SW 185th, Beaverton, 97006. Please check for up to date information at www.EagerBeavers.info.
Rachel Nettleton
At our house we’ve pretty much given up on television sporting events. The cause?
- Everything’s a rerun. The 1975 Rose Bowl was just terrible football. Can you punt?
- On ESPN2 we found the 2020 Canadian Axe throwing championship which was compelling for a while as they were throwing axes in a tavern while drinking adult beverages.
- ESPN2 also offered a rock skipping competition recorded on Mackinac Island, Michigan. The island was scenic, the competitors were plentiful but I couldn’t tell how many skips there were with the waves rolling in. The play-by-play guy was willing to take the word of the judges as you really couldn’t tell.
- But my favorite was the Johnsonville Brat Corn Hole competition. Now the Hoedowners are known for their Turkey Toss Dance each November which uses corn bags and boards. We always have corn hole to play when we have a beach trip so I felt this held more interest and had practical applications. I found out they spin the bags while throwing but EEEGADS professional corn hole bags have a sticky side (suede). It was like finding out footballs and golf balls have GPS. I’ll try to use the experience as an instructional video but I still have to get the bag to the board.
If I’m leaving the house, I don’t worry about what clothes to wear but which mask to bring; black, white, polka dot or floral. On the one hand, time weighs heavy and yet by the time the sun goes down I wonder where the day went. Everyone misses everyone but we’re so happy that the Hoedowners have avoided the virus and remain healthy.
We’ll see it again; haircuts, pedicures, manicures, sitting in a restaurant, joining friends for a cup of coffee or a dinner out, dancing at the Aloha Grange, finger foods at dances, sitting closer than six feet and giving everyone a hug.
The Hoedowners are making summer plans and soon we’ll tell you all about it. Until then keep up the good work.
Krystal Laas
We will keep you updated on calendar changes thru this OFN report as well as our website: www.mixandminglesquares.org
Lindie Noonan
And so, as the rest of you, we wait. Our club will do a reassessment in July. One of the considerations will be the Octoberfest dance. Please watch for that decision as the time for communicating our plans will be short by then.
By the time we dance again we will need a refresher on those more complicated calls. No concern there, Craig does an excellent job of getting us moving around the square.
Blessings to you all, and may you be healthy until we meet again in a square. For current information see: www.r-square-d.info.
Annie Tietze
It will be so wonderful to get back to dancing and yellow rocking all our friends again! Until then, keep safe & rock on.
Kathy Degman
Here’s hoping we all keep following social distancing guidelines so that when reopening happens we stay open and dance again soon.
Gloria Davis
We hope all is well with our fellow dancers and look forward to the time when we can meet once again.
Wishing you the best,
Judy Zimmerman
Carolene Siebert
