With a Little Help
from Our Friends
Jefferson County Swing Dance Club is the smallest dance club in the St. Louis area. However, even a small dance club can have a successful party with a little help from our friends.
We have had an annual Mardi Gras dance for the past 17 years. Some have been good and some have been not so good, but we always enjoyed them. With so many dance clubs in the St. Louis area it is difficult to find a Saturday night when there is not another club having a dance. We found ourselves in the unfortunate postion of being in conflict with our sister club, Southside Imperial Dance Club.
Our solution was to ask our sister club if they would like to co-sponsor the dance with us. They would share in half of the expenses, half of the profits and all of the fun. They immediately agreed, and so we got together and worked out all the details for putting on the dance.
Needless to say, the cooperative event was a rousing success. We sold out and unfortunately had to turn people away (a first for us). We had a group of 10 come from Chicago and were able to take them to two dances on Friday night, including our newest West Coast Swing club, the St. Louis Rebels. As a matter of fact, when we sent our guests back to Chicago, they were exhausted but vowed to be back next year.
St. Louis has the distinction of having 7 dance clubs, some are big and some are small. The one thing that makes us special is that we try to be supportive of all the clubs and make them a success. We consider our club’s events to be social get togethers not competition.
More about our Mardi Gras. Like I said, we had a group from Chicago and our DJs were Tom and Edie Polzin from Memphis, and we had members from all of the St. Louis clubs in attendance. We had all the right ingredients too. A good dance floor, great music, good food and most importantly of all GREAT FRIENDS.
The date for our Mardi Gras next year is February 23, 2008. So if you want to get out of town, are sick of winter and want to make some new friends or meet some old ones, think about coming to St. Louis. We would be happy to make you welcome.
