Midwest Swing
Dance Federation Picnic
Saint Louis, MO — May 6, 2007
The Midwest Swing Dance Federation held its annual picnic this year with a special twist. With over 365 dancers attending from all over the area, everyone had a complete bar-b-que dinner, with all drinks included, 6 hours of dancing, games, prizes, kids activities…….all for $5.00 admission.
“Each year the MSDF holds an annual picnic to give back to all the dancers in the area” stated Bud Waters, Vice President of the MSDF and picnic chairman. Every year a different Federation club hosts the event and this year it was the West County Swing Dance Club’s turn. The St. Louis area is blessed with seven active dance clubs, so you can dance about every night here and we wanted all the clubs to support the event. The picnic was special because we enlisted the help of every club in the area. We knew we were going to have a great turn out because the clubs sold over 400 tickets in advance.”
Each club took on a part of the picnic and dozens showed up to help with parking, activities, food preparation, set up, clean up, and several other important activities that made the event such a success. We ran out of nothing and everyone was fed in record time.
One or two Deejays from each club took an hour and played their best dance music to the packed dance floor at the Concord Farmers Club. The Blind Jack n’ Jill was so popular we had to run two sets to get them all on the floor. ABA President, Gary Chaney was on hand to award a free cruise for two people on the next ABA Cruisin’ on the High Seas Mexican Riviera Cruise in early 2008. Nearly $400.00 was given away to one lucky winner of the 50/50 split the pot drawing along with several other great prizes including a color television.
MSDF President and Jefferson County Imperial Swing Dance Club President Tony Griemel officiated and we had a chance to have all seven club Presidents together for a photo. The day was packed with special moments including West County’s own Alex Foerster (Who bar-b-qued from 8:00 AM until 3:00PM) winning the ABA Cruise.
With rain nearly every day up to the event, the dancing gods smiled upon us and gave us beautiful weather. Everyone seemed to have a great time and didn’t want the day to end. The big question at the picnic…..What are we going to do next year to top this year’s event?....... We’ll see…………….
