strathspey@strathspey.org:45722

Sue Willdig and Roger Picken

Re: "That hardest of contact sports, Scottish country dancing!"

July 4, 2006, 2:22 a.m. (Message 45722, in reply to message 45706)

I think I can enlighten Strathspeyers about the allusion, in a Portuguese
newspaper, to SCD as "that hardest of contact sports"! One of Portugal's SCD
groups is part of a Sports Club and for several years the Club has held an
annual charity event in which the idea is that the (ad hoc) competing teams
have to do a whole range of sports, including those they know nothing
about....... One year my wife got fed up with the usual situation of the
dancers' simply being asked to sell ice-creams or run the bouncy castle
(because no-one considered SCD a sport) so she devised a way of including it
amongst the other sports...... basically two teams at a time are taught a
simple dance (like Dunnet Head) during each "match" and the winner is the
team which performs it best......The new "sport" turned out to be a really
popular inclusion in "Multi-Sports Day" (aka "Fun and Games Day") as well as
a source of many good-humoured jokes, like the one in the newspaper .......
Everyone generally has a great time and of course it helps creates interest
in SCD amongst a prime target group - young people!

Roger Picken (Pinhal Novo, Portugal)

Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2006 09:51:33 -0400
From: Eric Clyde <xxxxxx@xxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: "That hardest of contact sports, Scottish country dancing!"
To: SCD news and discussion <xxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Message-ID: <xxxxxxxx.xxxxxxx@xxxxxx.xxx>
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I just came across the following reference in Google.  Apparently the
latest issue of Portugal News has an article where the following
statement appears:

Portugal News - Lagoa,Algarve,Portugal
... in football, field hockey, touch rugby, lacrosse, basketball,
volleyball and last but not least, that hardest of contact sports,
Scottish country dancing! ...
**
I don't have a subscription, so can't check it out, but thought you
might be interested!

Eric Clyde
Ottawa Branch