At this social event, a Cabaret Night, we made some changes and from all the feedback it was a great success. We did this social event under the name of the Active Aging Hub and not the Toowong Tennis Old Dogs. This does not mean that the Toowong Tennis Old Dogs has changed in any way, it is just that it has become one of the activities offered by the Active Aging Hub.
We had over 55 attend the evening which demonstrated to us that in future we probably should limit the number to 50 for the size of the hall. The atmosphere was great and we had a cross-section of different people attending. We had friends of friends, members of the Spinners and Weavers, and of course members of the Toowong Tennis old Dogs and their partners. The food was much better and was the same caterers we had for our End of Year Celebration, Dux Gutz Catering of Milton.
The Active Aging Hub (AAH) (check out the web page) is the umbrella entity that will offer a number of activities (not just tennis under the Toowong Tennis Old Dogs) but will offer also a number of social interaction events that allow for members to get to know each other but also to importantly to meet new friends. AAH is a community group that wants to ensure that members are physically active by playing various sports or doing certain activities. This has been shown by research as essential in living a longer life. But AAH is also committed to social interaction, such as the Cabaret Night, which has demonstrated the importance to overall well-being.
How are we going to grow the number of activities on offer? Well, we will focus on our members' interests, and from them, they will bring and share their interests with the group. There have been a number of interests already brought to our attention. These include dancing, boat sailing, bushwalking, chair making, weight training, croquet, table tennis and many more possibilities.
But this was a different event because it included a singing act from one of our members, direct from Beverley Hills in California, Mr Dean Martin himself. See the video below. But also we had a professional dance instructor, another member Mr Twinkle Toes himself, Gregory Moodie teach us how to do the progressive Jive, and what fun that was. See the video below.
There is a story behind both those inclusions which are:
Mr Dean Martin (otherwise known as Terry Coman) sadly lost his beloved wife, Shirley, about 6 months ago and at her funeral, he for a heartfelt reason wanted to sing a song to her. But since that time, he has developed a strong interest in singing. This demonstrates to us all what we want to encourage at AAH taking on new interests no matter what age we are. There is still a lot of life to be lived.
"Mr Twinkle Toes" (otherwise known as Gregory Moodie) was a professional dancer and also in his past life was a dance instructor. So we decided that if he could in one dance get people to the floor and show them how to do the Progressive Jive. Now I was a little concerned, knowing how many people have said they are very anxious about getting on the floor to dance. So I said to Gregory, let us not push too hard let's just get 6 pairs on the floor to start it off. Gregory called for volunteers and about 50 people got onto the floor, nearly everyone one. The floor was packed. But Gregory persisted and it was great fun by changing partners we got to meet everyone which was fantastic.
So a very big thank you to all those who attended the evening because it was your involvement that made it a great success. We look forward to holding more Cabaret Nights in the future. So don't miss out on the next one, it will be limited to numbers.
I would like to share an email that I received from Deb and Rod Parker
Rod and I just wanted to say, THANKS SO MUCH for organising the event on Friday night. We both really enjoyed it.
We also wanted to offer our help with any other future event if you need it. We appreciate just how much work goes into something like that!
We also heard a rumour that there might be some dance classes spinning off from this and would love to get some updates.
Very much interested! It was fun.
Yes, there will be dance classes "Dancing with Gregory" coming soon. At this stage on Friday mornings. But more on this soon.
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