Once again Thanks to all of the WCS community support especially across Florida, our FloorPlay New Years Swing Vacation Event 2008-09 was a terrific success! This was Floorplay’s 9th WCS event overall and although not the largest ever we still had a very smooth, fun filled time attended overall by 515 eager, friendly dancers with 460 (including staff) for New Years Eve alone. I never see reason to have to inflate the numbers (like some events do), nor ‘sugar-coat’ any problems that inevitably occur during the course of any event in order to claim success.

The FloorPlay Events work because of the overall dance community’s support, our very capable staff, and most importantly because they are geared toward maximum Open Dance time and not Competitions. Yes we conduct a few and had about 105 total participants which helps add to the ‘show’, but this is, and always will be a ‘Party’ event with a premium on everybody dancing and having fun. Total time dedicated to competition and awards amounted once again to only about 5 hours. That’s it. And a good portion (3 hrs.) of that was in the afternoon and not ‘prime time’ evening dancing.

Our DJ’s play a nice variety of WCS music as well as other dances that makes for a great mix and the Pro dance staff all conducted a very good variety of workshops as well and were very well attended.

This year we were joined by some of the top Pros in the country who came over from the Worlds country event to put on a great Pro Exhibition for our New Years Eve entertainment. Thank yous to Robert & Nicola Royston, Christopher Hussey & Katrina Branson, Jason Barnes & Erica Berg and Ben Morris & Melina Ramirez for joining our own headliners – Michael Kielbasa, Jen Deluca and Sam & Lisa West in putting on a nice show, and the latter for their very well attended and received workshops and working along with Trish Berlanga in judging some very closely contested competitions. Thank you also to Jesse Benedetti & Kimilee Piedad for their ‘sensual’ performance as the ‘climax’ of our show on New Years and for their workshops in Cha Cha and Salsa/Mambo respectively which were also well attended and very well received.

April Prince and Earl Yeomans for their terrific DJ work, great mix of music and competition music.

A Special Thanks to Ms. Jeannie Tucker whose class, professionalism, talent and help with schedule coordination keeps things running smoothly and is consistently valuable to our success. She stayed out for the last 3 hours of dancing Saturday and was dancing every night during the event with the attendees. You rarely see that among the ‘Top’ Professionals and is to be commended.

The problems? Very few this year. Being back at the Rosen Plaza took care of many encountered last year. The New Years Eve dinner was tremendous and they even allowed us to have the pizza party inside due to some cool weather.

And, as always we provided a bottle of Champagne on every table for the midnight celebration.

We had a major problem the first afternoon of competition when the computer set up for the comp music suddenly had its
sound card stop working within a few minutes of the start and then Jeannie’s headset stopped working. These caused an
almost ½ hour delay in starting the contest which then pushed it into workshop time. Other than that we ran pretty smooth and on time. And yes there was still the occasional mix-up in seating. Every year we try and will continue to fix any
problems we can to make your event experience as pleasant as possible.

I would advise those who wish to secure a table to do so early this year. Several already have. With our planned expanded advertising coverage, enhanced program and upgraded online websites we expect a continued growth in attendance. Almost all events had experienced a drop in attendance this past year due primarily to the economic problems but most hope, and expect things to get much better as 2009 unfolds.

And a Salute to Ron Mathis whose tragic passing just before Christmas will be long felt and who will never be forgotten as long as there are dancefloors and smiling faces using them. His and Cherry Taylors Master Dancefloor was, as always, a delight to dance on and we are happy to hear Cherry will continue his legacy for us all to enjoy.

Thank you one and all for your support and helping maintain our reputation as
the ‘Friendliest Club and WCS Event’ on the circuit.

And a final HUGE Thank you to our staff below whose tireless, all important contributions to the Event make it all possible:

Kevin McDeed – simply cant say enough…he’s irreplaceable…I (especially), the Club and the dance community in general owe him a great deal of gratitude…the great music, sound system, video screen, he even added the Laser light system, always terrific DJ work, coordination and numerous other contributions along the way…our yearlong FloorPlay club DJ. And Thanks to you the audience for helping him with his daughters video Happy Birthday.

Bill & Julie Galbraith – running the front desk (probably the most difficult job of any event), ‘covering’ for my mix-ups, and coordinating the efforts of our other terrific volunteers who worked so hard…Amy Palmer, Janie Morningstar, Ginger Rosacia and Denise Kirsop. All of whom helped with many other things also.

Ed Sullivan & Nora Batts – taking care of Security, workshops and seeing to it everyone who entered the Ballroom felt welcomed and comfortable.

Diane Scott – who has been on staff since the beginning in many capacities and fills in anywhere needed to keep things running smooth…and me out of as much trouble as possible.

Bill Bray – a new staff member from the Daytona area who has helped greatly on our cruise as well as the event.

I’m sure there are several others who volunteered some of their time to help each ‘station’ and to each I say Thank you and sorry for not having all of your names to mention.

*** Next year as mentioned we return to the beautiful Rosen Plaza and will begin the Event again on New Years Eve (thursday) and continue thru Saturday Jan. 2nd. We have lots of ideas on how to add to the event experience to keep it fresh and ‘unpredictable’.

HOPE YOU’LL JOIN US!

Thank You All

Sincerely,

Mark Traynor

www.floorplayswing.com