Judith Proctor's Journal

 I belong a sword dance group and a morris team, as some of you will already know.

I think it will be a while yet before Anonymous Morris resume practice - they're a large team, and not all of them are keen on practicing outdoors.

Southern Star Longsword are in a better place than most.  Three of our members are in the same household, and we have a three man dance, so when the rule of six allowed, we practiced in a cul de sac our socially distanced  musicians were able to play for them.

Then we added Bouffons to our repertoire -a 16th century matachine dance (a form of sword dance) for four  in which the dancers are conveniently 2m apart.

We've booked random local halls when allowed to practice indoors, even resorting to maypole dancing at one point as a way of keeping apart from each other (maypole for four requires creative choreography!)

So, we've been able to practice legally  for a fair part of lockdown.

Now, from Monday, we can practice round the back of our local pub (which we often do in the summer months), and we're thinking about recruiting new members...  We've only got five regular dancers (number 6 is highly vulnerable and wants to continue shielding for now) and two of us have doubled up as musicians during lockdown as our normal musician is also shielding.

We're planning a three fold campaign. We've started on Facebook, and with luck, several new people might come along on Monday to see what we're like.  (I shall hope for two, as more people always express interest than actually follow through)  The local community group has proved a good place to post.  

This is the key photo we're using.

Experience tells me that women will join a team with men, but men are less more likely to join a team that's mostly women.

Rowan's our only bloke, as well as probably being the youngest,, so he gets to be on the publicity.  (The whole team are okay with this - we know the psychology - and besides, he's Squire and his mum and sister are also in the team.)

Also, he looks like he's enjoying himself, and he's holding a sword lock, and it's a good, clear photo.