Toronto Youth Committee

The Youth Committee of RSCDS Toronto planned to run some young adult classes to start at the beginning of January 2022.   The plan was to offer 10 or 12 classes leading up to the local Spring Fling on April 9, 2022.  Of course, the fifth Omicron wave messed with those plans, public health guidelines did not want people meeting inside. However, we were finally able to start classes on March 3rd.   Ron Macnaughton, our marketing director has some great ideas on how to use social media to advertise the classes.   Adverts were placed on Facebook, Meet Up and Instagram as well as in the Ryesrson University magazine.   We had started classes for “Millennials” in January 2019, hoping to increase the number of local young adults we had dancing at the Spring Fling 2020 which was, of course, cancelled due to the pandemic.   Erica De Gannes, our class co-ordinator emailed all the participants that had started the “Millennial” classes prior to the pandemic to see if any of those dancers were keen to come back  

When the first night arrived, we had 12 dancers join us for class   Some were brand new to dancing, others had a little experience from the millennial classes, some danced as kids and were happy to find a group of young adults to join and some were experienced young adults that currently dance in the Toronto community. Definitely a great mix! The energy on the dance floor was fabulous.  At about the 3rd or 4th class, during a short break I looked around the room and everyone was in small groups chatting away happily and not with the people they came with - it was so good to see.   Week 5, Erica organized a pub night and 11 young adults dropped in at the pub for a drink on the way home!

The mix of abilities on the dance floor made the tall order of getting through 12 dances on the Spring Fling programme in 6 weeks a much easier and pleasurable task.   The new dancers caught on fast.  Those who danced as kids found it was like riding a bicycle and that there were many brain pathways still there that just needed awakening.  The experienced dancers were always there with a helping hand or nod!

11 of the regular young adult class dancers attended the Spring Fling and it looked like they had a blast.  Everyone is keen to continue and so we are offering a few more classes after Easter to prepare for our Toronto Branch Dance and Dancing in the Park events on 14 May. Spring Fling Toronto 2023 (reinvented from the cancelled event of 2020) is already on the horizon and we will keep these classes going, always encouraging new dancers to join as we go.  

The Toronto Youth Committee would like to thank RSCDS Youth Services Committee for the grant that helped us to run the young adult classes and the Spring Fling event and would also like to thank RSCDS Toronto for their support.