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A NOTE FROM THE PRESIDENT
Merry Christmas Dancers,
What a wonderful time of year it is and the joys of celebrating the true meaning of Christmas.
I would like to start by letting all of the members know a couple of things going on in the shag club, beginning with a Board Meeting we had in November that many of you have been asking me about.
For the new members that have recently joined our club, for many years our club met at Signals Lounge in the Crowne Plaza at Shipyard Plantation. It was a very nice, neat, clean place for us to meet and dance. Some complained the dance floor was not large enough, some complained the drink and food prices were too high and some complained of the bad service, but we continued to stay as we did not have many options with a dance floor on Hilton Head.
The first Friday in June, if I am not mistaken, we went to the Crowne Plaza and were informed this would be the last night the Crowne Plaza would have a shag DJ for our club. They stated they were not making enough money and their hotel guests would prefer it not be a local’s bar and they need to cater more to their hotel guest. They decided without any notice to our club after about 15 years of our business it was all over. They wanted a different scene and they were going to have live music by one-man bands starting the next week at 8 PM. John Holstein asked the manager if we could play our own music from 5:00 to 8:00 on Friday’s and still use their facilities to eat, drink and dance. He asked four times and the answer each time was "no, we would like to do something different."
A couple of weeks later after much begging from some of our members they finally said OK you can play your music and dance from 6 to 8, but this did not work out as it was not enough time for us to eat and dance but a couple of times before the live entertainment started warming up about 7:30 and the music was not anything we could dance to. This left us scrambling for places that would be playing shag music and the board trying to find another venue. The Crowne Plaza finally told us they ”could probably” let us come back in September but would have to check their occupancy first to see how many guest would be staying in the hotel. The board took this to mean we did not have any guarantees of coming back and we needed to find a new home.
We looked and tried different places and the only source with a dance floor large enough for our club and for lessons was Remy’s Bar & Grill which had just opened up in their new larger location. They were catering to the young people and had a very large late night crowd with live entertainment that started at 10:00 each night. Well, knowing us more mature shaggers we are usually long gone by 10:00 most of the time so we met with Roy & Becky Prescott, the owners of Remy’s and discussed the option of our club meeting there on Tuesday’s and Friday’s. They opened their arms to us and said they would give the shag club special drink prices all night long and offered us a very nice variety of menus all night long that were way more affordable than the Crowne Plaza Happy Hour prices they offered till 7 PM. Plus Remy’s would pay for a DJ for us on Friday nights.
We took this information back to the board in late July and the Board requested I try one more time to get a 100% guarantee from the Crowne Plaza for dance lessons on Tuesday and Friday nights because the board did not want to have lessons in one place and our Friday night social in another and if we could not get that guarantee we would accept Remy’s offer. I e-mailed the manager at the Crown Plaza and after no response for a week. I called him directly and he stated he was waiting on his occupancy report before he got back to me and he would check it and call me in a couple of days. Four days later he called me and again he said they could “probably” let us come back depending on the occupancy. This was not a 100% guarantee so the board went with Remy’s offer as we needed to be able to have a venue in place by the time lessons started back in September.
We moved to Remy's in August and it appeared that all were enjoying the larger dance floor, good food and reasonable prices and great service. The facility was more conducive to easy interaction among the members. However a minority still longed for the days gone by at the Crowne Plaza and rather than bring their concerns to the board they chose to have meetings with the Crowne Plaza to try to negotiate the club’s return. Then at the November Board Meeting several members that want to return to the Crowne Plaza presented a series of unfounded allegations against the board but had no viable options to offer.
After the meeting I contacted the Crowne Plaza to see if we even had the option to return if the members chose to do so. After not getting any answers or response from the Crowne Plaza I told one of the members that would like to see us back at the Crowne Plaza that it appeared we do not even have the option to return as they had not responded to me at all. At this time he contacted the manager and ask him to respond which he did later that afternoon. He did not give me the answers to my questions which were, how many months of the year would we be allowed to come there on Friday nights, if they would have a Shag DJ year round on Friday nights and what would the food and drink prices be. His answer was simply, they would start a DJ as of Dec. 2nd and they would have Happy Hour from 4 to 7. We still do not know if it will be a shag DJ, if they will choose a different scene during the summer or if the happy hour prices included both food and drinks.
Remy's has agreed to have a DJ every Friday, continue with their same special prices for the club, install a new hard wood dance floor before our Christmas Party and to address some deficiencies in the rest rooms and generally spruce the place up for us.
The current board would like to have your input as to which venue you prefer. Look for communication in regard to this in the near future.
We will elect new officers for the Board on January 10th at our Annual Members Meeting, if you would like to run for a board position please contact us at info@hhishag.com we are always looking for new people to assume position of responsibility who are interested in enhancing the experience of the club in fun and energetic ways.
The Christmas Party is December 6th and December birthday celebration with a cake will be Friday December 9th at Remy's so be sure to come out and help celebrate our members' birthdays.
Ron and I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and we hope to see you on the dance floor during the Holidays!!
Vicki Bruno, President
HILTON HEAD SHAG CLUB LESSON SCHEDULE FOR JANUARY 2012.
Shag lessons will resume on January 10 at Remy's Restaurant on Arrow Road . Depending on attendance, in Basic 1, the schedule will be the same as before.
TIME LESSON INSTRUCTORS
5:45 RBD TBD
6:30 TBD TBD
7:15 TBD TBD
8:00 TBD TBD