Hurricane Helene Impact
Including Fall Ball Cancellation
On Sunday, 29 September, a special emergency Zoom meeting of the TFOOTD board was convened to discuss the situation following the resulting damage from Hurricane Helene’s recent transit through the Tampa Bay area. Over the weekend, a group of volunteers, including several from our dance community, worked to clean up the flood damage at the Polish American Society. After soaking up the standing water and disassembling part of the dance floor, it was determined that the existing floor is damaged beyond repair. Replacing the floor is currently not under consideration by PAS, so that facility will no longer be available for contra dancing.
Consequently, the October 12th contra dance at PAS is simply cancelled. Also, as much as it saddens the TFOOTD board and Fall Ball dance committee, since an alternate venue has not been able to be secured in the short timeframe available, Fall Ball has now been cancelled as well. All those who had previously registered for Fall Ball have been personally notified and the process of refunding fees has begun. Our Fall Ball publicity and registration capabilities have now been removed from the website.
We are aware of significant flooding and structural damage to the Gulfport Casino as well. However, at the current time we are unaware of their status regarding future availability of their facilities and how it may impact our upcoming dances there. Again, we’ll keep you informed as soon as we know more.
News
Our next regular TFOOTD contra dance, if possible (though at this point we are not optimistic), will be Sunday, Oct 27th at the Gulfport Casino. Beginner instructions start at 3:30pm, with experienced dancers encouraged to help during that brief introductory period. The dancing then continues until 7:00pm, with additional instructions given as needed for moves that may be less familiar to newer folks. We will update the schedule as we learn more from the Casino personnel.
Snow Ball 2025 Registration Heads Up!
Snow Ball 2025 is scheduled to take place the weekend of 24-26 January, 2025 at the Gulfport Casino. The currently planned date for Snow Ball 2025 registration to open up will be Saturday, 26 October. That date, however, will now depend on the status of the Gulfport Casino’s plans by that point in time. In the meantime, watch this space for further announcements about Snow Ball prior to the opening of registration. The Snow Ball dance committee will also be sending email messages to all those who have danced with us before and are on our general distribution list.
Credit Card Payments for TFOOTD Dances
During the 2024 Snow Ball registration process we debuted the option for PayPal or credit/debit cards as a means of paying for that dance weekend. This option, along with Zelle peer-to-peer payments, is now available for our walk-in dances at other venues we may schedule going forward.
Please note that for on-site payments of the monthly dances, we do add a one dollar convenience fee in addition to the ten dollar admission, since this covers the payment processing fee that we incur for those. For multiple admissions (like a couple paying together), however, there is only a twenty cents fee for each additional dancer on that payment. Just as a reminder, dances at the Gulfport Casino are actually handled by the Casino staff, and they have their own system for accepting electronic payments.
Questions?
For any questions about contra dancing in the Tampa Bay area, feel free to reach out to our board or any of the individual members as noted in the Contact Us footer section below.
For any questions or issues with this website, please contact us at webmaster@tampabaycontra.com.