Comets tanssikurssit helsinki

Member’s letter 8/2022

News /

Comets turns 30 this year. To celebrate that, the 30th anniversary celebration will be held on Sunday, December 4 in Karjalatalo, Helsinki. Book the day already in your calendar!

The autumn meeting of Comets will be held on November 20, 2022! Come to decide on the club’s important issues and vote on the composition of the board. New members are also needed for the board. If you are interested in working on the board, come to the autumn meeting.

The autumn flu season has begun and we want to remind you that you must not participate in dance classes if you are feeling sick.

Comets Board of 2022
Susanna, Arto, Juha, Kirsi, Milla, Nicklas, Nina, Pertti, Pinja
as well as coaching, finance, marketing and communications and event committees

Contents

  1. Upcoming courses and workshops
  2. Comets 30 years
  3. Comets in competitions
  4. Join the board
  5. The autumn flu season has begun
  6. New Telegram groups of Comets
  7. Why cannot payments be made with culture and sports benefit cards?
  8. GP competitions in Tampere on 12 November
  9. Competition results
  10. Upcoming dance parties
  11. Upcoming competitions
  12. Upcoming coach trainings

1. Upcoming courses and workshops

Several short courses and workshops are starting. Sign up now! If registration has closed, you can ask about free places from the directors of that dance.

You can register for courses even though the myClub user interface may sometimes show that the course is full. The most up-to-date information on whether there is space in the course is written in the name of the course. 

We take registration for leaders and followers from the queue in such a way that the couple balance remains good. Those who register as a couple are accepted from the queue when the last person of the couple has registered. It is always possible to leave the queue at any point. It is no longer possible to cancel once the course place has been confirmed.

2. Comets 30 years

Comets turns 30 this year. To celebrate that, a 30th anniversary celebration will be held on Sunday, December 4 in Karjalatalo, Helsinki. The merry party will start at 4:30 p.m. The program includes teaching in different dance styles, a wonderful party show, fun mix & match competitions for all dances as well as social dancing and being together!

The program team is led by Laura Halttunen (Jazz Factory), who is a long-time partner of Comets as a coach and well-known from entertaining Cabaret-themed evening parties. Laura and the entire team will create an amazing party for you to enjoy as voluntary work for the love of dancing. Reserve the day already in your calendar!

More information and registration for the party will be published later!

3. Comets in competitions

Two new stories have been published in the Comets in competitions series. 

Rockabilly’s first competitors conquered the floor – and the audience!

At the rock and swing dance championships organized at the House of Dance in June we saw as many as four new competition couples from Comets. “It’s surprising how all the dance moves can be forgotten”, reflects Jack on the most important experiences from the competition. “Maybe the best moves were left out, but maybe the joy was passed on to the audience,” says Annukka.

Exciting, of course. After all, it is exciting even for someone with long term experience, but the excitement of a first-timer is comprehensive and full of surprises. The moment before the competition is the culmination of everything new and not yet experienced. “Before going on stage, I was really nervous, but when I was dancing, I felt relieved,” describes Annukka, who competed in rockabilly for the first time.

“It was fun. The dance floor was really sticky, but even that was forgotten in the whirlwind of the rhythm. The songs were ok. However, they are not familiar to me”, reflects Jari.

Read more in the Comets in competitions story series (in Finnish). 

Juho and Ida – “Even though we are a new couple combination, we can convince the judges”

The free practice of Bugg quickly changed to more goal-oriented practice when this couple started dancing together. The dance style changed to boogie woogie and the club changed from Turku to Helsinki because of where they both lived. Get to know Juho and Ida, who will surely be strong contenders in international dance competitions!

“From the first joint international competitions, the World Cup in Zurich, I above all remembered the great feeling of reaching the finals. The general atmosphere was also good and it was wonderful to notice how the audience and other competitors cheered us during our performances”, say the new competition couple of boogie woogie Juho Päivinen and Ida Keränen.

Read more in the Comets in competitions story series (in Finnish). 

4. Join the board

New members are needed for the board of the club every year! Are you interested in joining the board of Comets?

So what does the board of the club do?

There are many types of tasks, from events committee chair to communications chair. There is a suitable role for everyone and the opportunity to utilize their own skills or learn something new.

  • We plan and develop the club’s operations even better.
  • We make the club’s action plan and budget for the coming year.
  • We organize the club’s activities with the help of committees. The committees take care of the club’s finances, organize course activities and events, and inform members about future activities.

Read more about the board and committees.

Apply to join the board at the autumn meeting

If you are interested in joining the board, come to the autumn meeting 20 November 2022!

We also hope that as many club members as possible will come to the autumn meeting for a cup of coffee and to vote on the composition of the board.

Ask the chair of the club susanna.ritala@comets.fi for more information or send a message on Facebook!

Welcome to our top team!

5. The autumn flu season has begun

We remind you that the Code of conduct says the following about getting sick:

“Being sick: We expect that those who feel sick with a flu or another transmittable disease do not participate in dance classes or events.”

So you don’t come to dance class feeling sick. And remember to wash your hands.

6. New Telegram groups of Comets

The Telegram instant messaging program is used for the internal discussion of the club. It can be downloaded for smartphones and computers from the website.

Telegram can also be used directly from web pages. To use Telegram, you need a phone that can receive text messages.

Comets has a few chat groups on Telegram that all club members can join.

7. Why cannot payments be made with culture and sports benefit cards?

The board often receives requests to add culture and sports benefit cards as payment options.

Services that provide these benefit cards as a payment method (Smartum, ePassi, etc.) charge a service fee of 4.5-5.6% of the processed payments. If the club were to introduce benefits cards as payment methods, the extra costs resulting from the fees should be directly added to the course fees of all members.

Moreover, every payment with benefit cards would require manual invoice processing. Payments as such could be received, but myClub, which we use for invoicing, is not yet integrated with the systems of benefit card providers. This means that the benefit card payments would have to be entered manually into myClub. Comets send out thousands of invoices every year. Processing even some of them manually one at a time would be a big effort at Comets, which is run by volunteers.

The board of the club decided that for the time being we will not add benefits cards as payment methods due to the large workload and high costs that result from them.

However, we have sent feedback to myClub, Paytrail and Svea Payment to see if they could add benefits cards as payment methods in the future. Paytrail replied that they are adding benefits cards as a payment method next year. Svea and myClub are not adding benefits cards as a payment method in the near future.

8. GP competitions in Tampere on 12 November

Registration for the next GP competitions is open. Registrations should be made by 28 October 2022!

New competitors, class movers and couple combinations must register no later than 21 October 2022, so that the changes can be registered in time in the competitor register.

In GP competitions, you can compete in the following dance styles: boogie woogie, bugg, lindy hop, rock’n’roll, rock’n’roll formation, fusku and rockabilly.

All partner dances have a D-category intended for new competitors that aims to encourage new dancers to the competition floor. You can start competing when you have completed at least level 2 of that dance style.

More information in the myClub event.

9. Competition results

Ida Keränen & Juho Päivinen and Ida-Loviisa & Aaron Koivunen got bronze in the Boogie Woogie World Cup in Geneva!

Ats Nisov placed third in the intermediate J&J class at the Milan Modern Swing event and thus collected the remaining WSDC points needed to rise to the advanced level!

Congratulations to the competitors!

10. Upcoming dance parties

11. Upcoming competitions

12. Upcoming coach trainings

The Comets club coach can apply for a training permit for STUL and ESLU trainings using this form. 

It is recommended to apply for a training permit no later than 3-4 weeks before the training, so that the coaching committee has time to grant permission for training supported by the club. In general, you must register for STUL’s training no later than two weeks before the training. 

Most of the training events are in Finnish. 

Suomen Tanssiurheiluliitto (STUL)

Etelä-Suomen Liikunta ja Urheilu (ESLU) 

Feedback on this letter to viestinta@comets.fi and general feedback using the feedback form  Anna palautetta Cometsille (google.com) 

Autumn course feedback form: https://forms.gle/sEn8kWv41HrUEJAk8

The activities of our club are to a large extent based on voluntary work and for new active members there is always something to do. If you are interested in being part of developing the club, you can contact a member of the board or indicate your interest here: Tule mukaan Cometsin vapaaehtoiseksi / Become a Comets volunteer (google.com)

Pukinmäenaukio 2
00720 Helsinki

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