Teachers ' Association (Canada

John Middleton reports on the celebrations and gives an insight into this remarkable organisation.

The 50th Annual General Meeting of the Teachers ’ Association (Canada), TAC, was held at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, on Saturday, August 9th, 2008. TAC members representing all parts of Canada and the USA; Australia; England; Japan; New Zealand and Scotland attended the meeting. One of the “founding members ” , the TAC’ s Membership Secretary, June Shore, was in attendance. The AGM was an integral part of the TAC Teachers ' Weekend, which gave ample opportunity for the 145 participants to celebrate TAC’ s 50th birthday; to renew acquaintances; and to hone their dancing skills. The Weekend started with a Welcome Dance to the music of Muriel Johnstone. The class on Saturday, taught by Ruth Jappy, centred on various dances from MissMilligan ’ sMiscellany. The AGM followed in the afternoon and then there was the celebratory Dinner and Ball with music supplied by the inimitable Bobby Brown and the Scottish Accent. TAC was the first association that concerned itself with the needs of Scottish country dance teachers. From the original 13 “founding members ” it has grown to become an Association with members from around the world. At one point, we attained a membership of 800! Early in 1957, the idea for a Teachers ’ Association originated at a meeting of the very few Scottish country dance teachers from the Southern Ontario region. These teachers were a very close-knit group with a tremendous enthusiasm for all that was best in Scottish country dancing and a real desire to maintain the ideals and expectations of the RSCDS. Being far from headquarters, and with instant communication being a thing of the fairly distant future, it was felt that it would be of advantage to the teachers in the area to form an organization that would provide a forum where problems of consistency of style, of teaching, and of performance could be discussed. As it happened, Miss Milligan was in North America at the time - her first North American tour - and while she was in Toronto, Bill Clark of the Hamilton Branch Former TACChairmen line up at the celebratory weekend.

approached her with the idea that such an association be formed. Miss Milligan thought that it was a wonderful idea and, on April 13th, 1958, 13 Scottish country dance teachers from the Hamilton-Toronto corridor met to form the organization which ultimately became the Teachers ’Association of Canada. As the years have passed, the TAC has grown greatly in numbers. As the membership has increased, new and welcome ideas for furthering the organization have been proposed. According to demand, new TAC activities have been put in place. Any new feature, however, always has to hark back to the roots of the association: providing assistance to teachers of Scottish country dancing so that each one of them can continue to maintain the traditions of excellence of the RSCDS. The first TAC Weekend for teachers of Scottish country dancing was held in 1963. Each Weekend since that time has had a different focus depending on the featured teacher and, often, whether a new RSCDS book had been introduced at St. Andrew ’ s. The first TAC Summer School was held in 1973. For the first many years it was held at venues in Southern Ontario but, more recently, TAC has been delighted to be able to move Summer School between the West Coast and Ontario. The AGM is now usually held in conjunction with Summer School. Other TAC initiatives over the years have included TACNotes which provides help in how a dance should be interpreted; TACTalk – the quarterly journal of the association; the operation of Candidate Courses – both at Summer School and during the North American Examination Tour; TACSound –making a wide variety of SCD music available to the Scottish country dance fraternity; TACBooks – the print resource division; the Outreach division which provides partial funding within certain guidelines for groups running weekend schools or workshops of various types; and, most recently,TAC Forum which provides an opportunity for discussion on the Website. The area which makes TAC most happy, however, is that of Scholarships. Over the years, 2 Scholarship Funds have been set up: the Jubilee Scholarship Fund and the Bob Blackie Scholarship Fund. The interest from the first provides scholarships to Teacher Candidates attending Teacher Training at TAC Summer School (this year, we were able to provide some assistance to 8 candidates). The interest from the second Fund provides a full scholarship to attend TAC Summer School to a dancer who meets the set criteria. It is hoped that, before long, the interest from this fund will be able to provide 2 scholarships! Since its humble beginnings, TAC has come a long way. I believe that I can finish in no better way than to quote TAC’ s immediate past Chairman, Ian Souter, in his introduction to TACTalk’ s 50th Anniversary Edition: “The Teachers ’ Association of Canada was born of their [the founding members] love for our favourite pastime. Now, fifty years later, the values, goals and traditions that our founding members set up are still in force, are top priority, and are carried out on a daily basis. "