We
dance the dawn on 1st May every year. For many years this took place inside
Nottingham Castle, but the powers that be later decided that we could
not dance inside the castle. We chose to dance by the nearby statue of
Robin Hood. Dawn is usually at about 5.20 a.m. at that time of year! Our
friends the Greenwood
Step Clog dancers always join us; other morris dancers are welcome
and if we know in advance you may well be invited to breakfast afterwards.
We dance out at Bottesford
every Boxing Day, entertaining the crowds alongside the Bottesford duck
race.
We also, since
Plough Plays are an East Midlands tradition, perform a local Plough
Play at traditional times and elsewhere, including shows each year
at Nottingham Brewhouse Yard Museum (in one of the caves) and at Wollaton
Hall. Plough plays are mumming plays performed traditionally on Plough
Monday (the first Monday after Twelfth Night). We perform the plays
several times around that date, including a pub tour. We also perform
a Mumming Play for the City authorities at Nottingham Castle on St George's
day.
Every few years
we organise a winter solstice concert in Nottingham, at which a variety
of midwinter rituals are observed. The event is overseen by a "Lord
of Misrule" assisted by Father Christmas. At the last performance we
had morris, sword and step clog dancing; Appalachian dancers; Irish
dancers; singing; handbell ringing and a mumming play. Punch and savoury
mince pies are served.
We enjoy singing
traditional English unaccompanied songs, with Ken pitching everything
on the high side.
As well as morris
dancing, we can soon get our rapper sword dancing up to scratch if required.
Each year we nominate
a local charity to receive the majority of our collections; the nominated
charity is currently the Nottinghamshire Hospice.
In
the past we have spent a week in France every four years, not visiting
folk festivals, but running socials in village halls, and performing
in market squares.
We often dance
out with the Greenwood
Step Clog Dancers, since the sides have several family connections.
Several members
play with the Freds Folks Ceilidh
Band.
Our annual feasts
were held towards the end of March. Since the food is organised by Vic,
our professional chef, it is always a gourmet meal. The meal is followed
by singing and general dancing. However, the feast has not run for a
couple of years now, due to lack of visitors.
For Foresters who
wish to print documents, you can download and save a better
version of our logo (41 kbytes), a copy of our
old hand-drawn picture poster by Bob Doucet (171 kbytes), and a
copy of the old logo
poster (53 kbytes). It also seemed worth putting here
our handout and the Mummers play
script, as "PDF" documents, so that anyone can print them.
See our tradition
(constitution) for a formal definition of our club.
See elsewhere details
of the officers of the club.
