About the Thursday dance's move to Springstep

We have known for about 8 months that the City of Cambridge has reached an agreement with our current home, the Mt. Auburn VFW, to purchase the VFW for the site of their West Cambridge Youth Center. Since that time, we have been scouring the area looking for a place to move our dance. The VFW combines a large number of desirable characteristics, which not only has made it a fine home for contra dancing for one quarter century, but makes it hard to replace.

Several months ago, we contacted Springstep Center (www.springstep.org) as an attractive and interesting facility. One of the primary goals of Springstep is to promote social dancing, and our problem fit nicely into what they were interested in offering at the facility.

Springstep has three halls. We will be using the largest hall, on the top floor. It is not quite the square footage of the VFW. While the size will accommodate our typical crowd these days, the hall will be just too small for us to book some of the events that have proved to be more popular. In my mind, this is the primary drawback of Springstep.

On the other hand, Springstep is much easier to find than the VFW, and public transportation is a block or so away. Parking is right across the street. The floor is beautiful and level, the hall is air conditioned, and most importantly, we are eagerly welcomed and not just tolerated.

We will be setting up a webpage with transportation information.

Some dancers from the contra, tango, and swing groups that currently are at the VFW are encouraging the Cambridge government to preserve the function hall in their renovation plans. Even if the hall is preserved, there is no guarantee that the city will offer the hall to dance groups on favorable terms.

As always, the most important part of our dance is you, and the support that you have given us. We look forward to your continued support whereever circumstances find us.

-- Dan Pearl, Chair, Thursday Night Dance Committee of NEFFA

New England Folk Festival Association