Happy New Year from the Mods

[Sim]

Dear Members (and lurkers!),

 

I can’t quite believe that we have once again reached that time of year where we look back as well as ahead and thank you all for your amazing contributions to the forum over the past year. 

 

December 23rd marked the 12th anniversary of BalletcoForum, established in response to the outcry over the closing down of the wonderful Ballet.co.uk website.  Bruce Marriott approached a few of the ‘regulars’ from ballet.co and asked us if we would take things forward by overseeing a forum for ballet aficionados.  We all agreed as we, like you, are passionate about ballet and dance, and wanted to share the love with those of the same mindset (and soulset!).  Through these past 12 years, the moderation team has stayed virtually the same as the day it was established. Of the original group of moderators, one left for personal reasons and another, John Mallinson, sadly passed away.  The rest of us have been here since Day One.  However, I am sad to announce that one of our current moderators, Ian MacMillan, is retiring from the forum.  Ian has been an invaluable member of the team, especially when it comes to the Links and to  ensuring that the website is paid for every month, and that company secretarial duties are adhered to.  He has done a lot of work behind the scenes that will continue to ensure the smooth running of this site.  On behalf of all members and the moderation team, I wish Ian a long, stress-free, and happy retirement, and thank him from the bottom of my heart for all his contributions to making the forum such a success.  However, because you can’t keep a good man down, Ian has said that he will still help out from time to time, especially with the Links.  Thank you Ian!  

 

Speaking of moderators, I would like to extend a huge and heartfelt thank you to the whole moderating team for all their hard work and dedication 365 days a year, both on the forum and behind the scenes.   All of us run this forum as volunteers, and we all have jobs and lives outside of it. 

 

As ever, this has been a rollercoaster of a year, but the constancy of our beautiful artform has brought many of us much pleasure and comfort.   We rely on each and every one of our members to comment on performances, news, history, and information.  We particularly welcome and thank those members from outside the UK who regularly report on performances and companies that most of us will never get a chance to see.  May I once again commend the Doing Dance community, a beacon of useful information, help and support for parents and students by parents and students. 

 

I say it every year and I will say it yet again:  the forum is nothing without the contributions from its members, and thanks to all of those who post, it has continued to thrive and be a very lively place throughout the year.   As moderators, we often have to take tough decisions, ones that some people don’t like or agree with.  It is ever thus with any kind of public forum.  Whilst we encourage debate and differences of opinion and views, we discourage rudeness and personal attacks.  Luckily the latter doesn’t happen often and we thank everyone for remembering our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), to which you all agree when you sign up.  I would emphasise yet again that if we hide posts we don’t do it lightly and when we do, we have good reasons for doing so.  I would also like to remind members that a lot goes on behind the scenes that we can’t get into, so again, if we seem to hide things for unfair or incomprehensible reasons, that is never the case.

 

Having said all this, we are as ever very grateful to all of you for maintaining the momentum and liveliness of this forum, and we look forward to more in the coming year.  On behalf of the moderation team, I wish all of you a very peaceful, happy, and healthy 2024, preferably filled with beautiful ballet and dance!

 

Very best wishes,

 

Sim

Chair, BalletcoForum Committee

[CHazell2]

Happy New Year everybody. Hope that 2024 brings you everything that you desire.

[Cayetana]

Thank you so much for steering this wonderful forum!