Community Stories April 2011

Purestar dance success

Sunday 13th March was the day a great event came to Oban; Purestar Productions Dance company owner Tim Noble and one of his dancers Karlito Grey came to town! They had travelled from Southampton the day before and were slowed up slightly by the snow, but arrived on Sunday morning in good time.

They were greeted by 60 eager dancers, most were from Oban and a group from Dunoon; Joanne McGeachy School of dance and also, Rhiannon waving the flag for Lochgilphead.

The day started promptly at 10am with Tim teaching Commercial dance and telling of the industry secrets to success and also humouring everyone participating and parents watching.

Then Karlito took over ( a Brazilian free style, break dancer with his own company Karlito dance ltd in Clydebank) teaching capoeira, hip hop and break dancing, which was well received by our boys, Matthew Houston, Jack Fletcher and Brandon Kinvig who celebrated his 9th Birthday that day!

After lunch, the dancers were keen to know of Tim's dance back ground and all was quiet as he reamed off stories about Kylie Minogue, Madonna and Gwen Stefani to name a few! But the children were especially pleased to hear that "JLS are nice boys".

Back in to dancing again and there was lots to learn and some of the routines were quick paced but the children and adults all handled it well and embraced the whole day! 4pm soon came around and the parents, friends and family arrived to see the dancers perform their dances and stunts they had picked up throughout the day and all left very happy and the participants were shattered! £35 with a world renowned and impressive dance choreographer to our area of Argyll and Bute is well worth the money. And with the promise of his return next year we hope to have more people taking part, resulting in more Purestar dancers coming to our area!! Larni Wright (a dance and fitness instructor in Atlantis Leisure) took great satisfaction and pleasure out of organising the event and looks forward to planning the next one!

Rugby success story

Photo - coutesy of the Oban Times

Donna Smith and Jen Maclennan

Donna Smith has been playing for Oban Lorn Ladies for 4 years and Jen Maclennan has played 2 years.
We attended a talent identification day at Cartha Queens Park, Glasgow. Scottish Rugby was offering players from all clubs in Scotland the opportunity to compete in a Senior Regional Programme. We were both spotted and selected to try for Scotland's West Regional Ladies Squad, which consisted of three one-day training sessions and games. We competed against each other giving us the opportunity to widen our participation from club games and develop basic core skills. We went through the selection processes and were narrowed down from 80 girls and picked to play along side the other 30 girls chosen.

It is a lot of commitment as we have to travel for training at least once a week, which is mainly based in Glasgow, plus travel for games which can be played anywhere in the Scotland. It is a great opportunity, as the next stage from here would be to get selected for the Ladies Scotland Team.

We wouldn't have got this far without our fantastic coach Andy MacDougall and having such a well established club and team, who have given us the greatest support. We're looking forward to celebrating the end of our season with Oban Lorn Ladies with a beach rugby tournament at the end of April in Majorca. GREEN ARMY!

Both Donna and Jen are Atlantis leisure employees. Atlantis leisure are very proud of both girls and show support by arranging the girls shifts around their training.

Well done girls!!