Saturday 11th April - Celebrating the International Indian Film Academy Awards (IIFAs)

 With it being the holidays the group was smaller than usual, but we were all focused on celebrating the 15^th IIFAs. 

Before getting into the festivities we had a number of points of action to discuss, these mostly focused on our centenary celebrations, including our food bank donations, random acts of kindness and our upcoming picnic with the ladies from Roundhay WI (see the Centenary page for more details).  Maia provided an update on the Armley Wool Festival which has now be renamed to the Leeds Wool Festival.  We will discuss this more at the next meeting, focusing on the catering elements needed.

Following this it was time to draw the winner of our Denman Bursary.  Maureen (as our first official member) did the honours and I’m very pleased to announce that Val’s name was drawn.  She had a quick perusal of the brochure and will let us know in due time what course she is planning on attending.  Some of us suggested a baking one, hoping that she’d bring back lots of goodies to share. 

Following this we were joined by Chiragi Solanki, who introduced herself and talked about how she became a choreographer and dance teacher.  She currently runs a number or dance classes, along with working in a number of schools, choreographing her own dance troop and being an active member of the Hindu Mandir in Leeds.

After hearing about her many adventures on stage and TV, Chiragi treated us to a performance.  She showcased a number of moves that we were to learn later in the day.  Her performance was fun and energetic; we were all shattered just watching.

Chiragi encouraged us to our feet, decorated us with a bhindi and either a scarf or skirt.  She started by going through a Bollywood routine she uses for keep fit and we certainly warmed up quickly.  This was followed by an even more energetic keep fit routine, which had us limbered up, laughing and ready to start the dance class.

Chiragi was a wonderful teacher - warm, passionate and really funny.  She made us giggle throughout the day and by the end of the session most of us were going in the right direction and able to complete our final performance almost in sequence with one another.

Thank you so much Chiragi.