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| 13 May 2008, at 2.59 pm | Sign In or become a Member to use the Guestbook, Results Exchange or Chatroom |

Welcome, Guest ...
... to the Friends of McGahan Lees Irish Dance Academy website. This site is intended for Irish dancers all over the world -- from pre-feis beginners to world championship contenders. Family and friends of dancers and anyone thinking of starting Irish dancing lessons should also find it of great interest -- especially the beginners area. Clicking pictures will often produce a larger version, and there are links to the rest of the site on the right -- have a good look round! We have a friendly and growing community from all over the world -- over 2000 members at last count! Register to use our monitored Chatroom, Guestbook and Results Exchange. You might also like to join our mailing list (see top right of every page) to receive news of Irish dancing events as we receive it.
2nd May 2008: Huge congratulations from everyone to Frances' sister, Debbie, and husband Mike on the birth of their second baby, Oliver -- a new brother for Sean!
	Senior Ladies World Champion, 2008! Oireachtas Rince Na Cruinne Here's a lovely shot of Cecily Charlton, Senior Ladies World Champion, 2008, with a few of her classmates, following her presentation. We could ramble on about Cecily's dedication to dancing, warm heart and generosity to her fellow dancers, but suffice to say this was a very popular result and brought a huge amount of pleasure to the whole school and many friends in Irish dancing. All World championships are special but, with Cecily having been at the McGahan Lees Academy from the very beginning, this result was perhaps a little bit extra special to Frances (and Guy) too. Brilliant! [Thanks to Noreen for this photo!]
Open Feis Results! Thanks to everyone who came to our Open Feis this year. The full championship results packs are now available by clicking the link below. Click here!
Turner West Charity CD! Many of you connected with Irish dancing will know Barry Owen and Turner West, who have a charity CD out for Xmas (release date 15th November) -- every copy bought sends a donation to Sue Ryder Care, which specialises in palliative, neurological and home care. To hear the CD, to buy it on iTunes or to gift it to a friend electronically, click here.

Class Change: Tuesday Nights

Please note that Tuesday night classes are now held from 5.00-7.00 pm at Reynolds Health Club, Bexley (click here for details).

The classes are held in one of their studios, with Harlequin flooring, mirrors and bars.

The Harp

As you may know, Midland dancer Leanne Nelson writes a page for The Harp newspaper, reviewing recent feiseanna. Leanne has asked if we would host the PDF she receives as a proof, and we're very happy to do so. You can read* Leanne's page from each issue by clicking the links below.

[* You will need Acrobat Reader, of course!]

Dean Crouch

Details of the Top Box CD from World Champion Dean Crouch

Click here for details.

Anthony Davis

For those of you looking for a great present for an Irish dancer, how about a fabulous CD from Anthony Davis?

Click here for details.

Donations

The site is funded by the McGL parents association, but is run for the benefit of Irish dancers everywhere. If you find the information and facilities useful and can afford to make a small donation towards running costs, please see our donations page. Every little helps to keep us going!

Membership and Mailing List

There is some confusion about the difference between becoming a McGL website member, and joining the mailing list. See our new explanatory page for details, and our privacy policy.

Postcodes

A small but heartfelt plea to those organising competitions: please include the full address and postcode of the venue on your syllabus, flyer, etc. Most of us rely on online maps to locate the venue, and it can be very difficult to find the right place without accurate information.

Feis Information

You will find details of forthcoming events on our download page (see link in right-hand column). This usually includes information about major competitions, and whatever 'local' events we can get information about.

We're very glad to make information available as a service to our visitors -- whether it's a major competition or a small feis in the far corners of the world. If you're an organiser, a parent or a dancer who has information about a feis, please email details to webmaster@mcgahanlees.com or mail to McGL Webmaster, c/o 360 Ongar Road, Brentwood, CM15 9JH, England and we'll do the rest, free of charge.

Results

After your feis, if you have results in some sort of computer readable format -- HTML, Acrobat PDF, Excel, Word, etc. -- we're also happy to display them or link to them on your own website. Again, completely free of charge.

Dress-buying Scam

Advertisers selling items on the Internet are frequently contacted by people operating a scam. The enquiries sent in the past have been fairly easy to spot. They are written in very poor English and are very general about the item in question. The fraudster will try to get you to move very quickly. They usually offer to pay many times the value of the item (often thousands of Pounds, Euro or Dollars), and will request you to pay the balance to a 'colleague' of theirs. They often say that they will arrange shipping to save you trouble. The general idea is that you send a personal cheque to their 'colleague', which they hope to cash before you realise that the 'secure' bank draft they sent you is worthless.

Before you send any information about yourself, be satisfied that the enquiry seems genuine. Has the enquirer asked the questions that you would want answered before handing over the money for a new dress? Any parent or dancer will know certain things about Irish dancing, so maybe send a reply asking some general (ie, not personal) questions about the enquirer (dance school, location, TCRG's name, dancer's grade?) These should be easy for any genuine buyer to answer, and their replies can be checked if you aren't happy. Genuine enquirers will understand your need for caution and should not be offended. The fraudsters usually ignore such questions, so if you are not satisified with the replies you get, simply ignore further messages or contact your local police.

Remember the best defence against being conned: "If it seems too much of a good thing, it probably is."

ID in Alaska

Do you sometimes find it hard to drag yourself out to dance classes -- maybe on dark winter nights or when the weather is bad? Well, if so, spare a thought for our friends in Alaska. If you'd like to see what real dedication to Irish dancing is like, read this!

Viruses, Worms and Spam

Please read our notes on viruses, worms, spam and what you can (and can't) do about them.