2022 Grassroots Instructor of the Year
My name is Mandy Eades and my club is Line Dance with ME. It has been established since April 2019 in venues across the South side of Bath.
I teach one morning and three evening classes per week from absolute beginners to the more advanced level at 3 venues. Two monthly socials, several workshops, charity events, afternoon tea and private events are added to the mix.
I organise FREE monthly socials in the rural areas for the community. Top international choreographers are invited to teach their latest dances at my workshops and some evening socials are held with country music performing artiste. I welcome bookings for private events, festivals and birthdays. Afternoon tea and Christmas parties are always on my event list.
I started to choreograph dances for my dancers when I couldn’t find dances to suit their needs and to enable them to learn certain steps. HERE WITH ME and I AM GiANT were amongst my others. My most popular one is BRAVE in 2020 and is danced around the world. It has been nominated for an Award for Best Beginner Dance by UK Line Dance Awards twice.
I have been awarded UK Line Dance Grassroot Instructor of the Year 2022 and looking forward to making my debut workshop at the first live UK Line Dance Awards ‘Bournemouth’ Weekend in February 2024.
I love attending national line dance workshops and regularly collaborate with other line dance instructors to learn new dances and styles.
Join me with a group of friends in one of my regular classes or book private lessons. I am always happy to welcome new members to the group. Drop in and see me– I would love to meet you!
A bit about my journey and how did I get to become a Line Dance Instructor? In my early 20’s I settled down, bought a house, married my husband and have 2 wonderful children. Whilst raising my family, I enrolled onto a couple of creative evening courses, one in preparing working designs in fashion skills and later upholstering and soft furnishing skills. I love everything about making my own clothes, upholstering my own furniture and making soft furnishings. I thought this was my destiny but in my 30’s technology was becoming more and more a part of the future, especially for my children. I didn’t want to get left behind in the world of computers so I retrained. I studied hard passing ICT, Business & Administration, a PGCE degree in teaching (Cert Ed) and another degree in Management Studies. My career was now set for the next 19 years as a teacher within Further Education Colleges and an Education Manager in Offender Learning, where I managed a curriculum, a small team of lecturers and taught ICT & Business up to A Level.
I joined a BATH line dance class in my 40’s with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. The great thing about it is that anybody can do it and I didn’t need a partner (although it’s always such a laugh to take family or friends with you). I have had so much fun and laughter, got out of the house, met people, socialised, kept my health and mental wellbeing topped up and made loads of friends and memories with everyone.
I enjoyed it so much I started to concentrate on the new modern line dancing experience. I loved line dancing so much I decided I would like to start teaching people dance. My sister in law and I became fully qualified Line Dance Instructors with BWDA and travelled our journey together with loads of fun and laughter from April 2015 until we parted amicably in March 2019. On Monday 8 April 2019 my new line dance club was born LINE DANCE WITH ME and as they say the rest is history.
Choreography