Grand Union Dance Weekend
Welcome to the embryonic website for the Grand Union Dance Weekend, formerly known as the Southam Gathering.
We are delighted to tell you that lots has happened in the background since August. Thank you to everyone who stepped forward to help and also to all those who made suggestions for new venues. After one false start we can now reveal that 2026 will take place in Barford. This is a village just south of Warwick, only a few miles from Southam. The village is a lovely place with a well-stocked shop, a pub with restaurant and a park amongst its amenities. We have bookings at the Youth & Community Centre, the Memorial Hall and the Primary School, which are in easy walking distance of each other past the park and allotments.
We have also settled on a new name for the event, now we are no longer in Southam. The Grand Union Dance Weekend (GUD weekend) will take place from Friday 28th – Monday 31st August 2026. We are working on a logo to go with the name. There will be a new website address and email address coming along too.
Many things will stay the same as they have been at Southam. We have a programme of top callers and bands coming together to challenge and delight you. More details soon. There will be sandwiches available to book. You will be expected to sign up for a stewarding or tea/coffee duty!
Other things are changing. We intend to have an online booking system for 2026 – more information once we are ready to open bookings.
One small change that we are making to the event is that we are explicitly dropping the exclusivity implicit in the “invitation only” label. Practically speaking the invitation has gone to anyone who has asked to join for a few years but the perception of exclusivity has lingered. Consequently numbers have been gradually falling but there are plenty of dancers out there who would both enjoy and enhance the event if they came. Some of them may have been put off previously. If you know of dancers who are confident of most dance moves, willing to be challenged during workshops (and to dance all weekend!), please suggest that they contact us to be added to the mailing list contact@southamgathering.org.uk for now (or send us their details, but make sure you discuss it with them first).
Since we are a new team this is an opportune moment to ask you to renew your GDPR consent. Your details will be held by us and may be accessed by any of the team for the purposes of running the event and communicating with you. Your details will not be used for other purposes or shared with other organisations. Please reply with your consent or notify us that you do not consent. If you no longer wish to be on the mailing list, please let us know and we will remove you.