Here are some notes, on various Ceroc (and other) venues, that you may find to be helpful. This is nowhere near being an exhaustive list. Nor is it in any particular order.
Franchise(s): Ceroc Midlands
The venue is reachable from the northern arc of Walsall's ring road. Don't use postcodes to attempt to get here. If you plug the postcode of the Town Hall into your navigator, or into MultiMap, you'll be taken to the wrong place. The postcode takes you to the sorting office where the Town Hall's mail is sorted.
The best maps to consult are Walsall Town Council's own maps of the town centre. However, note that the town centre has been recently pedestrianized, and not even the Council's own maps are up-to-date with respect to this. Follow the map slavishly, and you'll spend 30 minutes trying to find a street that is no longer there.
I recommend not even trying to drive to the town hall. During the evenings, the one-way system is crowded with taxis and clubbers. Just avoid it outright. Park in the long stay car park next to Morrison's (right next to the ring road — You don't need to enter the one way system at all.) at one end of Litchfield Street, and walk down to the Town Hall at the other end of the street. It's a 3 minute walk.
There's also a multi-storey car park behind the bus station, that is also a couple of minutes' walk from the town hall.
Until the construction work is finished, the entrance is at the side of the Town Hall, not the front.
The venue is a concert hall, with a large stage that can hold a choir and orchestra. It also has a balcony. (Going up to the balcony and watching a well-attended lesson from above is an experience.) The bar is separate from the main hall, along the corridor to the side of the stage, towards the front entrance. As is common for multi-function rooms in town halls, the whole floor is dance floor, so you could (if the tables weren't there) dance all of the way up to the walls. (Kidderminster Town Hall is very similar in several regards.)
There is seating, chairs and tables, along both sides of the hall. There is no difference in floor between the dancing area and the seating area, or any real boundary. The hall's own sound system, which includes speakers down its entire length, is used. As is only to be expected of a concert hall, the acoustics are good.
Franchise(s): Ceroc Midlands
This is dead easy. The Saddlers' Club is on the grounds of the Walsall Football Club stadium, which is about 5 minutes' drive from the M6, through two sets of traffic lights. It's right in the middle of the stadium car park, so there are several entrances and ample parking (It holds an entire football match crowd, after all.) on three sides of the building.
Map reference:
Franchise(s): Ceroc Midlands
The Queensway junction of the M54 is an absolute nightmare. It makes Spaghetti Junction on the M6 seem straightforward by comparison. Don't be surprised if you find yourself apparently driving in the wrong direction at least twice. Telford's planners don't seem to have heard that motor fuel is expensive. The road doubles back on itself a couple of times.
The Oakengates Theatre is in the centre of Oakengates (to the north of Telford proper), in the middle of the one-way system, surrounded by car parks. Park in any of the car parks. The Theatre is signposted on the roads. In a fit of dizziness that only local councils can have, however, the Theatre is not actually signposted on the building itself. For some reason best known only to the tortuous minds of image consultants, the building sports the imaginative name "The Place". If you find yourself entering what looks like a public library, you really are in the right place, despite appearances and no sign of the word "theatre" anywhere. The venue is right at the back.
Map reference:
Franchise(s): Strictly Ceroc
The venue is at the bottom of the Parade. There is no parking specifically for the Pump Rooms themselves. However, one can park across the street on Newbold Terrace, a mere 1 or 2 minutes' walk from the venue, which has ample parking except on those nights when there is also an event on at the Royal Spa Centre. On those nights, Newbold Terrace is usually full. For those nights, I recommend the parking area next to the police station, 5 minutes' walk from the venue.
The Pump Rooms has one of the best floors going, it being at neither extreme of either too much or too little friction. There is seating (but no tables) along two sides of the hall, and a separate bar room.
The Pump Rooms' acoustics are a problem. The room is concrete and stone, and this causes a significant degree of echo. This rather limits what music Duncan can play. He's very aware of this, and works hard to select a repertoire that works for the room.The Pump Rooms' closes the earliest of any venue, at 22:30.
Usually, everyone piles off to the pub, 5 minutes' walk up the Parade, after the end of the evening.
The tragedy of Royal Leamington Spa is that until 2005 it was the home of the largest ballroom in the country, sitting unused in the Regent Hotel, which has just been turned into the Parade's third shopping centre. The ballroom is now a restaurant.
Why do we close ballrooms in this country?
Map reference:
Franchise(s): LeRoc Rushden
Rushden is right next to the A45. The Pemberton Centre is in an otherwise residential area, just off the the B569, the road out of Rushden to Irchester. The road leading to the centre, which has ample parking (it being a leisure centre), is immediately past the sign for the infants school.
There is seating, chairs and tables, on two sides of the floor, which is fairly large. The bar is to one side of the room.
Unfortunately, the sign for the Cornbow Hall proclaiming that it is the Cornbow Hall is not actually visible from the road that one drives along in order to reach it. (There's another broken sign visible from that road that says "Corn". You might be able to figure it out from that. ☺) It's only visible from the restricted-access one-way system in the centre of town, which isn't the way to reach the car park. Don't enter the town centre. If you find yourself in a multi-storey car park next to the back of a shopping centre, you really are in the right place. There's a connecting corridor from an upper level of the car park staircase to the Cornbow Hall.
There is seating, chairs and tables, on two sides of the floor, which is moderately sized.
In years gone past, everyone piled off to the pub after the end of the evening, for chocolate cake and ice cream with Amir The Demo. Nowadays, weekday evenings run until almost midnight, and since the pub doesn't admit people after midnight that's no longer an option. However, on special occasion people have taken to piling off to the curry house (which, although one wouldn't know it, is almost directly below the hall itself) at the ends of evenings, instead.
Map reference: 52°31.030'N 1°48.014'W
Franchise(s): Ceroc South Birmingham
It's Ceroc Sutton Coldfield in my book.
The venue is at the Jaguar plant. It's the easiest of the lot to reach by motorway, it being exactly one roundabout — the famous "Spitfire Roundabout" — north of the junction of the M6 and the A452, approximately 2 minutes' drive. (When you see the metal sculpture of 3 Spitfire aeroplanes flying that sits in the middle of the roundabout, you'll realize the source of the name. ☺) The entrance is on the A452 itself: gate 3 of the plant, right behind the bus stop.
Parking is in the social club's own car park. If you find yourself stuck for a place on a particularly busy night (such as when the club has its own events on), ask the doorman, who can usually arrange an extra space somewhere. I've parked on the access road outside before now. (Don't just try to park in the main plant car park, though. Jaguar sealed the connecting gates in 2007.) In extremis, there's always the supermarket car park across the road. (I've never had to use it.)
The venue is a social club. Most social clubs, including the General Foods, the Working Men's the Goodyear the Co-op, and indeed the other Jaguar, don't require one to sign in at the entrance. At this Jaguar however, one is required to, so don't forget. (I was interested to discover recently that the club actually charges a fee for signing in, for which Malcolm had quietly arranged a waiver for people coming to Ceroc.)
The room itself has seating (chairs and tables, with a carpeted floor) on three sides, and a large wooden sprung dance floor. There is room between the tables to walk with reasonable freedom. (There are other similarly sized social clubs where this isn't the case.) There are booths at the back of the room. The bar is at the back, also. The room is air conditioned.
This used to be, some years ago when I first started this list, the only venue with a disco ball that is actually effective. (The Co-op has a disco ball, but the spotlights to illuminate it, that have bulbs in, aren't bright enough.) It used to light up the floor very well. But it hasn't been cleaned in a while, and it's now quite dusty and dim.
Freestyles are on weekends, when the social club's kitchen is open, until approximately 21:30. The kitchen sells a fair variety of snacks, sandwiches, and full cooked meals. A plate of scampi and chips will set you back £4, for example. The ability to dine and dance (which for some other franchises is only available at special events and even then at a surcharge of up to £30) thus comes as standard at all freestyles.
(I've been promoting the scampi and chips for several years now. There is other stuff on the menu, by the way. You don't have to have the scampi and chips. There were lasagne, curry, and burgers last time, for example. I always go for the scampi and chips. It's good value. A plate of fish and chips at the member's club where I work costs £5.50, for comparison. And that's the old price. My workplace is just about to put the price up. I do recommend eating and freestyling. It's fun. Try it.)
Map reference:
Franchise(s): Ceroc Oxford
One of several unique features of Ceroc Banbury is the delicious smell, which reaches as far as the M40. It is, after all, the General Foods social club. The drive to and from the venue is usually accompanied by the smell of whatever batch of flavourings General Foods happens to be cooking up that week.
However, "follow your nose" isn't the best course of action, since the club is not on the actual grounds of the General Foods plant. But, fortunately, the venue is the second easiest to reach from a motorway, it being on the outskirts of Banbury on the side nearest to the M40. It isn't necessary to enter Banbury proper in order to reach it.
The venue is a social club. Just like many of the other social clubs, there is no requirement to sign in at the entrance. Ceroc is on the first floor.
The room itself has seating (chairs and tables) on two sides, and a large wooden dance floor. The bar is next door.
Map reference: 52°21.280'N 2°2.773'W
Franchise(s): CDC
The Working Men's Social Club is easy to reach from the motorway. If the traffic lights on the A38 are in your favour, it's roughly one minute's drive from the M42 to the social club.
Parking is behind the club. The entrance to and exit from the car park are quite narrow. Normal cars will fit, but you might have a problem if you drive an abnormally large or long vehicle. The locals don't like you parking along the side of the street, even though there are no parking restrictions in place. The map reference is for a car park just a few tens of metres up the road from the club, that is relatively uncrowded on Sunday evenings, and easier to access for all vehicles than the club's own car park, to boot.
The venue is a social club. Just like many of the other social clubs, there is no requirement to sign in at the entrance. Steve does have a sign-in sheet for CDC at the reception desk, however.
The venue has seating and tables on three sides of the dance floor and a bar off in the corner. The room is air conditioned, and the air conditioning works very well. On 2006-07-02, when it was 30° outdoors, it was like a refridgerator indoors.
Tea dances on Sundays run from 17:00 to 21:00. (This isn't as long as a tea dance at, say, Wilton Hall in Milton Keynes or at Bossa Nova in Worcester, however.) Like JiveFever freestyles, there are no lessons. To make his tea dances distinctive, Steve provides free tea and coffee from the bar all evening. There's no scampi and chips, though.
Venue: Goodyear Pavilion
Franchise(s): Ceroc Midlands
The Goodyear Social Club is about 5 minutes' drive south along the A449 (the Stafford–Wolverhampton road) from the M54. If you are coming north, from Wolverhapton itself, you'll have to turn around at one of the roundabouts and head back south, because it is on the southbound side of a part of the A449 that is a dual carriageway. It's very easy to miss the gates. But there's a roundabout soon afterwards where one can turn around, head back north, turn around again, and head south to try again. It's all good fun the first couple of times, and one soon learns not to miss the gates. ☺
As with Walsall Town Hall, don't use a postcode to attempt to get here. If you plug the postcode for the social club into your navigator, or into MultiMap, you'll be taken to the wrong place. As you can see, WV10 6DH, which is the official post code, is several streets away.
Parking is at the back of the venue. I've yet to see the car park full.
The venue is a social club. Just like many of the other social clubs, there is no requirement to sign in at the entrance.
There is seating, chairs and tables, on three sides of the floor, which is moderately sized. The bar is in an adjunct room.
On the first Thursday of every month, Ceroc Midlands holds a "Cinderella" evening, where the normal evening is extended until 23:30.
Map reference:
Franchise(s): Ceroc Royal Leamington Spa
The Co-operative Social Club is opposite the Ropewalk Shopping Centre. If you are coming onto the ring-road from the A444, you simply turn from the A444 left onto the ring-road and then turn right (in towards the town centre) at the next set of traffic lights.
There is a car park for the social club, but it's exceedingly small and usually already full by the time that I, for one, arrive. Many people park on the double-yellow lines along the street. There is a public car park behind the club. (Just keep driving along the road. It doubles back.) But like all car parks in Nuneaton, it isn't free in the evenings. So have exact change ready.
The venue is a social club. Just like many of the other social clubs, there is no requirement to sign in at the entrance.
There is seating, chairs and tables, on three sides of the floor, which is moderately sized. The bar is in an adjunct room. (There's also another adjunct room containing a kitchen. I peered through the door into the gloom beyond once. It looks like a ghost town. It's definitely not used for Ceroc.)
Nuneaton's floor varies from week to week, depending from whether it has recently been cleaned. Sometimes it can be an ice rink. This is the only dance floor where I've had to resort to dancing barefoot in order to gain traction.
Map reference:
Franchise(s): Strictly Ceroc
The Land Rover Social Club is relatively easy to reach from the Solihull Bypass, and is four sets of traffic lights (straight ahead for 2 in quick succession, right at the next 1, straight ahead for the final 1, then take the second on the right) from the Solihull exit on the M42. (It's particularly easy to spot if Ian's car, registration plate D4NCE, is parked outside of his house, which is just in front of the social club entrance. ☺.)
There is a car park for the social club which is reasonably sized. It's been full to bursting before now, but I've never yet been unable to find a space.
The venue is a social club. Most social clubs have no requirement to sign in at the entrance. The Land Rover does. You won't be likely to forget, though, as the doormen insist upon it. They even complain if one's signature is illegible, and will insist that one "sign properly". So doctors beware!
There is seating, chairs and tables, on three sides of the floor, which is large. The bar is to one side of the room. The tables are set quite close together, and sometimes it can be difficult to get to the dance floor rapidly because of this. So prepare ahead.
Map reference:
Franchise(s): JiveFever Coventry
The Jaguar Social Club is not really near any motorways at all. It's buried in the depths of Radford. Take the Radford Road from the Coventry ring road, and take a map if this is the first time that you are going there. One thing that the map very probably won't tell you is that a housing estate was recently built behind the club. Most maps still show the factory that used to be there. (24 Carat Claire bought a new map in 2007 that still showed the factory.) The very last turn of the journey is very easy to miss, and one can all too easily end up going into the new housing estate. The entrance to the club is an immediate right once one has left Capmartin Road. (This used to be a lot easier before the housing estate existed, and the only way to drive on that road was to go right. ☺)
There is a car park for the social club which is reasonably sized.
The venue is a social club. Just like many of the other social clubs, there is no requirement to sign in at the entrance.
There is seating, chairs and tables, on three sides of the floor, which is moderately sized. The bar is to one side of the room. The room is air conditioned. (The vents are right on the edges of the dance floor. There are a few particularly good places to stand if one is hot and wants to cool down.)
Map reference:
Franchise(s): Sunday Chill
It's so easy to get here that I've heard from several people that they got lost because they thought it was more difficult. Here's the tip: You don't go into Binley Woods. The Ivor Preece centre is a mere few tens of metres from the roundabout on the A46 Coventry Eastern By-Pass. Seriously! Indicate left as soon as you have exited the roundabout.
There is a dedicated car park for the venue, and it is probably one of the largest around. You'll have no trouble parking within metres of the Centre.
The room is an unusual L-shape, with the dance floor in the lower part of the "L" and the bar across the upper part. Yes, you can go in to the upper part of the "L" if you want to. You really really don't have to huddle cramped on the few tables right next to the DJ, as some people do for reasons that completely escape me. Sit on the lounge seating. Enjoy the fireplace. Make use of the room.
Map reference:
Franchise(s): Ceroc Oxford
The Guildhall is in the centre of Abingdon. As long as you remember which set of traffic lights to turn at in order to get to Abbey Close (which has caught me out a couple of times) you will be fine. If you drive right to the Guildhall itself, because that's where some daft in-car navigation system tells you to go, you've driven too far, however. There's no parking on Abbey Close at that point or any further beyond. You've driven right past the car park to use, which is the car park 1 minute's walk back down the road from the Guildhall. In-car navigation systems are no substitute for actually knowing where one is going. ☺
There is seating, chairs and tables, on three sides of the floor, which is moderately sized. The bar is separate from the room, on the other side of the staircase.
Map reference:
Franchise(s): Ceroc Passion
If, like many people coming from a distance, you are coming to Wellingborough along the A45 from Northampton, you might be tempted to drive straight into the town centre from the A45 junction. That's a mistake. It is easy to miss the turning off from the one-way system in the centre of the town that leads to the social club, and it is quite labourious to drive all of the way around the one-way system, which is rather large, at 30 mph only to try again.
There's a reason that Wellingborough has an outer (three-quarters) ring road around the outside of the town, much of which is at the national speed limit. Make use of it. Getting to the social club from the ring road is a doddle. The social club is in the northern part of the town, actually on the road that links the ring road to the town centre. So just drive north from the A45 around the ring road, the A509, until you reach the 12-o'clock position (i.e. the junction where you have a choice between the A509 to Kettering to the left and the A5193 to the town centre to the right) and drive south along the road leading to the town centre until you reach the social club, which is at the traffic lights.
It may look longer on the map. But the ring road is a clearway with a higher speed limit; there are no traffic lights on it (The one-way system has several sets.); and it's a lot simpler to remember.
The venue is a social club. Just like many of the other social clubs, there is no requirement to sign in at the entrance.
There is seating, chairs and tables, on three sides of the floor, which is somewhat small for the overall size of the room. (There's plenty of free floor space surrounding the dance floor, though, and I'm proud to say that I've graduated to dancing on the carpet, as one can see the venue's Cool Cats doing, a few times.) The bar is at one end of the room.
Map reference:
Franchise(s): Jive+
Whilst the British Rail Club is in the centre of Wellingborough, the Embankment Club is on the periphery, and easier to reach. If you are coming to Wellingborough along the A45 from Northampton, just continue on for one more junction and leave at the next one. The Embankment, the road which the eponymous Embankment Club directly abuts, is on the very next roundabout.
The venue is a social club. Just like many of the other social clubs, there is no requirement to sign in at the entrance.
There is seating, chairs and tables, on two sides of the floor. The bar is at one end of the room. It's been said that the Club is surprisingly large, and it is. This is because what one sees from the car park is only the side elevation of the building, which is a lot wider than it is long. Go out to the cricket field and look at the building, to see the front elevation, and you'll get a better idea of the size of the place.
There's no actual parking at the town hall itself. It's at the edge of a pedestrianized zone. I usually park at the Glades' car park, walk down the steps to the town centre and through the pedestrianized zone to the town hall.
If you are turning up fashionably late to freestyles, please note that the doors are often closed from around 22:30 onwards, to prevent passers-by who hear the music from attempting to just casually wander in. You can get in. You just need to tell the door staff that you will be late.
There is seating, chairs and tables, on two sides of the floor, which is moderately sized. As is common for multi-function rooms in town halls, the whole floor is dance floor, so you could (if the tables weren't there) dance all of the way up to the walls. The bar is in a separate room, through a door on the immediate left of the main room, which also serves as a Blues Room at freestyles.
Like Walsall Town Hall, there is a balcony above the room, where you can watch the dancing from above. Also like Walsall Town Hall, the stage is large, capable of holding a choir and an orchestra.
There are also a couple of pillars to dance around at the back edge of the dance floor. Kidderminster is particularly replete with pillars. There's a pillar to dance around at the shopping centre where the busks are usually held, too. But The Saints still takes the crown.
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Franchise(s): Ceroc Groove
The Leisure Centre is very easy to reach, being about 30 second's drive from the Kidderminster ring-road. It has a large public car park, which is free during the evenings, directly opposite its front door.
There is seating, chairs and tables, around the room. Notice the word "around". The room itself is octagonal. The whole floor is dance floor, so one can dance all the way up to 6 of the 8 sides (the remaining two being the stage and storage for weightlifting parphernalia) if one wants to (although one would have to move the tables and chairs out of the way ☺).
The bar is in an anteroom that has further seating. Beginner's Refresher classes are usually held in another room downstairs.
Map reference:
Franchise(s): Ceroc Passion
The Saints Rugby club is on the east of Northampton, on the road in towards the town centre from the A45 bypass. It's fairly easy to spot from the road as one is heading in towards the town centre from the bypass. Just look for the large looming rugby stadium on the right. That's the rugby club, which has its own parking, large enough to hold a crowd of match spectators.
The venue is usually the Rodber Suite, which is the main bar area beneath the main stadium (entrance to which is directly next to the car park — You cannot miss it.). I write "usually" because sometimes, often with no advance notice at all, the venue for weekly classes changes, because of other people booking the Rodber Suite. The alternative venue is another room in another part of the rugby club, which is relatively easy to find, albeit somewhat smaller than the Rodber Suite and a couple of minutes' walk from the main car parking area.
The Rodber Suite is king of the pillars, with several pillars throughout the room. (It is the base of a stadium, remember.) There is seating to either side of the designated dance floor, and a bar down a fair part of the length of the room. (It also serves drinks to thirsty crowds of rubgy spectators, after all.)
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Franchise(s):
I've never been here. I cannot tell you anything about it.
Map reference:
Franchise(s):
I've never been here. I cannot tell you anything about it.
The Council House is to the north of Bromsgrove. If you are coming down the A38 from the motorway, turn right at the first set of traffic lights. The road to the Council House, is down that road a little way, on the left. You can park either on the road in front of the hall or in the public car park to the side. (The latter is given as the map reference.) The entrance to the Spadesbourne Suite is signposted from the car park, and is around to the side of the hall.
The entrance door to the Spadesbourne Suite is motor operated, and designed to be opened by wheelchair users. You need to push the button, at waist height to your side, to open the door both to enter and to leave. Don't try to force the door.
There is seating, chairs only, around three sides of the room, and the dance floor goes right to the walls, as is common for civic halls. The Beginner's Review class is held in an adjunct room, the Conservatory.
There's no bar provided by the venue itself. However, Mel at the desk sells a selection of soft drinks. This is a common situation.
Map reference:
Franchise(s): Ceroc Oxford
Kidlington isn't that large a town, and Exeter Hall is on the main road, which is reachable from a choice of two junctions on the A34 Oxford Bypass. The hall has its own car park, which I've as yet never had a problem finding a space in.
There is seating, chairs and tables, along the back of the room. The dance floor does go right to the walls, although it is an unusual and interesting split-level affair. (One of the levels is used as the stage and this is one of the few venues where people regularly dance on the stage during freestyle periods.) The bar is in a separate room, which connects to a further room where the Beginner's Review class is held.
As with most civic halls, the venue supplies no bar service.
It used to. However, it closed early, at 22:30. One of the barmen explained this to me once. According to him, since Ceroc Oxford rents the room until 23:00, that means that that's when all the drinks have to be drunk by and when the glasses have to be collected. So he stopped serving half an hour before then. I was not entirely convinced by this explanation, and thought that Ceroc and the venue had a misunderstanding of some sort here, that would only be sorted out when the situation came to a head as I suspected it eventually would.
And on 2007-09-26, my suspicion was proven correct. It came to a head, and Exeter Hall decided to stop providing bar service.
The Public Hall is on Evesham's main road, at the southern end. It's part of the Riverside Shopping Centre. There's a car park in front of the hall itself, that is unrestricted during the evenings. I've never used it myself. It's rather small and has always been full by the time that I've arrived. (The one time that I arrived to find it empty was the one time that Utopia was cancelled by floods and the Public Hall was being used as an emergency centre.) Like most people, I use the free public car park at the end of the main road, off the roundabout, which is approximately 3 minutes' walk from the Hall.
The room is on the second floor, up the stairs at the back of the foyer.
There is seating, chairs and tables, along the back of the room, and chairs along one side. The dance floor goes right to the walls. The bar is in an adjunct room.
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Franchise(s): Ceroc Nantwich
The Civic Hall is in the centre of Nantwich, which is reachable via the A500. If you are going north on the M6, that's the second exit signposted as the A500. There's a free car park right behind the venue itself.
There's seating, tables and chairs, along one side of the room. For freestyles, there's extra dancing area that is opened up on the opposite side of the room. The bar is at the back of the room, near the entrance.
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Franchise(s): Morris and Judith
The St Mary's Church Centre is at St Mary's Church which is on St Mary's Road. It's in the south of Leamington, just off the road out towards Radford Semele, Southam, and the Fosse Way. If you are going in to Royal Leamington Spa from the east, go along the A425. St Mary's Road is just past the point where the road forks. (It crosses both of the forks.) If you are going in from the M40, head for the railway station at the roundabout next to the Ford plant, and then carry straight on. If you are going in from the north, don't. Just don't. You'll have to drive through the whole of Royal Leamington Spa. Go down the Fosse Way and along the A425 instead if you can, or down the A46, along the M40 and back up from the south.
There's no car park. All parking is on St Mary's Road itself. If you've reached the traffic lights on the Radford/Southam road, it's probably worth turning north because there'll be parking there, rather than south towards the church. It's only 1 minute's walk away.
There's seating, tables and chairs, along two sides of the room. There's no bar. Morris and Judith provide soft drinks and nibbles.
One pays on exit here. All payments go towards the charitable work (which includes such things as rehabilitation for drug addicts) done by St Mary's Church.
The music is whatever takes Morris' fancy. He's played some quite interesting things. We've danced to classical music, for example. That was quite a challenge.
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Franchise(s): Ceroc Central Birmingham
The Tower Ballroom is at the end of Reservoir Road, Edgbaston, which in turn is only about 20 seconds' drive from the Birmingham Middle Ring Road (the A4540). Don't try to park in front of the Ballroom, or in the Reservoir car park. There's very little parking in either. There's a large free car park on Osler Street (behind the Ballroom), with a walkway leading down to the Ballroom.
The Tower is … well … The Tower. It's one of the most famous dance venues in Birmingham. And it has been around for a long time. (Malcolm Bragg has stories of dancing there in his youth. Indeed, it's been a dance hall since the 1920s.) Even before Ceroc Central Birmingham moved there, groups of Ceroc dancers would regularly go there on ordinary nightclub nights and take over a corner of the dance floor. In hindsight, it's surprising that it went as long as it did without being a Ceroc venue.
It has a large wooden dance floor, the famous revolving stage, two bars, and copious seating on three sides.
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Franchise(s): Want2Dance Burton-on-Trent
There are two mistakes that one can make trying to drive to the Belvedere Club.
The first mistake is in thinking that one can get to it from the A38. If one looks at Google Maps, and indeed several other road maps, it appears that Belvedere Road directly joins the A38. The roads are drawn on the map as if there's a junction there. This couldn't be further from the truth. The A38 is one of those "internal bypasses". The maps are a lie. The A38 goes straight through the middle of Burton-on-Trent, through vast cuttings and with bridges over the town's road system, without any junctions. The only access to the town is either right at the southern end of the bypass, by Branston, or right at the northern end, both of which are outside of the town. If you miss the junction nearest to the direction that you are coming from, you'll have to drive all of the way along the A38 through Burton-on-Trent, off at the other junction, and then labouriously back through the centre of the town.
The second mistake is to think that the place to park is the car park next to the road, directly behind the sign for the Belvedere Club (which is pretty easy to spot when driving along Belvedere Road). Drive through that car park, past the tennis courts, bowling greens, and other parphernalia, to the car park that is actually around the club building itself.
If you get lost in Burton-on-Trent, one tip to remember is that the Queens Hospital is on Belvedere Road (a little way past the club), and is signposted around most of the town.
There's seating, tables and chairs, along one side of the room, and a bar along the other. There's also a small balcony area, with additional seating, up some stairs. But because the Want2Dance people are fanatical about controlling numbers for freestyles and other events, the venue is never crowded enough that anyone needs to use it.
Map reference:
Franchise(s): Ceroc Groove
There's no parking on New Street, where the Bar actually is. Don't even try to drive down the one way system to get to it. There's a big public car park on Queen Street, one minute's walk away. And when that is full, there's yet more parking on Silver Street, across the road.
Oddly, it's just as quick to get from the M5 to the centre of Worcester taking the "Worcester (S)" exit, and coming in to Worcester from the South, as it is to take the "Worcester (N)" exit and come in from the North, even when one is coming South down the M5. I've timed it.
As such, the simplest way to get to the venue from the M5, whatever direction one is coming from, is to always come in to Worcester from the South. One just comes straight along the A44 all of the way, with the only turn being up the City Walls Road, whence one turns off onto Queen Street at the traffic lights right next to the car park.
By the way: When trying to leave Worcester to the North to get back to the M5, don't think that the A38 is a short cut from looking at the maps. Just as with the A38 going through Burton-on-Trent the roads don't actually join up. You'll end up going a long way out of your way and then doubling back upon yourself. (What is it with the A38?)
The Bosa Nova Wine Bar is one of the more interesting and unusual Ceroc venues. It comprises a ground floor, which is composed of three rooms joined together, and a first floor. The bar and the main dance area are on the ground floor. There are pillars, and steps. There's even an outside patio area, which is opened up on freestyle nights. This is what one gets from turning a wine bar into a Ceroc venue.
But contrary to the preconceptions of those used solely to social clubs and town halls, it actually works quite well as a venue. The steps conveniently turn the rearmost of the three ground floor rooms into a secluded separate dance area, the upstairs room serves as a Beginners' Refresher area, and the outside patio is a handy place to go and sit down for a bit in the cool without feeling excluded from what is going on.
Map reference: 52°11.755'N 2°15.044'W
Franchise(s): Ceroc Groove
Coppertops is a pub in a housing estate, and it's not hard to get lost in the housing estate itself. Mitigating this are two factors:
Oldbury Road, the road on which Coppertops stands, connects to a large number of the other roads on the housing estate, at various points. If you do get lost in the housing estate itself, you'll probably hit Oldbury Road simply by just driving around, at which point you simply have to pick which way drive along it. Since it peters out into the countryside in one direction, it's pretty obvious when you've picked the wrong way to go along it.
Oldbury Road goes along the edge of the housing estate, and along the edge of the University of Worcester (I didn't know that it had one, either.) campus. So if you have found the University, just drive along its Southern edge.
You won't miss the pub itself. It's not exactly small and easy to overlook. You'll drive down a hill and around a blind bend, and there it will be. If you've found yourself driving too fast to stop in time for the entrance to the car park, keep going around to the side and use the other entrance.
The car park is quite large, and even on the busiest of freestyles I've never had trouble parking at the front of the building when the back and the side are both full.
The pub can open up to three rooms, and for freestyles in the Summer that is often what happens. On weekdays, however, generally only the upper bar is open. This has a small stage and a moderately sized dance floor, with seating only at one end unless you are prepared to perch yourself, in bottom-numbing fashion, on the window-ledges down one side of the room.
The other two rooms are below, directly below for the first and below and through a cellar hallway for the second. All three rooms have their own bars. Two out of the three have their own toilets, too.
Venue: The Pear Tree
Franchise(s): Ceroc Groove
Venue: Cox's Yard
Franchise(s): Ceroc Groove
It's not hard to find Cox's Yard from the centre of Stratford. One can see it from the one-way system. It's an erstwhile boatyard on the bank of the Avon, and one of the tourist attractions — one of the few that apparently lays no claim to being Shakespeare-related, refreshingly enough. It's nearly within spitting distance of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, and it's almost a challenge to see whether in fact one can spit on the RST from there.
Although one can see it from, and reach its entrance almost directly from, the one-way system, one cannot park there. But never fear. If you are going around the one-way system you are in fact circling a large multi-storey car park, the Bridgefoot car park. It's well-lit, and a short walk from Cox's Yard. Other places to park include the public car parks across the river in Swan's Nest Lane, for which a map reference is given.
Note that one has to double-back upon onesself to access the car parks across the river, since they are only accessible to one direction of traffic. So if a computer gives you what seem to be crazy instructions to drive around a roundabout and go back almost the way that you came, almost to the point of crossing the bridge back over the river, give it some slight credit.
Also note that you have to be careful which ticket machines you pay at in the car parks across the river. In what I'm sure the local merchants and town council think is a lovely revenue-generating wheeze, there are several adjacent private car parks, for pubs, restaurants, and whatnot, that look like they are part of the public car park. The private car parks have their own dedicated parking ticket machines. A ticket for a private car park is not valid for the public car park, and vice versa; and both the pub/restaurant owners and the town council are quite happy to issue large fines even in the dead of night to people who have foolishly used the wrong ticket machine.
If you do park in Swan's Nest Lane, remember that you don't need to tramp all of the way out to the road to get to Cox's Yard. There's a footbridge across the river.
Cox's Yard is a pub, and events are usually a combination of the downstairs bar, with some temporary dance floor, an open-air area beside the river, also with some temporary dance floor, and the so-called "music room" upstairs. The "music room" has its own bar (and indeed its own toilets), but that's rarely manned. There's a small scattering of seats in the "music room", but most seating is actually outside, in the open-air area, with a varying but lesser amount of seating, exactly how much being dependent from how much dance floor has been laid down that day, in the downstairs bar.
Map reference: 52°29.074'N 2°7.416'W
Franchise(s): Ceroc Groove
The Civic Hall is in the centre of Brierly Hill, and is fairly easy to reach from either the Dudley bypass (coming from the North) or from the Lye road (coming from the South). The hardest part is the final leg of the journey: navigating the wacky one-way system in Brierley Hill town centre itself to actually reach the Civic Hall. Only buses get to go the direct route. Cars get to drive all around the houses.
Parking is behind the civic hall.
The venue has seating along two sides of the floor, which is fairly large as venues go, capable of holding a sizeable crowd whilst still deceptively looking empty.
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Franchise(s): Ceroc South Birmingham
Apparently, it's not hard to reach Wythall coming south, out from central Birmingham, but I've never been that way. Coming north to Wythall, from the M42, is quite simple. Just drive North along the A435 from the motorway junction, and at the first roundabout head for Hollywood.
Yes, Hollywood. There's a small "Welcome to Wythall" sign on the road some metres out from the roundabout, but the most prominent placename on the roadsigns on the roundabout itself is Hollywood. Convenient, don't you think?
Wythall Park is reached from the crossroads, and is a hundred or so metres down the road from the crossroads. The entrance is the second turning, the exit being the first.
If you cannot find a parking space on one side of the hall, try the other side, by the car park exit.
There's seating, tables and chairs, along the back of the room, which is also where the bar is.
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Franchise(s): Ceroc Central
Anyone who cannot navigate through Milton Keynes by road cannot have mastered basic mathematics in primary school. It's a grid. The "H" roads are (sort of) horizontal and the "V" roads are (sort of) vertical. (Yes, there are, famously, three infinities. Let's not go into that here.) Having said that, Wilton Hall is actually in Bletchley, which is off the South-East corner of the grid, reachable from the junction of V7 and H10, via two rather horrendous double-mini-roundabout pairs (a type of road junction that should be wiped from the face of the Earth, and that stands in stark contrast to the simple single roundabouts on the grid system that is right next door in Milton Keynes proper).
There's a small car park around the back of the hall, as well as a small amount of parking to the side of the hall.
There's seating, tables and chairs, along the back and both sides of the room, although the seating area on the side opposite the bar isn't always used and is smaller than the seating area where the bar is.
One small point of interest: When you enter the room, look up at the ceiling.
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Franchise(s): Ceroc Central
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Franchise(s): Ceroc Passion
Modern Jive? Indian!
The Indian Centre is down some back streets from the town centre. If you've reached the one-way system in the centre, you're only about a minute or so away from the venue.
Parking, especially on popular nights, is often quite tight, as the Centre's own car park, which isn't small, is still not large enough to accommodate the popularity of freestyles. Be prepared to park on the side of the road some streets away (Street parking is tight, too.) and walk to the venue. (The streets are well lit, and the venue is in the middle of a fairly tranquil residential neighbourhood.)
There is seating on three sides of the dance floor, which is moderately sized. The bar is upstairs, as is the room in which tea and biscuits are served during freestyles.
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Franchise(s): Ceroc Central
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Franchise(s): DanceSin
Map reference:
Franchise(s): Ceroc Central
The Leisure Centre is well signposted and on one of the the major arterials through the town. Unfortunately, Daventry council thought it was a good wheeze, some years ago, to turn what was a 24-hour open air car park into a multi-storey car park which is closed during the evenings. So when once there used to be ample parking for freestyles, in a venue that can hold two to three hundred people comfortably, there is now fierce competition for parking space in the car park across the road from the Centre, and a huge empty multi-storey car park rubbing salt into the wound.
There are other car parks in Daventry, not least in the square around the back of the Centre. But they are a little walk away.
As mentioned, freestyles here can run to the hundreds. Generally, they comprise the Saxon Suite, which is a medium-sized room with seating on two sides and its own dedicated bar, and the main sports hall, which generally has an improvised mini-bar in one of the adjacent equipment storage rooms. The main hall has seating on three sides.
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Franchise(s): West Coast Swing Central Strictly Ceroc
To get to the club, which is just North of Keresley End, you need to be heading out of Coventry on, obviously enough, the Keresley Road. (This straightforwardness is highly unusual for Coventry. Usually, one leaves Coventry on a road that is marked as heading to Leicester.) The club is right on the road through Kereseley and Kereseley End (called Bennetts Road North by the time that it reaches the club), on the left as one heads North. It's not hard to spot. There's a big minehead pulley wheel on the right hand side of the road, just in case you couldn't figure out the colliery part of the name. A few sets of traffic lights and some speed bumps, and one is there. The only thing to remember is to keep heading towards Kereseley at the last roundabout, rather than off towards Tamworth on the Tamworth Road.
The difficulty is in arranging to get onto the Keresley Road in the first place. If you are coming from the South, things are simple: Just leave the Coventry Ring Road on the Radford/Keresley exit, and keep going towards Keresley.
However, if you are coming from the North, life is somewhat complicated by the fact that there's no simple way to Keresley End from the M6, even though the club itself is a stone's throw South of the motorway itself. There's no convenient junction, nor is there much of a convenient route from the M6 to Keresely End. The quickest route is to leave at the A444 and, confusingly head North and take the turn-off for Goodyers End, then head for Neal's Green and Keresley End, which takes you back South beneath the motorway. But that's a confusing mess of back roads. The simplest, but rather longer, route is to leave at the A444 and head South to Coventry city centre and the Ring Road, and then proceed from the Ring Road up the Radford/Keresley Road as the Southerners do. Take the shortcut along the Foleshill Road, along the part that locals have lovingly nick-named the Khyber Pass (because of the large number of Indian grocers all on one road — the smell is wonderful!), if you feel up to it.
The sneakiest route would be to get off the M6 at Corley Services. Ironically, the back entrance to the Services for staff access is just a few hundred metres from the club. But you cannot do that. For one thing, there's a security barrier. ☺ For another, you aren't supposed to leave motorways through service stations. It's naughty. (Surprisingly, there's nothing in the Highway Code specifically prohibiting it, though.)
I originally noted here that the club car park is a bit grotty, not being well paved at all, but that there is ample parking space. Just over a week after I wrote that, the club re-surfaced its car park with fresh tarmac. So the car park is pretty good, now.
The venue is a social club. Just like many of the other social clubs, there is no requirement to sign in at the entrance.
The function room is upstairs. It has a bar of its own, if the signs on the closed shutters are to be believed, but I've yet to see it in use. The main bar is downstairs. There is seating, tables and chairs, on two sides of the dance floor.
Want-to-be DJs and nostalgia addicts may want to take a look at the antiquated sound and lighting control board that is in a large booth in the centre of the far side of the room.
Map reference:
Franchise(s): Strictly Ceroc
Map reference: 52°25.354'N 1°32.105'W
Franchise(s): Strictly Ceroc
People in Coventry know the pecularities of the city whose outward major roads in practially all directions somehow manage to be signposted as leading to Leicester, which has a mystery discontinuity in the A46 of a kilometre or so, and which now has three separate roads all currently labelled the A444. These directions are not for them.
The rest of the population, however, obviously needs things like this video by a policeman showing how to drive on Coventry ring-road in order to cope.
If you are coming to Coventry from any direction other than the A45 from Birmingham, don't think of using any route other than going in to the Coventry ring road and back out to Coundon along an arterial spoke. It's possible to navigate through the housing estates to Coundon if you are coming from Earlsdon or the M6, and it is reported that Coventry natives have managed it in under a day. It is, quite simply, the more complex and longer route. Go in all the way to the ring road, whichever direction you are arriving from, leave at junction 8, peel off to the right at the first traffic lights, and just head on along that same road, over the level crossing, until you reach Coundon.
The CTK Centre has its own car park, which is rarely full on weekday classes. On freestyles, however, be prepared to be forced into indulging in yet another Coventry motoring speciality variation on the highway code: parking up completely on the footpath on the road outside.
The venue is a fairly small room, on the first floor up the stairs by the main entrance. (John has taken to using the room below as a Blues Room on freestyles.) Like Bicester Ex-Serviceman's Club, the CTK Centre doesn't find it worthwhile to run the ancillary bar in the room itself. So just use the main bar that is downstairs.
Seating is on three sides of the dance floor.
An interesting if slightly bizarre datum: This is the only venue I've been to where the room has its own dedicated toilet facilities, directly attached to the room itself. Make of that what you will.
Franchise(s): Ceroc Midlands
The St Leonard's Social Club is on the grounds of St Leonard's Works (owned by Areva T&D) at the end of St Leonard's Avenue. As you might guess, it's not difficult to find. Just go around the Stafford ring-road, take the Lichfield road outwards, and St Leonard's Avenue is off that road.
Possibly the hardest part of finding the place (presuming that one doesn't get in the wrong lane on Stafford ring-road and find onesself heading into a supermarket, as I once did) is finding the club entrance itself, once one is in the car park, parked in the part of the car park that Strangers (i.e. people attending the Social Club, not the Works) are allowed to park in. It's not the works entrance. It's around to the side, at the back from the point of view of the Strangers area of the car park.
The venue is a social club. Just like many of the other social clubs, there is no requirement to sign in at the entrance.
The room itself is quite large, comfortably larger than the Solihull Land Rover social club or either of the Jaguar social clubs ( Jaguar Coventry or Jaguar Sutton Coldfield). And the wooden floor extends from wall to wall. However, seating is more spartan than in other social clubs, being only at the end of the room, where the bar also is. On the gripping hand, I've never seen the place crowded enough that seating has ever been a problem.
Map reference:
Franchise(s): Ceroc Oxford
For years, this was, and still is, beyond my range. (It is ironic that, at 59 minutes, it takes less time to drive to Abingdon than it does to drive to Oxford town centre.) I finally made it in December 2009, getting lost twice, once by car and once on foot, along the way.
This highlights two of the problems with getting to the Town Hall: It's not possible to park nearby, and Oxford is (intentionally) a nightmare for vehicular traffic.
Since one cannot park nearby, there's a fair walk from wherever one parks to the actual venue itself. Probably the closest car park is Westgate shopping centre car park, which is a good five minutes' walk away, through back streets, from the town hall, and which will cost at least four quid for an evening.
The car park itself one has to leave on the fourth level, not the ground floor, in order head towards the town centre. This is well labelled on the car park walkways, with lines and arrows. Unfortunately, the town planners didn't stop to think that red painted lines on brown concrete, illuminated at night by yellow electric lighting, is not exactly the most visible combination.
So, ladies, you have one reason for so few men turning up to the town hall. Red-green colour-blindness is not uncommon in males, and they probably gave up trying to read the illegible directions for getting out of the car park that Oxford gives.
This attitude of Oxford's with respect to giving directions as poorly as possible extends to roads as well. Almost none of the multi-lane traffic-light-controlled junctions in the one-way system have signs indicating which lane goes where, which is quite troublesome to the driver who might want to commit the obviously plebian error of wanting to be in the correct lane, or at least to get where xe is actually wanting to go.
Of course, Park and Ride is pretty much out of the question. There's only one bus left by the time that a weekday evening has finished. They stop running just after 23:00. Miss that, and you're stuck — a not incosiderable risk for people coming to Oxford from outside in the first place.
The venue, presuming that one pays the relevant parking charges and either walks or risks the bus, is fairly standard as town halls go. Possibly there's a bar somewhere, but as with most civic halls it isn't hired. The room itself has seating on three sides, with a full concert stage at the end, and wall to wall dance floor.
Like Walsall Town Hall and Kidderminster Town Hall, there is a balcony up above. I've yet to find out how to get to it, and it isn't as impressive as the balconies of the other two are, being more of a passageway than a seating area.
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Franchise(s): Ceroc Midlands
I've never been here. I cannot tell you anything about it.
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Franchise(s): Strictly Ceroc
I've never been here. I cannot tell you anything about it.
Franchise(s): Strictly Ceroc
I've never been here. I cannot tell you anything about it.
Map reference:
Franchise(s): Ceroc Midlands
I've never been here. I cannot tell you anything about it.
Map reference: 51°53.947'N 1°09.189'W
Franchise(s): Ceroc Oxford
The Ex-Serviceman's Club is, according to its postcode, on Sheep Street. In yet another example of why one shouldn't use postcodes for navigation, this is entirely the wrong street to be on. The place to park for the Club is the Bure Place car park, which is free during the evening, and where you'll also find the club entrance, given as the map reference.
Bure Place car park is relatively easy to find when entering Bicester from the M40. Just turn right immediately after the hospital, and follow the road around. This avoids the one-way system in the center of Bicester. If you miss the turning, you'll have to come to Bure Place from the opposite direction, which involves going around the one-way system.
The venue is quite small, with seating on three sides of a long but quite narrow dance floor. Although there's a bar in the room itself, it isn't open because it isn't worthwhile for the club to open an ancillary bar. So just use the main bar.
I've never been here. I cannot tell you anything about it.
I've never been here. I cannot tell you anything about it.
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Franchise(s):
I've never been here. I cannot tell you anything about it.
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Franchise(s):
I've never been here. I cannot tell you anything about it.
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Franchise(s):
I've never been here. I cannot tell you anything about it.
It's common for civic halls to have bars, but for Ceroc events not to make use of them, providing their own soft drinks bars instead. This happens both at The Council House and at The Cornbow Hall, for example. It's also the case for the Town Hall in Burton-on-Trent. Looking at the situation with the former is instructive in the reasons why this is.
The Spadesbourne Suite does have a bar, around to the side of the Conservatory. But Debbie Two doesn't pay for it to be staffed. The Spadesbourne Suite's rate of £100 per diem for staffing that bar can be deduced from the party rates on its web site (hyperlinked-to above). A party is £75, and a party plus bar is £175. Now divide that number by the mean head count for a week-day evening to see how much extra you would have to pay every week for the privilege of having an employee of the council's catering subcontractor behind a counter ready to sell a pint of lemonade to you.
A quick look at the sub-contractor's web site reveals that it really isn't geared up for bar-only events. As far as it is concerned, if the customer wants catering, the customer wants full service catering with food too. That's simply not the service that a Ceroc franchise wants to buy for a weekly class.
The only civic halls that I've encountered that provide the sort of bar-only service that a Ceroc franchise wants to buy from a venue are The Nantwich Civic Hall and The Public Hall. These are the exceptions, not the rule.
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