News & Updates

December 2025 Panhandle Press Article

Another year is about over, and we continue to look forward to the new year as Emerald Waves Squares continues to grow as Pensacola’s newest club. This past October we hosted our annual open house-event at Ragon Hall and in November did an introduction to square dancing at the Roundup Nightclub in Pensacola. Though we didn’t pick up any new dancers from the Roundup event, we had a great time and good participation from the patrons. Additionally, it brought awareness of our club and modern square dancing to the local community. Our open-house event picked up six new students, now attending classes with dedication and have already become club members. Bringing our membership up to 30 active members. Several of our members are also members of Seaside Squares and Agape Squares in Niceville. It’s great to see dancers supporting and becoming members of our neighboring clubs.

 

As always, we can’t give enough praise to the Seaside Squares Angels that continue to dance with us every Tuesday and are always in full support of our club. It goes without saying, we would be a square-sitting club if it were not for our world-famous caller Nick Hartley and lovely wife Lynette. Their devotion to dancing and our club and their over-the-top energy, upbeat and current music keeps everyone on the floor dancing, laughing and smiling. We also want to give a huge shout-out to Alec Schmidt our club Co-Caller. Alec is progressing in his skills as a caller / instructor and is doing a fantastic job! It’s always a pleasure to have him join in with Nick or to lead the classes in Nick’s absence.

 

The Pensacola Rainbow Stroll 2025

 

The 2025 Pensacola Rainbow Stroll, September 18 -20, was a great success and brought in more than 70 dancers to Pensacola and Ragon Hall for a three-day dance event know as a “Fly-In”, as many dancers flew in from out of state. Our beloved Nick Hartley was joined by international level caller Chris Phillips from the Ft Lauderdale / Maimi area and together, they put on an amazing event! The dance levels were Mainstream through Advanced and a bit of Challenge. The event featured a free lunch with food donations from many local Pensacola restaurants and vendors, a silent auction and gift basket drawings.

 

The 2025 event was such a success that planning has already begun for the 2026 Rainbow Stroll – Pensacola Promenade. The event will go forward annually as the Pensacola Rainbow Stroll with a different event theme added every year thereafter.

 

The news of the fun and excitement of our event reached throughout the square dance community, coast to coast, Florida to California, with so much fanfare and enthusiasm that we’ve been approached by international caller, Michael Kellogg from California, requesting to be our guest caller (and in Michael’s words) and to have the honor of calling with one of his all-time favorite callers Nick Hartley! Don’t take that statement lightly! For our club to be contacted from a Westcoast caller anxious to make the journey to Florida, call for our Panhandle dancers and work with Nick and Lynette is an extremely high compliment and a tribute to the dedication and hard work of all our Northwest callers and the Northwest Florida Association clubs and dancers!

 

Mark your calendars now!

The Pensacola Rainbow Stroll – Pensacola Promenade 2026

September 17-20, 2026, Ragon Hall 2600 Stratford Rd Pensacola, FL

Event pricing with early-bird pricing, Host hotels and dance schedule forthcoming!

 

 

We hope, and encourage, all active dancers in the community and surrounding communities will come visit our club and support the continued growth of the square dance culture.

 

Now let’s go Dance!

15 December 2024 Update: January Panhandle Press Article:

 

Emerald Waves Squares hopes that everyone had a great Holiday season and that you have a happy and prosperous New Year!

 

Dance Schedule: Every Tuesday night at Ragon Hall; 2600 Stratford Rd Pensacola, FL. Doors open at 6pm for those wanting extra time for practice. Basic level lessons from 6:30 to 7:45pm. Mainstream level lessons from 7:45 to 9pm. Nick Hartley is our caller.

 

Our open house event in October was very successful, we had a great turnout and many continued lessons through November. As we know, life happens and sadly not everyone could continue. However, we’re very happy to report that we retained 13 dedicated dancers that now dance every Tuesday and have actively joined the club with full membership. With these new members, 12 members from the May class and several dual members from Seaside Squares, we now have 32 active club members and a few inactive that we hope will return to dancing soon.

 

We’re so fortunate to share the hall with Seaside Squares and have many of them attending every Tuesday to support our club and act as Angels for the new dancers. Nick & Lynette Hartley’s energy is contagious! They’re so full of joy and excitement and they’re fully committed to growing the club and square dancing in the region. We also want to thank Alec Schmidt for coming in to call with Nick and help with the classes. Alec is doing a fantastic job, and his calling skills are improving greatly.

 

We have Badges! On December 10th, our club members were very excited to receive their new name badges, complete with a “Charter Member 2024” hanger bar. No more peel-n-stick or plastic sleeves!

 

Due to the overwhelming success of our open house events and all our new members sharing their excitement about “Modern Square Dance” in Pensacola and the surrounding area; Seaside Squares, Emerald Waves Squares and Nick & Lynette Hartley will host a BLAST CLASS at Ragon Hall on January 11th, 10am to 3pm. The focus of this workshop is to take in a group of new dancers and bring them up to the level of the current Tuesday night class. If you know of anyone interested, please encourage them to attend. Please see the Emerald Waves Squares Facebook page for details.

 

We hope, and encourage, all active dancers in the community and surrounding communities will come visit our club and support the continued growth of the square dance culture.

 

Now let’s go Dance!

20 October 2024 – Update

We started our Fall season lessons with two free open house events October 1st & 8th. Both events were very successful bringing in over 20 first time attendees each night. In addition, many of our club members and members from Seaside Squares were there to welcome in the new dancers and act as “angels”. We had four squares dancing.

 

On October 15th we began paid lessons and had 10 new dancers in attendance. With our club members and our angels from Seaside Squares, we had three squares dancing. Though our numbers were down that evening, many of those absent that had attended the open house events have been in contact and said they plan to be back the following week and bringing additional friends.

 

With the anticipation of having more first-time attendees, we’ve sent text, emailed, advertised and posted on social media that we’re accepting new dancers for the 22 October lessons. We hope to see four or more squares!

 

Fall Class Schedule:

6:30 to 7:45pmBeginner level

7:45 to 9pm Mainstream level

9 July 2024 – Update

This past July 3rd to 7th was the Carolina Twirl in Durham NC, The 41st annual convention of the International Association of Gay Square Dance Clubs (IAGSDC), with over 500 attendee’s from around the globe with participants from Canada, Australia and Japan that I know of, there were probably other countries represented as well.


Pensacola Florida was all the buzz of the convention with the talk of our new club being formed this summer and officially voted into the IAGSDC at the annual delegate’s meeting Thursday morning. So it’s official, the Emerald Waves Squares now falls under the umbrella of the IAGSDC with international recognition and representation. This is no small endeavor and it’s all due to the dedication and commitment of our club members that show up weekly to further grow the activity of Modern Square Dance within the Pensacola and surrounding area. Now watch us grow! 


Tonight starts our seventh week of lessons. Attendance is going great, though we’ve had some absentees due to travel or illness, everyone is coming back and staying committed to the activity and the club. So thank you for staying in contact and keeping me updated. We know life is busy in a summer beach community, so your dedication is fully recognized and appreciated!


That’s all for now. Let’s go dance!  

 

16 May 2024 – Note to our New Dancers

For those that were able to attend Tuesday, it was great to see you again and I hope you’re continuing to enjoy the dancing and social aspect of the activity.
 
For those who weren’t able to attend, we missed you and hope you’re feeling better. We had 4 dancers return from last Tuesday and 11 new dancers come in. We were just one dancer short of having two full squares of new dancers, so I was excited to be an “Angel” (a far stretch) in one square. Everyone was smiling and laughing and thoroughly enjoyed the dancing. Nick Hartley our caller is so upbeat and energizing, we definitely got some exercise and burned some calories! We repeated the same program as the first open house for all the new attendees and didn’t add any additional calls, so you’re all caught up for next week.
 
Next Tuesday we start regular lessons, but will go through the very basics one last time for any first time attendees. I hope everyone will still be able to invite some new friends. So scroll through your contacts, look behind the hedges and between the couch cushions for those lost friends😜
 
Lessons going forward will be $10 per person, nightly, to cover the cost of the dance hall and pay our caller, Nick. When you think about it, $10 is less than a cheap meal at most fast food chains these days and certainly less than a night at the movies or a night out on the town, but far more rewarding and healthier!
The club is not-for profit, so we use the 50/50 raffle to raise money for operating costs separate of the dance hall and the caller, so thank you for your contributions and good luck!
 
From next Tuesday forward, we will progress forward each week. Each week we’ll do a brief review of the previous week’s calls and then teach a few new calls.
 
Square dancing does require a commitment to attend each week to keep progressing and becoming an accomplished dancer, but missing a night here and there isn’t a problem we can get you caught up. Missing probably three weeks consecutively would potentially put someone too far behind. If that happens, sometimes we can arrange a special training session or they can start back again when the next  new set of lessons begin.
 
I hope this information was helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions.
 
Have a great day and I look forward to seeing you next week. If possible, could you please let me know if you plan to attend and bring anyone new? It helps in my planning for refreshments and etc.
 
Please arrive 10 minutes early to get signed in.

8 May 2024 Update

The Tuesday night open house was a great success! 9 new dancers and 9 Angels attended the event, so we had two squares up and dancing. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the evening and said they’ll be returning on the 14th and bringing friends. There’s also been a number of people in contact through MeetUp and the Facebook group pages that indicate they’ll be attending, so I truly expect an even bigger turnout for the 2nd open house. Nick Hartley our instructor/caller had the house rocking with upbeat music and truly showed this is “Modern” square dancing! He had everyone dancing from the time their feet hit the floor and progressed the new dancers through at least a dozen basic calls. These calls will be repeated for the second open house and on the 21st for the first night of actual class so any first time attendee’s can be caught up. Normal classes will proceed from that point advancing through new calls each week.