C1 Ölpe 2008

For me events in Ölpe are, or always were, matters of the heart. Long time ago I went there for a C1 event. Before this I only knew iPAC as far as international event, and this made me eager to try another dance in Germany. I was not too much interested in Czech events, not even considering that there were only two uncooperating C1 squares and only one caller. So I went to Ölpe and it was really something. This event showed that not only iPAC was excellent, but generally dancing in Germany is much better than in Bohemia.

The event was called by Joachim Rühenbeck, who I did not know then. I probably do not need to say that this was fantastic, since the guy is known enough here. We were the only Czechs there with my then dancer, and since Ölpe is all the way on the western border of Germany, we probably looked kind of exotic. Everybody was treating us nice though, and we spend the evening party at the table with Joachim, Ute, Jürg Greiner and some lady. We partied until about one in the morning and went to sleep only because of the sense of duty. Everybody at the table spoke English because of us, including conversations among themselves, when they wanted to discuss something. For me this was a breakthrough weekend and I learned a lot about organizing events and how people should behave to each other.

But let us go back to 2008 after this historic excursion. What happened during the years is that Ölpe is not called only by Joachim any more, but also by other invited callers. At this C1 these were Dave Wilson and Edith Heither, the club caller of the organizing club called Triangle Squares. The poor girl was quite nervous from the fact that she was calling before Dave, which I could understand, since I, when I was to call before him a week later, took four days to stop shaking from nervousness and be able to function somewhat.