| John met his future wife and partner Arlene at the late James Barton's Dancing School in Dublin in 1956 when they were aged nineteen and seventeen respectively. Having
gone through the medal tests up to the Supreme Award they stopped dancing to begin saving for their marriage. In the early seventies they made a brief return to dancing at the late and
great Eveline Burchill's School of Dancing, for a period of about one year, but found it did not mix too well with rearing a young family. In 1986 they returned to dancing again,
this time for good and entered their first competitions in the Munster area and in June 1987 they won their first competition, the Munster Open Ballroom Championships at the Glen Hotel, Aherlow, Co. Tipperary. They became members of the
IBWF and after several very successful years they joined the Irish DanceSport Federation. Their first success in the IDSF was in winning the Republic of Ireland Closed Ballroom
Championship in the Mid-Nineties (they are not quite sure of the year). John has been a member of the Council since 1995 and in early 1999 he volunteered his services as Editor of a new
IDSF Newsletter thereby filling a vacuum which had existed for many years. The Newsletter has been running very successfully now for three years and the only challenge is to get people to submit articles or information to keep it going.
Following the Annual General Meeting 2002 John was elected Honorary Chairman of the Federation and has since passed on the editorship of the Newsletter to John Francis, to allow him to fully concentrate on his new role.  E-Mail: John
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