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60th Anniversary
Welcome !
The 2025/26 dance season marks the 60th anniversary of the RSCDS Ottawa Branch! We’re thrilled to announce a full year dedicated to celebrating six decades of Scottish country dancing!
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On this page you will find details of all the anniversary activities. Come back often to check for updates!
Upcoming Events
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October 14 - 29, 2025
Apparel sale. Samples of merchandise will be available in classes.
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October 31, 2025
Deadline for orders.
April 11, 2026
Anniversary Ball.
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What better way to commemorate our anniversary than sporting a great shirt with our anniversary logo. Or, for those cold winters, wearing a cosy toque - great for the kilt skate!
You can try before you buy! During the classes from October 14 - 29 we will be bringing samples of the sizes and colours for all items for you to look at and try on. Deadline for orders is October 31. Orders will be delivered to classes by the end of November.
Click on Order to see all the details and place your order.
History
An anniversary like this reminds us to look back and see how far we have come. In this section we are highlighting our history through a series of articles that will unfold a decade at a time. These are just quick highlights, if you want to see more check out the History documents and the Archives.​
Through the Decades
1966 - 1975
Scottish country dancing in Ottawa began in the late 1940s. Through the 1950s there were a variety of groups across the city. In 1957, many of them came together and formed the Ottawa Scottish Country Dance Society (OSCDS). By the early 1960s, the RSCDS in Scotland had become an international organization and branches were being formed in other Canadian cities. In 1965 the OSCDS applied for branch status to the RSCDS. In May 1966 this application was approved and thus began our history as an official branch.
From these early days we see the same structure we have today – weekly classes, monthly social dances and an annual ball. In the mid-1970s there was the first ‘Bring Your Own Guest Night’ which became an annual tradition and was the precursor to our Welcome Dance. Many of the dances popular then are still popular today – Reel of the 51st Division, Mairi’s Wedding, and Maxwell’s Rant to name a few. Some things were very different though; music was provided by vinyl records which, as you can imagine, was pretty tricky!
The early 1970s marked the first appearance of Fergus. If you are a long time member you will know who Fergus is, but for the rest of us here is his history. Eileen Black, who was bulletin editor at the time, was looking for art work and an artist friend created Fergus. He first appeared in the publicity for the 1971 ball. He was a much loved mascot and appeared in the masthead of the bulletins until 2011 - a remarkable run!
Our Fergus
A braw wee chap is Fergus
Our mascot brave and true,
Though why he looks so angry
We never really knew.
One day we thought to ask him,
He frowned and said “Och, well
You’ve only got to look at me,
The answer’s plain to tell.
“There’s no’a hielan’ soldier
Can explain with any pride,
Why he’s silver buckles on his spats,
And kilt pinned on the wrong side.”
John de Chastelain
Source: This article was abstracted from ‘The Extended Family: History of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society Ottawa 1966-1971’ Compiled by Eric Clyde.
Dance Book
To celebrate our Anniversary, we are creating a book of dances devised by and for the Branch. See below for updates on our progress throughout the year.
Submissions
Branch members channeled their creative energy into devising dances throughout the spring and summer leading up to our anniversary year. We are a creative group—34 dances by 18 different devisors were submitted for possible inclusion in the book. And so much variety! Reels, jigs and strathspeys, and 3-, 4-, and 5-couple dances in longwise sets, square sets and even a triangular set. If you do the math, you can see that some folks got the dance-writing bug and devised more than one!
Dance Testing
To help us decide which dances will be included in the book, we’ve been running testing sessions where we receive feedback on each submitted dance from a wonderful group of testers.
In advance of each testing session, the testers, a different set each evening, are given descriptions and videos of the formations in the dances to review. The testing is blind, and testers are not given the dance instructions, the name of the dance, nor that of its devisor. On the testing evening, there is some practice of trickier figures before the dances are taught and walked through. Each submission is then danced a few times, enough for testers to try it from more than one position and to observe the transitions between repetitions. Following each dance, testers use an evaluation sheet to record their overall impression of the dance as well as its level of physical and mental effort. They also have the opportunity to indicate whether anything didn't work, or if they felt anything worked particularly well. We are grateful to those who volunteered to be testers; it is a challenging experience, but hopefully a fun one too.
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