Author: Mandi
My personal #Frankie 100 Thank You list – full credits now listed at frankie100.com
Mandi’s personal thank you list – FULL credits can now be found at frankie100.com
#Frankie100 has come and gone and now it’s time for me to face a deep fear that I’ve worried about for more than 6 months; giving proper thanks to everyone who deserves it and trying not to forget anyone!
The list of credit is very long and my team was incredibly generous when they filtered the bulk of the praise my way. The fact is that dozens of people worked hundreds of hours to make #Frankie100 happen. I am so very grateful to each and every person who played a part in this event.
***I won’t be able to list every single person right now, so I’m going to limit this to the people who worked with me directly. We will be putting a very full and extensive list of credits on the website very soon, so please realize that this is not everyone. Edit: credit list now available at frankie100.com***
Mandi’s personal thanks:
First, thank you to Elliott Donnelley who is the one person who was both wise and crazy enough to push for Frankie Manning’s Centennial to happen. Without Elliott, none of Frankie 95, Frankie 100 or even the Frankie Manning Foundation would ever have come in to existence.
Thank you to Sing Lim, who I have idolized and respected for so many years, for your support and camaraderie came in at a critical early planning stage. Without Sing joining me and Elliott 14 months ago, I don’t think that Frankie 100 would have happened. And thank you to Sing for masterminding the World Lindy Hop Day concept.
It’s with very special thanks that that I mention my dear friend, Tim Collins, for completing the fourth corner of our core square so perfectly when he joined us in mid-May. Tim, you brought a balance that our organizing team needed, and that I in particular couldn’t have survived without. I value your dedication, technical skills, spirit and most importantly your friendship more than you can imagine. Thanks for bungee jumping with me again 13 years later.
Thank you to Tim’s incredible support team, Nicolás Speraggi, Ruchi Aviles & Pao Aviles. Wow. What an incredible backbone. So much of your work was in the background and I don’t know if you can ever receive enough thanks for what you contributed to making this event happen. Please know that you are loved.
I think that the people who deserve the most thanks are Eileen Jones & Stephanie Taylorfor the leading the Registration Team, assisted by Laura Clarke, Ani Novshadian and Ben Holness. This was an incredibly labour intensive and thankless job. We could never have predicted the number of hours that this would require. You managed the process with dedication, grace, kindness and humour, even when you were stretched far beyond what anyone could ever expect from a volunteer effort. I bow to you.
I’d like to thank my dear friend, Judy Pritchett, for sharing Frankie with me in a very personal way and for helping to guide the event in the right direction, and for running the Woodlawn Cemetery and Frankie 100 Film Festival.
Shannon Refvik, thank you for knocking the volunteer coordination out of the park. I rely on you in many parts of my life and appreciate the sanity and hope that you give me. Thank you for taking care of me. I basically trust you with my life.
Thank you to Jay Hay, an incredible work horse, who was ready to take on the entire project to make sure that it happened and who worked his butt off this weekend.
Jen Pringle, who came in out of left field and went above and beyond the Terminal 5 decorating project to step in as one of our key team members. We couldn’t have done this without you.
Dave Madison, for being so much more than just “Houston” over the weekend, as well as your help with World Lindy Hop Day. Chachi, for stepping in whenever needed, and for always keeping Frankie’s memory as #1. Steven Leigh put in some serious hours and really came to the rescue over teh weekend too. Thank you, Steven!
Thank you to Cynthia Millman for so many things; particularly for your tremendous work on the Educational Panels and also for capturing Frankie’s words for all of us to cherish forever in the book, Frankie Manning: Ambassador of Lindy Hop.
To Jessica David and Andrea Cody for keeping our finances in check and of course Buddy Steves and the Houston Swing Dance Society. Without you, this event never could have happened.
Thank you to Deborah Huisken for pouring her soul in to the Commemorative Book, a truly incredible souvenir that I hope everyone spends some quiet time reading in contemplation of Frankie Manning.
Thank you to Alain Wong and Daphna Harel for coordinating the global celebrations and much more over the weekend.
The following people were not even able to attend Frankie 100 in person but deserve special recognition for their contributions:
Reesa Del Duca , Ally Martin, Michelle Long, Ron Dobrovinsky, Chris Trubela, Evita Arce, Michael Jagger, Fiona Warner.
I’d really like to thank Reesa Del Duca of Ballyhoo Graphic Design for the superb branding, professionalism and for so perfectly capturing Frankie’s joy and for working with me under duress on some very difficult aspects of the event.
Thank you to everyone who worked so hard on The Show, Swingin’ Frankie’s Way. We will upload a PDF of the Show Program soon, but in particular to Chester Whitmore, Ron Parker, Evita Arce and Michael Jagger who all played very important roles in putting together something very special.
We had a wonderful creative hosting team. Thank you to Hanna & Mattias Lundmark, Jo Hoffberg, Kevin St. Laurent and Robert Klingvall for the special activities and finishing touches that really made Terminal 5 special.
I am so thankful for the NYC Ground Team from both downtown and Uptown in Harlem, many of whose names will follow on the website creds, and to everyone who chipped in from around the world! Nathan Bugh, Amy Winn, Heidi Rosenau, Eileen O’Donnell, Laura Jeffers, Voon, Lainey Silver, Adam Lee, Nicole Zonnenburg, Sara Deckard, Adam Brozowski, Akemi Kinukawa, Claudine Lee, Allison Jones and many others.
There are just a few more names that are very personal to me that I have to add to my personal list.
To my birds, Lindy & Gaudi, who perched on my shoulder through hundreds of hours of work and who were a great comfort to me during some very difficult challenges. And words can not express my thanks to my husband, Geoffrey Holmes, the love of my life and the greatest friend and life partner I could ever ask for, whose patience, love and support allowed this event to happen.
And to Frankie Manning who I have grown to know more intimately in these past 14+ months than I ever knew in person. I’ve thought about Frankie every day and how I might do him proud and commemorate him with the centennial birthday celebration that he deserves. Frankie touched so many of us, and he certainly touched me personally on a very deep level. This has all been for him. Happy birthday, Frankie. #Frankie100
***I am SO SORRY for the people who have not yet been mentioned here. Please stay tuned for the FULL event credits coming very soon.***
Bees’ Knees Dance closing on Yonge St & re-locating under new management
Bees’ Knees Dance closing on Yonge St. & re-locating under new management
April 25, 2014 at 9:57am
Dear friends, students & Bees’ Knees family,
It’s with great sadness that I make this important announcement.
Bees’ Knees Dance is closing at 750 Yonge St., and re-locating under new management. We have loved The Hive at 750 Yonge St. but the space is too expensive for us and we will be closing this location at the end of June. Our time here has been a success in most ways, but not financially, so the time has come to move on.
This is not the end of Bees’ Knees Dance, but it’s the end for me. It’s time for some major changes and in addition to downsizing to a more reasonably priced location, I will be stepping down as the school’s Director and passing the torch to our wonderful team of instructors, led by Shannon Refvik, to take Bees’ Knees Dance in a new direction. They are planning great things and you can look forward to hearing their announcements in the coming weeks.
It’s been just under 2 years since moving in to 750 Yonge but since taking possession, things just haven’t gone my way. Within 2 weeks of moving in to the studio we learned that my husband had cancer and those were the hardest 7 months of my life. Not living in the actual city, what I thought would be manageable became very hard and unmanageable for me – running a studio in a city where I don’t actually live. Additionally, my commitment to carrying on Frankie Manning’s legacy through the Frankie Manning Foundation and Frankie 100 distracted me from what I did not want to accept; that The Hive was failing financially.
I toook on too much and spread myself too thin both administratively and emotionally. Maybe I’ve made the wrong decisions along the way but I’ve done my best. Unfortunately, my resources have now run dry. It’s time for me to move on. I guess you could say that I’m retiring, not from Lindy Hop, but from teaching on a regular basis, and from the administrative and financial commitments of operating a dance studio on an ongoing basis.
We will be holding a closing party on Monday, June 30th, which is the night before the Canada Day holiday so you can all sleep in the next day.
I hope that you will join us for our final classes at Yonge & Bloor during May and June and enjoy The Hive as much as possible. We have loved it here and we want to make the most of the space. Please come out and help make our last 2 months the best months ever!
Please stay tuned for more information about future Bees’ Knees plans and about the party.
Thank you for all of the good times and for being a part of our family.
~Mandi
Mandi GouldDirector, Head Dance Instructor
Re-decorating! Our new living room
I’m really pleased with how the living room has turned out.
Custom art by www.julieprescesky.com of www.designinkarnation.com.
Raw Vegan Lemon Squares
Yesterday I participated in Toronto’s Totally Fabulous Vegan Bake-Off! I entered in the raw category with my raw lemon squares. It was a really neat experience!
I competed as part of Team Lindy Hop. In the above photo, I’m on the far right. To my left is Kris Light with her P.B. Phone Home squares, next is Ashley Bratty with her Snickerdoodle Sandwich Spectacular/Snickerdoodles Marsala, and then on the far left is Heather O’Shea with her Jazzberry Lemon Cupcakes. Heather won Best in Show for her cupcakes!
I received so much positive feedback on these squares. Someone even told me that they were not only her favourite dessert of the day but the best lemon squares she’d ever eaten! It was really an honour to participate. However, lemon lost to chocolate in the end. I understand. People do love chocolate, myself included, and the winning raw chocolate lavender cheesecake in the raw category was very lovely.
Pucker Up Raw Lemon Squares Recipe
Filling:
- 5 cups of dried, unsweetened coconut butter (approximately one jar or about 4.5 cups of fine dehydrated coconut converted into coconut butter)
- 2-4 tbsp of coconut oil
- 10 lemons, zested first, then squeezed
- 1/3 cup of lucuma powder (optional)
- Stevia Powder to taste – I like NOW brand
- 1/4 tsp tumeric (for colour, optional)
Crust:
- 1 cup of raw cashews
- 1 cup of raw coconut flour
- aprox. .5 cup of dates (use more as needed)
IMPORTANT INSTRUCTIONS: **Your food processor must be completely dry for this to work, and all ingredients should be at room temperature before proceeding.
- Blitz the dried coconut and 2 tbsp of coconut oil in the food processor to make coconut butter. This can take several minutes. Stop and scrape the sides of the sides of the food processor often. If after 5 minutes your mixture is still dry, add more coconut oil as needed.
- Once you’ve made a completely smooth butter, add the lemon zest. Blend.
- Add the lucuma. Blend.
- Add the lemon juice. Blend.
- The stevia that I use comes with a tiny little spoon inside the jar. Add 2 of the tiny spoonfuls, or just a small pinch of stevia and blend and taste often. Adding only a small amount at a time, add more of the stevia as needed adjusting to your palette.
- Add the tumeric. Blend.
- Pour contents in to a bowl and set aside on the counter (not the fridge) while you continue on to make your crust.
- When working in this order, there is no need to clean the food processor. Blitz cashews in the food processor until they start to form a crumb.
- Add the coconut flour and approximately 6 dates and start the food processor going, adding more dates until the mixture starts to seem slightly sticky. Stop the food processor and smoosh some of the mixture together with your fingers from time to time and when the mixture starts to stick together, it’s ready.
- Line a pan with parchment paper, or oil and dust with coconut flour before pressing the crust in to the form.
- Once you’ve pressed the crust in to a pan, scoop the filling in to the pan and smooth it out with a spatula. Place it in the freezer for at least one hour before cutting and serving. I like to make this the night before and thaw it out the next day for serving.
When I first started hunting for the best raw lemon square recipe, I wasn’t very satisfied with what I found. That led to a lot of experimenting and eventually to this favourite recipe of mine. Here are some photos of an earlier version of the lemon squares, without the addition of tumeric for colour:
My lemon square display made it in to this photo gallery from BlogTO.
Herrang 2013
Great whirlwind trip to Herrang this year. It was short, but jam packed full of time spent with the this year’s Frankie Manning Foundation ambassadors, Ray from New York, Itay from Jerusalem and Omar from Baltimore. VERY sadly, Dolker from Dharmshala, India has had to wait until next year due to visa problems but we’ll try to send her in 2014.
I was also able to spend a lot of time with Judy, and to have a productive series of meetings with Elliott, Tim and many other people related to Frankie 100 this May.
Managing Frankie 100 NYC, May 22-26, 2014
Building the Frankie 100 Dream Team
Posted on May 10, 2013 at Frankie100.com
Planning an event of such epic proportion can be daunting. There is so much love and passion for this event to take place, and where Frankie Manning is concerned we believe that where there’s a will there’s definitely a way. Though it’s taken some time to build a team of Frankie disciples willing and available to execute the event, we’re sure that everyone will agree that it’s definitely been worth the wait.The most important part of an event like this is YOU. All of YOU. Lindy Hoppers everywhere. But if you think about it, that’s not “you” in fact, but “us”… Lindy Hop is certainly the most inclusive binding force of nature and exceptional world community that I, for one, have ever experienced. When you learn your first swing dance steps you become a Lindy Hopper and it turns in to WE. We, the Lindy Hoppers of the world, are part of Frankie’s legacy. We are part of something bigger. And that’s what Frankie 100 is going to be all about. We, the Lindy Hoppers of the World, descending from all parts of the world on New York City to celebrate a life and a legacy that has touched us all.
See you in New York next May!
Mandi Gould
Frankie Manning Foundation
Geoff beat cancer!
HOLY MOLY. The test results are all negative and Geoff is basically considered CURED! (Other than follow up CAT scans every 3 months for 2 years to make sure he stays cured.) So emotional. So grateful to everyone who has supported us and to the Canadian health care system.
We actually received the news on May 3rd. Today is May 12th and I’m still processing what this now means. There’s still lots of emotional healing that will need to take place, but I’m glad to be able to share this video of Geoff’s little speech and him and our friend Kevin Sue beating up the cancer pinata.
It’s not over ’til it’s over, but the love of the community helps
On Saturday night, I was blown away by the suprise community fundraiser that was held to raise money for Geoff and I to go to Disney World. Geoff has been undergoing treatments for testicular cancer since September and it’s certainly taken its toll on us.
From me to the community:
How can I express the depth of my thanks? How can I explain the incredible power of community to people who have never experienced something like it? I am overwhelmed by your generosity. It’s been a terrible 4 months & we’re not sure how much longer it’s going to take. Geoff deserves some lighthearted simple pleasure and you’ve made that possible. Please accept our sincerest gratefulness.
From Geoff to the community:
“To our dear friends: Mandi and I (especially I) are completely overwhelmed at your thoughtfulness and generosity. I was so surprised to hear about the amazing fundraiser to send us to Disneyland after chemo is finished. The last couple of months have been the most difficult in our lives and your kindness and caring have turned it around into one of the most heartwarming experiences ever. I have she’d more than one tear thinking about how blessed I am to know such wonderful kind people! I can’t find words to adequately describe our gratitude.
In a couple of weeks, ill be getting re-tested to see what condition the cancer is in now. I’m anxious but have faith that the results will be more than encouraging. And if additional treatment is need, at least it won’t be the dreaded chemo!
Again, we wish to thank you all from the bottom of our hearts. I wish I could have been there to see all the crazy Disney costumes Mandi told me about but thanks to your generosity, we will be seeing the real characters soon enough!
Yayyyyy!!! We’ve got something wonderful to look forward to!
Thank you thank you thank you!!!”
It’s been tough. Really tough. A month surrounding the surgery followed by 13 weeks of chemo that just beat Geoff into the ground. Next he has a blood transfusion on Wednesday and then 2 rounds of tests before they determine if he’ll need to have surgery and/or radiation. But thanks to the community, we’ll be able to squeeze in a much needed break and change of scenery for Geoff.
I’ve come this far
I’ve fought the fight
Together with my team,
I’ll hit this gong
And share with you all
The reaching of a dream.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU1jBII8xPg&w=420&h=315]
Remembering my paternal Grandmother, Ida Gould
My grandmother passed away on Thursday at the age of 98 years old. I created a small website for her that my father’s side of the family will be adding to.
IDA GOULD 1914-2013
Ida Gould, born Ida Stone, passed away on Thursday, January 17, 2013 at the age of 98.
Ida was the loving mother and mother-in-law of Arlene Gould and Robert Cushman, Lorne Gould and Penny Winestockm devoted grandmother of Chloe, Anthony, Mitchell Cushman, and Samantha, Zoey, and Mandi Gould and Geoffrey Holmes.
Ida was one of the 8 children and the last among them to pass away. She will be missed.
Memorial donations may be made to Save the Children Fund, 416-221-5501.