Gary Morris

Gary has been a dancer continuously for more than 50 years, starting in Hastings under the influence of Madge Laing during the 1950s.   He passed his Teacher's Certificate at St Andrews in 1962 at the age of 23.   In New Zealand an activity such as dancing is certainly not considered mainstream for men, and Gary has been an inspiration and role model to male dancers in New Zealand.   He has always, and still, dances with precision and style.

Over the last 40 years Gary has taught at an endless number of Region classes, Day and Weekend Schools.  His profession required him to travel extensively around New Zealand, and he always made a point of attending local clubs and classes and sharing his enjoyment of dancing with dancers and teachers.  Gary is currently supporting the establishment of a new club in Carterton, north of Wellington, where he has recently retired to.

Gary has taught at many New Zealand Branch Summer Schools, Australian Winter Schools, plus TAC in Canada, South Carolina, USA and the London Branch in the UK.  Gary is highly regarded as a teacher and travels overseas regularly to teach at classes and schools.

Gary has tutored many groups of teachers (both in New Zealand and Australia), for their Preliminary Test and Teacher's Certificate examinations.  In 1991 Gary was appointed as an examiner of the Society and since then has conducted examinations in New Zealand, Australia and Japan.

For over 30years Gary has been a member of the New Zealand Branch Reference Technical Committee.   He became an ex-officio member of this committee as an examiner, from 1991 until the committee was disbanded in 1999.   This committee was replaced by a Teacher's Panel and Gary served on this panel becoming Convenor in 2001.   As Convenor he was responsible for organising the tour of the Society's visiting examiner in the same year.

Gary convened the sub-committee responsible for the publication of the Wellington Region's "Morison Bush Collection" in 1978, and later the New Zealand Branch book "Aotearoa Collection" and the New Zealand Branch's 25^th Anniversary book "Silver Threads".  Gary has also devised several popular dances, the best know of these being The Reverend John MacFarlane (Book 37).

As a regular attendee at Summer Schools in St Andrews, Gary has kept New Zealand in touch with what is happening overseas in Scottish Country Dancing.  Gary's knowledge and expertise as a dancer and teacher, and in later years as an examiner has been invaluable to the dancers and teachers of New Zealand and in particular to the New Zealand Branch.