A lady from Wilhelmshaven had her first encounter with square dancing during a longer stay in the USA and in 1983 she had the idea of making this dance known here. After intensive preparation, the first interested people came together as early as October 1983 and the first class was already being held in January 1984. The 1st club caller at that time was the American Bob Maine, who travelled to the club and class evenings all the way from Bremerhaven.

The Club was officially founded on 19 October 1984 after it had been entered in the Associations Register as a registered association, this being followed by the Club joining the EAASDC at the beginning of 1985.

As the Club was seen to be a part of the sporting culture work, we joined the Town Sports Association on 22 February 1985, so that we were therefore automatically a member of the Lower Saxony Land Sports Association.

4 of the 14 founder members are still active in the Club, these including our current club caller Jens Klusmann and his wife Jutta, who very skillfully heads the celebrations committee.

1984 the enthusiasm of the small crowd was big enough to feel strong enough to host their first Special Dance in June, 1985. But it needed a name. What would be better than the element just in front of our front doors, the silt of the mudflats. Okay, this could have been the birth of the Special "Mud Dance", but mud is the name for something in front of the British coast. Our word for it is the "Schlick", and this should be (mis-)used for our dance. For various reasons, it seemed to be rather difficult to us to get the 'Schlick' into a dance hall, but we could manage it directly in front of our dike. Even the dike-authority, which has to be asked in every matter, agreed.

Since then, every year on the second weekend in June at the southern beach a (to the strollers) wondrously colorful activity takes place, depending on the tide on Saturday or Sunday for one and a half hours.

Like elsewhere on the square in front of the city hall, nothing is missing that belongs to Square Dance: music, lively interludes, colorful dresses, at best with rolled-up trouser legs or in shorts. Depending on the program, afterwards it continues in the hall, maybe with not quite so clean feet, but nobody can see them thanks to the stockings. On their chests, swelled with sea air, hangs the new dangle with the muddy feet, handed out on the spot.

A mudflat hike from Neßmersiel to Baltrum on the Thursday before our Schlick Dance - which already starts on the Friday - has become an important part in the meantime. The 27th Schlick Dance will be taking place next year.

Plus has also been offered in addition to Mainstream since 1991.

We introduced clogging in 1995 with the highlight being the Convention in 2000. We were unfortunately unable to arouse the enthusiasm of the members for this type of dance in the following years to that we had to give up clogging.

We have also danced in public all those years. We have for example had numerous appearances at Wilhelmshaven’s “Weekend on the Jade“ and in November 1999 we celebrated Thanksgiving with the “German-American Club“ with turkey. We have also presented our club on numerous occasions in cooperation with other sports clubs according to the motto “clubs introduce themselves“.

We also like to look back on the leisure times we spent together, having much fun and pleasure with each other. We were on the island of Spiekeroog numerous times and we often saw in the New Year at a youth hostel in Syke.

In 1993 and 1995, we went to Selsey, England to take part in a special. It speaks for itself that we paid a visit to London while we were there.

The Club currently has 47 members, most of them being active dancers. We hope that we will be able to spend many more years square dancing together, perhaps we will meet at the 50th Schlick Dance.

Translation: Trevor Salisbury, Reinhard Greulich