Utrecht MM dance for the IRMM

Overseas Morris

The Morris Ring appoints an Overseas Bagman to help with Morris Sides from outside of the British Isles, also to help promote and assist morris men and sides who want to travel outside of Britain. The OSB is thus a kind of 'Area Rep' with responsibilities for foreign contacts. The start of the web in early 1990s, the internet, and the ability to contact people by email has made foreign contacts and arrangements very easy. The present encumbant, who also started (in 1998) and maintains the Morris Ring website was appointed in 1989 by the Squire Mike Garland.
Contact:

The 'photo shows Utrecht's Morris Men dancing to help celebrate the UK Presidency of the E.U. in 2005, at the Institute for Reference Materials and Measurments, : IRMM Laboratory, Geel, Belgium. The IRMM Laboratory at Gell is one of the seven scientific institutes of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. It has been in existence for 45 years which was celebrated at the "Open Bedrijfsdag" in October 2005.

Current list of Overseas Members and Associates of The Morris Ring

Other Morris Sides in Europe

Overseas Morris Organisations

CIOFF

The UK General Secretary to CIOFF UK, Joe Maloney, is better placed to help with Festivals than is the OS Bagman.

Notes

Note that Morris Men travel at their own risk! One of my first jobs as OS bagman was to arrange for two Morris Sides to attend the Babylon Festival in Iraq, this was precisely a year before the first Iraq War (when we were on 'good terms' with Saddam and his cronies!). I duely arranged for Handsworth Sword and King John's MM to have a nearly free trip to Babylon. Theye returned safe and sound. A few years later in 1994 I arranged for Chameleonic Morris to attend Omsk International Festival in Siberia, the trouble was that the authorities for the festival only provided one-way tickets too Omsk ... no return! Read Des Herring's Hilarious account of this in a previous Ring Circuler. Des dances with East Suffolk Morris Men, another well travelled Morris Side. The more serious moral to this is that if your side is travelling abroad you should check that you have adequate group and personal insurance.

Twinning. Many morris sides will be able to find another folk dance group via their local town twinning organisation. This is the first place to start if you have not ventured outside of the UK before

The Web has revolutionised travel for all of us, so that many more Morris Sides travel to foreign festivals and for dance holidays. Since there are Morris Dancers and many other related folk dance groups all over this sad planet it is often possible to make individual contacts with them. Your trip to work outside of the UK could turn into an New Dance Experience! In addition it is also possible to find many folk dance groups with web sites, or at least an email address. Apart from a Google search, you might like to check out the World_Folklore E-mail Group. Over 1200 folklore and dance groups, as well as individuals, can now be contacted via this Yahoo group. Founded by Ahmet Akarsu from Nicosia, North Cyprus in 2002 this is a major resource for finding groups and festivals.

Ireland. One frequent enquiry is "is there a morris side in Ireland?". Sadly, Dublin Morris Men ceased dancing some years ago. If another side is started we would love to know about them. In the meantime, if you want to visit Ireland, try contacting either the Irish Dance Organisation Comhaltas or a group such as Dublin Folk Dance.

Some Links for International Folk Organisations

Updated: File update not available