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