I am in the middle of a very hectic week of travelling. Yesterday we had a fantastic morning at The Royal Ballet School taking photos of our 1st Position Pro range for the next Diamond Book.

Our model, Amy Thake, is a professional dancer and former Royal Ballet School student. Our photographer, Elaine, is a former English National Ballet soloist, so we really were pushing the Professional theme!

Here is Amy on set with Elaine Mayson our photographer, Elaine our buyer and me. Look out for the great new Pro styles in August!

I am thrilled to be able to tell you that we have just been awarded the ECMOD award for our category!

Jonathan and Allison proudly took to the stage to take our latest ECMOD trophy. Thank you to all our great catalogue and web team as well as all our wonderful customers-without you we would not win anything!

Well, it’s been a very hectic morning at photography!  Lots of great models and some really fun shots.

Ted who is one of our Customer Service Advisors but also a dancer, is also here today modelling for us. Here he is having a short break with Elaine our Buyer.

This is the really fun part for our models. Having your hair and make up done by Cheryl.

In this picture being helped by Kate!

We are having great fun with our lovely models from dancing schools in the Liverpool area. Here is a sneak peak…

I also had a tour of Liverpool Theatre School today. Great studios! Thanks Maxine for showing me round.

Amazingly we are once again starting to shoot the 2012/13 catalogue. I can’t believe the time has come round again to travel to Liverpool and set up our “studio” here. We are looking forward to meeting all our lovely models, first though there’s work to be done.

Poor Elaine (really our Buyer) got the short straw first thing this morning…..

This week we were delighted to welcome our good friends and colleagues from D’Valda and Sirico Dance School in Connecticut. They enjoyed a tour of IDS and spent some time in the Showroom. Here we are surrounded by costumes in the Showroom!

After leaving Devon they travelled to London to Move It where they will have a stand promoting Dance Teacher Web and Conference. Steve Sirico and Angela D’Valda Sirico will also be teaching at the Dance Teacher Events at Move It.

Here we are at our first ever International Dance Teachers’ Conference launching our 2011 Diamond Book.

The evening was rounded off with an incredible Gala Performance including Sarah Lamb’s ‘Dying Swan’ and our special guests from a top UK talent show!

The delegates are having a fabulous time, joining in dance classes with stars such as Steven McRae, Lizzie Gough and Anton Du Beke.

Three of my team are at our Reprographic house this week checking the final proofs of the new catalogue before they go to print.

Here is Jonathan working on a spread of the USA catalogue which is also in work too.

Last night, Ian and I took a group of long serving members of staff and their partners out to supper. We had a lovely evening and it was great to be able to celebrate their many years of devotion to IDS as well and to say thank you to those who have supported them during this time.

They had a staggering 200 years of service to our customers between4 them!  If you the add the 66 years Ian and I have also jointly devoted to the company it is a pretty amazing record.
Here are some photos of the happy occasion.