THE RIGHT STEP DANCE COMPANYStep Into The Past

With one dance teacher and run from Rebecca Ashton's living room, The Right Step was a Prince's Trust supported business.

The Right Step grew in popularity quickly, more dance teachers joined the team and there were performances and events such as the one held by MOPP and CVS Medway.

The Right Step's first Fuse Medway Festival commission was devised and performed by members of the community about and on The River Medway.

We led the first dance warm up for The Santa Fun Run, the start of a Christmas tradition for the team.

The First Active Armchairs training was funded by Age Concern Chatham, our second Fuse Festival commission was The Sirens of Cetham, we celebrated The Right Step's third anniversary with a party and Georgia joined the team as Adult Dance Co-ordinator. Suddenly the number of regular sessions run rose dramatically.

The Right Step was proud to feature in many newspaper articles including when Princess Anne spoke to Rebecca at Medway Park's opening, an article about The Prince's Trust and enterprising Youth and a brilliant article about Active Armchairs at Durland House.

Clare became our Social Media Guru, our office moved to Sun Pier House, we took part in the first ever Rats Bay Shindig, collaboration with Richard Squarecube and Sun Pier House led to Croquis Events, Rebecca and Sophie presented a cheque to Children In Need and Active Armchairs training was funded by Medway Council.

Our 5th Anniversary and by January 2015, The Right Step had given over 5000 older people the chance to dance and, to reach even more people, One to One was introduced.

Our team is at the heart of what we do. In 2016 Rebecca launched TRS Franchise to expand the team and we were awarded our first Healthy Business Award, something that helps the office team do the best for the TRS Teachers. The team turned out in force for The Rats Bay Shindig, SMILE and The Santa Fun Run.

Active Armchairs got a fabulous new look, a purple colour scheme and new logo, all facilitators became Dementia Friends, Active Armchairs Training was funded by The Right Step and Level Two was introduced.

With Hale Place Care Home, we were featured in a BBC Documentary, the first TRS Tiny Dancer was born, Becca G replaced Steph as Schools Dance Co-ordinator and we raised awareness at events like SMILE and Forum Care Awareness Day.

The first franchise, TRS South Kent was launched by Georgie and The Right Step helped organise the first Dance in The Dockyard at The Historic Dockyard, Chatham.

The Enhance Research project, run in partnership with The University of Kent, gave us scientific proof that Active Armchairs has positive effects on physical and mental health, is a meaningful activity and meets criteria set by the CQC for high quality activity provision in care homes.

The Right Step celebrated 10 years of working with people at any age, for any ability.

The second franchise, TRS East Kent, was launched by Jess. Probably the most difficult time to launch a franchise, a month before the pandemic hit, Jess worked hard to bring joy to participants in the most difficult of times.

2020 was a year like no other, but The Right Step continued to use dance to bring joy. The team joined together to write blogs and create videos for Everybody Moving, a free online resource. The Enhance Project spread positivity as the report was printed and Mindful Moving gave an outlet to those who needed to express and communicate without words.

We worked hard to get back to where we were before the pandemic and we did it! With more lessons running in more parts of Kent than ever before, The Right Step was thriving! We ran training so the team could develop their expertise and were involved with events, projects and special celebrations such as the Queen's Jubilee.

Company Director, Rebecca, took a big new step and relocated her family. The Right Step needed a new home and Arts Point took it under it's wing. The TRS Teachers are now known as Arts Point Artists and they continue their wonderful work with different T-shirts on.