Joseph A. Nelson Community Center

Beautiful facility with several banquet rooms. Will definitely consider this venue for our next event.

I’ve had the pleasure of taking both a sewing class and watching my daughter’s tap/​ballet class here.
First, I’ll talk about the sewing class at $ 30 for 4 weekly classes. I’d say I genuinely learned a lot about the craft from this class. I was the only student in the instructor’s beginning sewing class and she was able to give me a lot of hands on instruction. People from her more advanced classes always hung around to work on projects during my class, but I always had priority since it was my class time. My only complaint would be that the teacher was constantly talking about me and other students when we weren’t there. She never said anything terribly bad, it was just annoying how the main conversation in class seemed to revolve around other people. How do I know this was happening? Mostly because I was there when she talked about others, but I’m not so dense that I don’t know when someone just finished talking about me as I walk into the room. She also never bothered to learn my name in the month that I was in her class. She referred to me as «Miss Lady» or some other generic name. If I’m paying for your class, you need to learn my name. It’s not like I was the only person with a unique name either. Even so, the instructor did teach me a lot about sewing and I retained a lot of her tips and such. I would consider taking her class again, even with the issues above… as long as she learns my name.
Before I get too far into the ballet and tap dance class review, let me say that I’ve enrolled my daughter in a few dance classes through the City of Fairfield and the differences between the two are night and day. Without going too much into what was wrong with the Fairfield classes (I’ll post a review on their page for that), the instructor and the general organization here is worth every penny I spent The cost for 6 weekly classes is $ 78 and goes on throughout the year. They start in January and work towards a recital in Summer with another (and new routines) in December. Both recitals require 2 costumes that parents are responsible for paying the cost of. The summer costumes came out to $ 87 altogether for both costumes, something to consider since your child will undoubtedly love this class. The instructor that teaches it has been teaching the class for over 20 years and actually has teenage assistants that she’s taught from a young age. I love this class because the instructor (Judy) keeps the girls focused on dance and points out ways they can improve without making the girls feel embarrassed. Often, she addresses the improvements to the group, which is great since my kid inherited her daddy’s rhythm instead of mine (not a good thing, haha). Even with my daughter’s genetic disadvantage, the improvement she’s made has been striking. Judy does an amazing job working with these girls and they all clearly have a great time from start to finish. If my daughter had her way, she’d stay for the classes before and after as well. Another thing worth pointing out about this class — parents and siblings are not allowed into the room during instruction. We all sit in the hall, some of us chat and Judy invites us in once for each routine to watch them perform. It’s fun seeing what they learn each week as they build on the routine.
As someone who actually lives in Fairfield, I do like my money to go towards my own city’s government. However, the classes here are truly superior. Better organization, more experience and therefore, better instruction. I can’t rule out taking a class through The City of Fairfield again, but I doubt I’ll be signing my daughter up for any more dance classes there.
Why would this glowing review get only 4 stars then? 1) I didn’t like being in a room where other people were being talked about each week, it was just awkward. 2) Their WIFI password is for meetings only. 3) The Zumba class is more expensive and shorter than other classes in the area. Too bad because I’d love to take it, but can’t get around that.