Weston WCS Results

**Dizzy** · 13th-April-2008, 09:51 PM

As someone who has been prevented from being able to go to Weston this weekend and is suffering severe WCS withdrawal symptoms because of it........

I need to know the results......

Can anyone help?

Also what what the weekend like compared to last year?

johnnyman · 14th-April-2008, 10:58 AM

It was a good weekend all round. Robert and Nicola provided more of their tremendous insights into technique over patterns and everyone seemed to develop further than last year.

Results-wise, I had to leave to catch my train before the finals, but I am sure that Jive Addiction will post the results in the next few days.

best
johnnyman

**HelenB** · 14th-April-2008, 11:02 AM

Classic - Graham Fox and Chelsea (Paul & Cat 2nd)
Open J&J - Paul W and Susan
Novice J&J - Steve and Alex (Foxy Funkster & AlexyMiss)
Open Strictly - Paul W and Cat
Novice Strictly - Steve and Alex

Great weekend but I'm too knackered to post a review now

Didn't go last year so can't comment on whether it was better or not

Right, I need some caffeine....

**Cruella** · 14th-April-2008, 01:00 PM

Classic
1st Graham Fox and Chelsea Rossiter
2nd Paul Warden & Cat Wiles
3rd Paul Harris and Carron Douglas

Open J&J -
1st Paul W and Susan
2nd Carron Douglas and ?
3rd ?

Novice J&J
1st Steve Hunt and Alex Rowley (Foxy Funkster & AlexyMiss)
2nd Tom Baker and Dee Noel
3rd ?

Open Strictly
1st Paul W and Cat
2nd ?
3rd Steve Hall and Rachel Martino
4th Paul Harris and Carron Douglas

Novice Strictly
1st Steve and Alex
2nd Tom Baker and Jo Jephcott
3rd Rob Day and Sue Lambell

I think those are correct, but my brain's a bit fuzzy!

Almost an Angel · 14th-April-2008, 01:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cruella

Classic
1st Graham Fox and Chelsea Rossiter
2nd Paul Warden & Cat Wiles
3rd Paul Harris and Carron Douglas

Open J&J -
1st Paul W and Susan
2nd Carron Douglas and Steve Dunn
3rd ? (I can't remember either - but I think it was Ollie and Naomi, Graham Fox and Kirsty, and Ed and Caro but I may have the names in the wrong order)

Novice J&J
1st Steve Hunt and Alex Rowley (Foxy Funkster & AlexyMiss)
2nd Tom Baker and Dee Noel
3rd ?

Open Strictly
1st Paul W and Cat
2nd Graham Fox and Chelsea Rossiter
3rd Steve Hall and Rachel Martino
4th Paul Harris and Carron Douglas

Novice Strictly
1st Steve and Alex
2nd Tom Baker and Jo Jephcott
3rd Rob Day and Sue Lambell

I think those are correct, but my brain's a bit fuzzy!

Me to and scarily enough I'm in work today.

**HelenB** · 14th-April-2008, 01:45 PM

Open J&J - 3rd place was Kirsty & Graham

Geordieed · 14th-April-2008, 02:04 PM

I was just about to send out a congratulations to all the winners and competitors who placed at Weston but instead would like to congratulate everyone that took part. Without anyone to compete against from the first heat to the final there is not much of a competition. Plus without the support of an audience the event would not be an event at all.

Much love to WCS. Whether you carry that something extra that enables you to organise the event or you contribute by sharing your time and passion by flying across the pond from America or your eyes show intense concentration while you mouth the timing to a Sugar Push, we all share one thing...

Over the last year I have competed both here and in America dancing WCS with increasing success. In doing so I learnt alot about accepting success and the compliments that come with it and be grateful. I competed at Weston this weekend and didn't do as well as I wanted. No one elses fault I accept the judges decision without question and well done the other dancers. So no negative excuses. I did not dance as well as I have done in the past, end of.

It is not an easy thing to allow yourself to be judged and we must remind ourselves what we are consenting to be judged on, if you can understand that. Learning from doing a competition, even when we don't meet our expectations, is something I feel really thankful for and more so than when I have done well. Additionally I thanked the people at the time who came to say that they enjoyed watching me compete. That made a huge difference and saying thank you doesn't seem enough. Funny how kind words can go a long way. Another grateful lesson learnt.

Good luck to everyone who carry the love for the dance at San Diego in 3 weeks time...

DS87 · 14th-April-2008, 02:13 PM

Novice J&J - 3rd Place was David and Jo Jephcott.

Well done to everyone who competed

I think that it is fair to say that the standard had risen greatly in comparison to last year. Congratulations to all

Steve

CJ · 14th-April-2008, 02:22 PM

What was the atmosphere like?? Any "cliquiness" that WCS is famous for??

**Caro** · 14th-April-2008, 03:31 PM

From what I remember...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cruella

Classic
1st Graham Fox and Chelsea Rossiter
2nd Paul Warden & Cat Wiles
3rd Paul Harris and Carron Douglas
4th James McLaughlan (sp?) and partner
5th Peter and Amy
6th Sebastien and Laurie (French couple)

Open J&J -
1st Paul W and Susan
2nd Carron Douglas and line dancer guy, I thought his name was Matt?
3rd Kirsty and Graham Fox
4th Ollie and Naomi
5th Ed and me

Novice J&J
1st Steve Hunt and Alex Rowley (Foxy Funkster & AlexyMiss)
2nd Tom Baker and Dee Noel
3rd David ? and Jo
4th ?
5th Ollie and ?

Open Strictly
1st Paul W and Cat
2nd Graham and Chelsea
3rd Steve Hall and Rachel Martino
4th Paul Harris and Carron Douglas
5th Dora and Eric (French couple)

Novice Strictly
1st Steve and Alex
2nd Tom Baker and Jo Jephcott
3rd Rob Day and Sue Lambell

I think those are correct, but my brain's a bit fuzzy!

Quote:

Originally Posted by CJ

What was the atmosphere like?? Any "cliquiness" that WCS is famous for??

yes it was very very cliquey. A big clique of about 300 people.

Too tired to post a review now, but will do sometime soon...

Almost an Angel · 14th-April-2008, 04:23 PM

So updating Di's list

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cruella

Classic
1st Graham Fox and Chelsea Rossiter
2nd Paul Warden & Cat Wiles
3rd Paul Harris and Carron Douglas
4th James McLauchlan Siobhan Dunn
5th Peter and Amy
6th Sebastien and Laurie (French couple)

Open J&J -
1st Paul W and Susan
2nd Carron Douglas and Steve Dunn
3rd Kirsty and Graham Fox
4th Ollie and Naomi
5th Ed and Caro

Novice J&J
1st Steve Hunt and Alex Rowley (Foxy Funkster & AlexyMiss)
2nd Tom Baker and Dee Noel
3rd David and Jo
4th ?
5th Ollie and ?

Open Strictly
1st Paul W and Cat
2nd Graham and Chelsea
3rd Steve Hall and Rachel Martino
4th Paul Harris and Carron Douglas
5th Dora and Eric (French couple)

Novice Strictly
1st Steve and Alex
2nd Tom Baker and Jo Jephcott
3rd Rob Day and Sue Lambell

Simon · 14th-April-2008, 04:25 PM

Terrific weekend! Thanks John and Wes.

Robert & Nicola and Kyle & Sarah were not so much two couples as a WCS team.

At times it was very difficult to decide which of the two classes running at the same time it was better to attend as they were sharing such good stuff with us.

Congratulations to all the competitors and a special mention to Steve Hall and Rachel Martino for deciding the day before to put in for the Open Strictly and coming 3rd. A great achievement.

**HelenB** · 14th-April-2008, 04:37 PM

Great weekend – knackered as per usual after a whole weekend of dancing and socialising but I wouldn’t want it any other way

I’m not going to break this down into good, bad and ugly but rather into different aspects of the weekend…

Firstly, and it’s bound to be mentioned, gender balance. What can I say, there were more women than men. I don’t expect men to ask me to dance, if I want to dance I have to be prepared to ask otherwise you can’t complain about it. It was fine last night. I just felt sorry for the men who, at it’s worst on Saturday night, must have felt like there was no chance for a rest. Paul Warden’s t-shirt summed it up well - “Wait in line ladies”

(on a side note I still don’t believe that this event should be gender balanced)

Venue was superb with oodles of space to dance. It was hot but the air conditioning did help. And plenty of free water – chilled as well. Did anyone else find the floor hard? My legs ache today

Organisation – it’s a Jive Addiction event. Need I say more?

Competition – Congratulations to all that took part. You looked great. I didn’t have the confidence to enter and wish I had. Maybe next year. Winners were worthy

Classes – the one’s I attended were fantastic. No issues with rotation. I only spotted ONE fixed couple. And the content, I thought, was appropriate for the levels. And to end with Robert’s musicality class was superb. Note to self: I must do my homework…

Cabarets – OMG

- both were sublime. Kyle and Sarah did their Johnny Be Good routine (which I posted on the youtube thread last week). To see it in the flesh was awe inspiring

In summary - great dances, great weekend, and no cliqueness – it’s the friendliest bunch of dancers around.

(p.s. thanks to all those I danced with

)

**Cruella** · 14th-April-2008, 04:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simon

Congratulations to all the competitors and a special mention to Steve Hall and Rachel Martino for deciding the day before to put in for the Open Strictly and coming 3rd. A great achievement.

I was really pleased for them. Also for Chelsea doing so well, (even had ZW and I crying when they announced the winner

) especially as she's been doing WCS for a relatively short time.

I had a great weekend, although I didn't really dance as much as I normally would, due to there being a lot more women than men. The competition standard was amazing and the team work of Kyle, Sarah, Nicola and Robert was fantastic. They were very friendly, sociable, lively and entertaining the whole weekend, I don't quite know where they get their energy from.
Well done John and Wes for another fantastic event, I'll be back next year.

**HelenB** · 14th-April-2008, 05:02 PM

another update...

Novice J&J
1st Steve Hunt and Alex Rowley (Foxy Funkster & AlexyMiss)
2nd Tom Baker and Dee Noel
3rd David and Jo
4th ? & Erica
5th Ollie and ?

stewart38 · 14th-April-2008, 05:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HelenB

on a side note I still don’t believe that this event should be gender balanced)

Why not ?

**HelenB** · 14th-April-2008, 05:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stewart38

Why not ?

I don't think there's enough leaders to allow a gender balanced WCS event to reach the certain capacity venues need for atmosphere. Bit of a weird statement I agree as you could argue there would be X number of men dancing whether it was balanced or not

Anyway, Sunday night was fine (well I thought it was)

It's just my opinion for this event at this moment in time*. Generally I think events should be gender balanced (and prefer to attend those ones)

*Rates can go up as well as down. I reserve the right to change my mind at any point

ALexyMiss · 14th-April-2008, 05:39 PM

I had a fantastic weekend! Obviously I was chuffed to bits to place 1st in both Novice categories (and a huge thanks to everyone for supporting us), but there were also many other reasons why I enjoyed this weekend so much.

I found the classes truly excellent and very helpful, really feel like I improved over the weekend. And the teachers were so friendly and approachable too!

John and Wes did a fantastic job, everything ran very smoothly and they even organised a fun, "dance with the pros for charity" thing on the Sunday evening which was not only great fun but raised some money for charity too!

I'd like to say well done to all the competitors - all the heats were fantastic to watch. The standard in the Classic category in particular was spectacularly high

All in all, a really amazing weekend - I can't wait for SwingDiego - bring it on!

Quote:

Originally Posted by HelenB

another update...

Novice J&J
1st Steve Hunt and Alex Rowley (Foxy Funkster & AlexyMiss)
2nd Tom Baker and Dee Noel
3rd David and Jo
4th Erica and he didn't have a number so he was given "0", don't know his name though
5th Ollie and ?

**Caro** · 14th-April-2008, 05:47 PM

So, my review...

General feedback is that this is a great event which is growing - and so far our only UK convention so big

for that. John and Wes ran it very smoothly as usual (small exception about comps see below) and I am personally very grateful they bring over 2 couples of pros every year as they are such an inspiration. Special mention to Kyle and Sarah's new routine which is nothing short of genius IMO.

Helen mentioned the gender imbalance and while this is unfortunate, I agree that the event is probably a bit too young to be gender balanced yet.

I won't go over all the good stuff (there were many), just wanted to say big

to all the competitors this weekend and in particular the 6 couples who did a classic - ain't easy to get out there and do that so big respect.
Personally I was really pleased about placing in the Open JnJ with Ed (thanks for cheering me up btw - I was a bit nervous). I have to say that being on the floor as the same time as James (the final was run as spotlight with 2 couples on the floor) was probably the worst of all as he and Spikey blond got all the crowd attention and applause the whole time. Pretty dreadful in fact to do your best to 'do something cool' and get absolutely zero cheers when a few seconds later the audience explodes as James does something. Well done to Sheila, I think I'd have been mortified if I was dancing with him

On a side note, because this is pretty much the only 'big' WCS comp of the year in the UK, I think we might be taking the whole comp thing a bit too seriously. In the US peeps are used to competing at every single convention and I felt it is a bit more relaxed there.

Now on to the constructive part, I have two possible areas / suggestions for improvement.

On the comp side of things. I realise this won't make sense at all to those who have never competed accross to the US so apologies for that.
Having US WSDC points awarded in the Open JnJ created a bit of confusion as we were told those would be intermediate points, when most of us actually still need Novice points before we can 'graduate' to Int. In fact in the finals, only Paul W is an actual Int competitor, with just a couple of others close to getting there. To be fair most of us would be pretty out of our depth in US intermediate division so I hope we won't 'have' to dance there if we do get those int points.
IMO, you either run the comps as UK comps and then all the most experienced peeps enter the Open as it was the case this weekend, or as US comp with US WSDC points (and peeps enter the division they are qualified to dance in only) - I'm not sure I see the point of being somewhere in the middle. This may give us 'cheap' intermediate points that wouldn't have much credit over in the US...
My suggestion for next year would be to have divisions similar to the US system:
- Newcomer (no points awarded)
- Novice (novice points awarded)
- either Intermediate with Int points (if enough competitors have reached that level by next year) or simply Invitational (no points awarded) with the most advanced peeps who have qualified out of Novice.

Second thing is about the venue. Don't get me wrong the Winter Gardens ballroom is beautiful and a great venue. Having the experience of 4 US conventions now though, I feel there is an advantage of running the event in one (big) hotel, and pretty much over taking the venue for the weekend. I'm not too sure how feasible that would be in the UK, may be there just aren't hotels big enough for that. But I do feel this would add the value of a 'resident' kinda weekender where you can sleep, eat and dance in the same venue (if you wish). It's just really convenient to be able to pop back into your room between workshops or comps to get a change or a bit of a rest, and not waste time going back and forth to a hotel or restaurant. Just an idea really

Little Miss · 14th-April-2008, 05:54 PM

We had such an amazing weekend. It is the first time I have seen a live dance competion and it was brilliant. The standard of competitors right the way through was fantastic and the Classic Routines at the end were amazing.

As part of the West Coast Swing Central crowd we were soooooooo excited to see Graham and Chelsea win the classic - they were amazing

.

Chelsea was awesome

and to see a young girl with only a years West Coast Swing experience under her belt, take the title, just goes to show that West Coast can be accessible to all. Cruella wasn't the only one to cry, I have not been so emotional for a long time (I like to think that the hour I spent sticking sequins onto Chelsea's costume and doing some pretty clever stuff with a pair of tights was pivotal to her performance

). Graham and Chels - YOU ROCK!

All in all the Midlands crowd turned out an amazing standard of competitors (and I think they would agree that our audience support was fantastic too). It was brilliant watching friends do so well. Well done to Robd and Smilie Sue, Jo Jephcott and Tom Baker who did the Midlands proud in their categories. Also well done to Paul Harris and Carron who put on a superb Classic routine taking third place.

I think Caro is right. There was one clique of 300 people and everyone from John and Wes, Teachers, Competitors, superb social dancers and learner social dancers were lovely, friendly and great fun. I met and danced with people who have done less that six weeks of West Coast and although they found it daunting and hardwork were still made to feel welcome and had fun. I have not been to an event like it and am very much looking forward to next year.

I gave up my booking for Southport to attend this (financial constraints

) and although I will miss Southport in June I will never regret the decision - it was a memorable weekend!

13th-April-2008, 09:51 PM	#1 (permalink)
Dizzy Senior Member Join Date: May 2005 Location: Harrow, London Posts: 1,759 Status: No Status Rep Power: 2 Rep.: 933	Weston WCS Results As someone who has been prevented from being able to go to Weston this weekend and is suffering severe WCS withdrawal symptoms because of it........ I need to know the results...... Can anyone help? Also what what the weekend like compared to last year? __________________ Never cry over spilt milk.......... It could've been vodka !!!! I'm not burning the candle at both ends.........I've doused it in petrol and put a lighter to it!!

14th-April-2008, 10:58 AM	#2 (permalink)
johnnyman Registered User Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 224 Status: No Status Rep Power: 1 Rep.: 70	Re: Weston WCS Results It was a good weekend all round. Robert and Nicola provided more of their tremendous insights into technique over patterns and everyone seemed to develop further than last year. Results-wise, I had to leave to catch my train before the finals, but I am sure that Jive Addiction will post the results in the next few days. best johnnyman

14th-April-2008, 11:02 AM	#3 (permalink)
HelenB Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: often found in the blues room Posts: 481 Status: probably up to no good Rep Power: 1 Rep.: 229	Re: Weston WCS Results Classic - Graham Fox and Chelsea (Paul & Cat 2nd) Open J&J - Paul W and Susan Novice J&J - Steve and Alex (Foxy Funkster & AlexyMiss) Open Strictly - Paul W and Cat Novice Strictly - Steve and Alex Great weekend but I'm too knackered to post a review now Didn't go last year so can't comment on whether it was better or not Right, I need some caffeine.... __________________ Trust me....it's a move....

14th-April-2008, 01:00 PM	#4 (permalink)
Cruella Dickie Davies' love-child Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Rugby Posts: 5,312 Status: Has commited to 18 months of studying!! Rep Power: 4 Rep.: 2301	Re: Weston WCS Results Classic 1st Graham Fox and Chelsea Rossiter 2nd Paul Warden & Cat Wiles 3rd Paul Harris and Carron Douglas Open J&J - 1st Paul W and Susan 2nd Carron Douglas and ? 3rd ? Novice J&J 1st Steve Hunt and Alex Rowley (Foxy Funkster & AlexyMiss) 2nd Tom Baker and Dee Noel 3rd ? Open Strictly 1st Paul W and Cat 2nd ? 3rd Steve Hall and Rachel Martino 4th Paul Harris and Carron Douglas Novice Strictly 1st Steve and Alex 2nd Tom Baker and Jo Jephcott 3rd Rob Day and Sue Lambell I think those are correct, but my brain's a bit fuzzy! __________________ The nice part about living in a small town is that when you don't know what you are doing, someone else does.

14th-April-2008, 01:45 PM	#6 (permalink)
HelenB Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: often found in the blues room Posts: 481 Status: probably up to no good Rep Power: 1 Rep.: 229	Re: Weston WCS Results Open J&J - 3rd place was Kirsty & Graham __________________ Trust me....it's a move....

14th-April-2008, 02:04 PM	#7 (permalink)
Geordieed Registered User Join Date: Mar 2003 Posts: 465 Status: No Status Rep Power: 3 Rep.: 146	Re: Weston WCS Results I was just about to send out a congratulations to all the winners and competitors who placed at Weston but instead would like to congratulate everyone that took part. Without anyone to compete against from the first heat to the final there is not much of a competition. Plus without the support of an audience the event would not be an event at all. Much love to WCS. Whether you carry that something extra that enables you to organise the event or you contribute by sharing your time and passion by flying across the pond from America or your eyes show intense concentration while you mouth the timing to a Sugar Push, we all share one thing... Over the last year I have competed both here and in America dancing WCS with increasing success. In doing so I learnt alot about accepting success and the compliments that come with it and be grateful. I competed at Weston this weekend and didn't do as well as I wanted. No one elses fault I accept the judges decision without question and well done the other dancers. So no negative excuses. I did not dance as well as I have done in the past, end of. It is not an easy thing to allow yourself to be judged and we must remind ourselves what we are consenting to be judged on, if you can understand that. Learning from doing a competition, even when we don't meet our expectations, is something I feel really thankful for and more so than when I have done well. Additionally I thanked the people at the time who came to say that they enjoyed watching me compete. That made a huge difference and saying thank you doesn't seem enough. Funny how kind words can go a long way. Another grateful lesson learnt. Good luck to everyone who carry the love for the dance at San Diego in 3 weeks time...

14th-April-2008, 02:13 PM	#8 (permalink)
DS87 Registered User Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: In Bath at the weekends Posts: 71 Status: No Status Rep Power: 2 Rep.: 51	Re: Weston WCS Results Novice J&J - 3rd Place was David and Jo Jephcott. Well done to everyone who competed I think that it is fair to say that the standard had risen greatly in comparison to last year. Congratulations to all Steve

14th-April-2008, 02:22 PM	#9 (permalink)
CJ Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Fife. Posts: 5,036 Status: No Status Rep Power: 6 Rep.: 1740	Re: Weston WCS Results What was the atmosphere like?? Any "cliquiness" that WCS is famous for?? __________________ Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. www.readitandweep.net Risk more than others think safe; dream more than others think practical; care more than others think wise; desire more than others think possible.. ... then the Universe is yours.

14th-April-2008, 04:25 PM	#12 (permalink)
Simon Registered User Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Bristol Posts: 192 Status: No Status Rep Power: 3 Rep.: 82	Re: Weston WCS Results Terrific weekend! Thanks John and Wes. Robert & Nicola and Kyle & Sarah were not so much two couples as a WCS team. At times it was very difficult to decide which of the two classes running at the same time it was better to attend as they were sharing such good stuff with us. Congratulations to all the competitors and a special mention to Steve Hall and Rachel Martino for deciding the day before to put in for the Open Strictly and coming 3rd. A great achievement.

14th-April-2008, 04:37 PM	#13 (permalink)
HelenB Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: often found in the blues room Posts: 481 Status: probably up to no good Rep Power: 1 Rep.: 229	Re: Weston WCS Results Great weekend – knackered as per usual after a whole weekend of dancing and socialising but I wouldn’t want it any other way I’m not going to break this down into good, bad and ugly but rather into different aspects of the weekend… Firstly, and it’s bound to be mentioned, gender balance. What can I say, there were more women than men. I don’t expect men to ask me to dance, if I want to dance I have to be prepared to ask otherwise you can’t complain about it. It was fine last night. I just felt sorry for the men who, at it’s worst on Saturday night, must have felt like there was no chance for a rest. Paul Warden’s t-shirt summed it up well - “Wait in line ladies” (on a side note I still don’t believe that this event should be gender balanced) Venue was superb with oodles of space to dance. It was hot but the air conditioning did help. And plenty of free water – chilled as well. Did anyone else find the floor hard? My legs ache today Organisation – it’s a Jive Addiction event. Need I say more? Competition – Congratulations to all that took part. You looked great. I didn’t have the confidence to enter and wish I had. Maybe next year. Winners were worthy Classes – the one’s I attended were fantastic. No issues with rotation. I only spotted ONE fixed couple. And the content, I thought, was appropriate for the levels. And to end with Robert’s musicality class was superb. Note to self: I must do my homework… Cabarets – OMG - both were sublime. Kyle and Sarah did their Johnny Be Good routine (which I posted on the youtube thread last week). To see it in the flesh was awe inspiring In summary - great dances, great weekend, and no cliqueness – it’s the friendliest bunch of dancers around. (p.s. thanks to all those I danced with ) __________________ Trust me....it's a move.... Last edited by HelenB; 14th-April-2008 at 04:39 PM. Reason: forgot the luvviness :P

14th-April-2008, 05:02 PM	#15 (permalink)
HelenB Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: often found in the blues room Posts: 481 Status: probably up to no good Rep Power: 1 Rep.: 229	Re: Weston WCS Results another update... Novice J&J 1st Steve Hunt and Alex Rowley (Foxy Funkster & AlexyMiss) 2nd Tom Baker and Dee Noel 3rd David and Jo 4th ? & Erica 5th Ollie and ? __________________ Trust me....it's a move....

14th-April-2008, 05:47 PM	#19 (permalink)
Caro Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: London Posts: 2,390 Status: No Status Blog Entries: 1 Rep Power: 3 Rep.: 1563	Re: Weston WCS Results So, my review... General feedback is that this is a great event which is growing - and so far our only UK convention so big for that. John and Wes ran it very smoothly as usual (small exception about comps see below) and I am personally very grateful they bring over 2 couples of pros every year as they are such an inspiration. Special mention to Kyle and Sarah's new routine which is nothing short of genius IMO. Helen mentioned the gender imbalance and while this is unfortunate, I agree that the event is probably a bit too young to be gender balanced yet. I won't go over all the good stuff (there were many), just wanted to say big to all the competitors this weekend and in particular the 6 couples who did a classic - ain't easy to get out there and do that so big respect. Personally I was really pleased about placing in the Open JnJ with Ed (thanks for cheering me up btw - I was a bit nervous). I have to say that being on the floor as the same time as James (the final was run as spotlight with 2 couples on the floor) was probably the worst of all as he and Spikey blond got all the crowd attention and applause the whole time. Pretty dreadful in fact to do your best to 'do something cool' and get absolutely zero cheers when a few seconds later the audience explodes as James does something. Well done to Sheila, I think I'd have been mortified if I was dancing with him On a side note, because this is pretty much the only 'big' WCS comp of the year in the UK, I think we might be taking the whole comp thing a bit too seriously. In the US peeps are used to competing at every single convention and I felt it is a bit more relaxed there. Now on to the constructive part, I have two possible areas / suggestions for improvement. On the comp side of things. I realise this won't make sense at all to those who have never competed accross to the US so apologies for that. Having US WSDC points awarded in the Open JnJ created a bit of confusion as we were told those would be intermediate points, when most of us actually still need Novice points before we can 'graduate' to Int. In fact in the finals, only Paul W is an actual Int competitor, with just a couple of others close to getting there. To be fair most of us would be pretty out of our depth in US intermediate division so I hope we won't 'have' to dance there if we do get those int points. IMO, you either run the comps as UK comps and then all the most experienced peeps enter the Open as it was the case this weekend, or as US comp with US WSDC points (and peeps enter the division they are qualified to dance in only) - I'm not sure I see the point of being somewhere in the middle. This may give us 'cheap' intermediate points that wouldn't have much credit over in the US... My suggestion for next year would be to have divisions similar to the US system: - Newcomer (no points awarded) - Novice (novice points awarded) - either Intermediate with Int points (if enough competitors have reached that level by next year) or simply Invitational (no points awarded) with the most advanced peeps who have qualified out of Novice. Second thing is about the venue. Don't get me wrong the Winter Gardens ballroom is beautiful and a great venue. Having the experience of 4 US conventions now though, I feel there is an advantage of running the event in one (big) hotel, and pretty much over taking the venue for the weekend. I'm not too sure how feasible that would be in the UK, may be there just aren't hotels big enough for that. But I do feel this would add the value of a 'resident' kinda weekender where you can sleep, eat and dance in the same venue (if you wish). It's just really convenient to be able to pop back into your room between workshops or comps to get a change or a bit of a rest, and not waste time going back and forth to a hotel or restaurant. Just an idea really __________________ . Little Miss Whipme

14th-April-2008, 05:54 PM	#20 (permalink)
Little Miss Registered User Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: St Neots Posts: 47 Status: No Status Rep Power: 1 Rep.: 33	Re: Weston WCS Results We had such an amazing weekend. It is the first time I have seen a live dance competion and it was brilliant. The standard of competitors right the way through was fantastic and the Classic Routines at the end were amazing. As part of the West Coast Swing Central crowd we were soooooooo excited to see Graham and Chelsea win the classic - they were amazing . Chelsea was awesome and to see a young girl with only a years West Coast Swing experience under her belt, take the title, just goes to show that West Coast can be accessible to all. Cruella wasn't the only one to cry, I have not been so emotional for a long time (I like to think that the hour I spent sticking sequins onto Chelsea's costume and doing some pretty clever stuff with a pair of tights was pivotal to her performance ). Graham and Chels - YOU ROCK! All in all the Midlands crowd turned out an amazing standard of competitors (and I think they would agree that our audience support was fantastic too). It was brilliant watching friends do so well. Well done to Robd and Smilie Sue, Jo Jephcott and Tom Baker who did the Midlands proud in their categories. Also well done to Paul Harris and Carron who put on a superb Classic routine taking third place. I think Caro is right. There was one clique of 300 people and everyone from John and Wes, Teachers, Competitors, superb social dancers and learner social dancers were lovely, friendly and great fun. I met and danced with people who have done less that six weeks of West Coast and although they found it daunting and hardwork were still made to feel welcome and had fun. I have not been to an event like it and am very much looking forward to next year. I gave up my booking for Southport to attend this (financial constraints ) and although I will miss Southport in June I will never regret the decision - it was a memorable weekend!

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