Hello all,
Thanks for a good practice last night. I think now that people are engaging their brain a bit more Jubilee is already starting to look a lot smarter and hopefully highlighting bits I simply haven't told newer members!
Westerhope seemed to be coming along nicely with people having a go at new positions (correct me if I'm wrong) but I have these people learning these positions:
Hannorah 1 (know you had to swap back to 2)
Rachel 2
Hannah TD 3
Emma 4
Anna 5
Some good running through ready for the crawl of Piccadilly as I know we haven't always had the numbers to run through it very well.
Remember this Thursday to meet at The Angelic (N1 0RJ) ready to start dancing at 7.30. If you're going to be late please message before 7.30 so we know if we can do the first dance.
Hannah should be arranging transport to Mabel Day - for those I don't see on Thursday, have a lovely day! As there aren't huge numbers of you is shouldn't be that complex on the day - Hannah will be in charge so listen to her when it comes to when to dance/eat/drink up etc 😊
Next week we will be prepping for the festive gathering at C#. I'm actually not here the practice after so i will leave instructions as to what to work on ready for the dance out.
Thanks all!
Becky
Hello all,
Please turn up 15 mins early for clog runthrough (I should actually be there this time!)
We will be running through dances for crawl this Thursday (Nikki is coming back to play for us so we're safe there) and Mabel Day on Sunday.
Thursday we will be doing Jubilee and Piccadilly so we'll go through both of those. Mabel Day will just be jubilee, but we will run through these with the right people for Sunday.
I assume we'll have Rosie again who we'll continue to run through Jubilee. She's used to stepping as she's done clog in the past but it would be great if someone could run her through the different steps (4s, 8s, westerhope, break step, jonty etc.) as I won't necessarily have time to do this at the start.
Thank you to those who have filled in the doodle poll re. the run up to DERT crawls. Here is a reminder to everyone else to please also fill it in.
https://doodle.com/poll/rzefyddmxgspsyai#table
[https://doodle.com/graphics/static/facebookSharingThumbnail.png]<https://doodle.com/poll/rzefyddmxgspsyai#table>
Doodle: Dert Crawls<https://doodle.com/poll/rzefyddmxgspsyai#table>
We would do one every two weeks, don't panic!
doodle.com
Thanks all 😊
Becky
Hello all,
Kate's struggling time-wise with the new job so won't be able to make this Monday (27th) or Monday 18th December - is anyone able to cover this? (In particular wondering about Martin as then we don't lose a dancer).
***we currently have no musician for Thursday's crawl***
Neither Kate nor Martin are free so if we want to crawl we need someone else. Has anyone got any ideas? Ffion I don't know if Pat would be up for it?
Going forward I think we need to look for someone who can provide a reasonable amount of cover for Kate as it looks like the reality is that long hours are going to make it very difficult for her to be in London in time for all practices and crawls. Martin does a great job of covering but ideally we need someone who wants to be part of the team. We'll discuss this on Monday - rack your brains if you have any bright ideas!
Thanks,
Becky
Hello all,
This is a bit strange but someone who phone number ends 08 will have just
received an text verification code when I tried to sign in to the ravens
email account. If it's your number can you text me the code? Not sure who
it would be Hannah, Ffion?
My number is 07912508397
Thanks!
Rachel-anne x
Hello all,
Laura S and Ted are having their album launch this Saturday in Heath Street Baptist Church near Hampstead. Starts at 7.30!
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Heath+Street+Baptist+Church/@51.5579327…
Sadly I'm away so won't make it but they always do a good performance so worth going to if you can!
Thanks,
Becky
Hello all,
Just a quick summary of tomorrow!
1. Absences: Hannah N, Jo, Rachel - is there anyone else?
2. Please turn up 15 minutes early for clog so we can run through it.
3. We have Libby coming along to sit in on our practice - she came to a crawl fairly recently and is researching how rapper dancing has evolved. Basically she just wants to watch how a practice works, as well as maybe talk to people as to how they got in to rapper etc.
4. We also have a new member coming.
--> due to 4 and 5 it might be an odd practice. We can hopefully do some hardcore work on Jubilee as we were discussing neatening that up, it depends a little on how quickly she takes to it, as well as running through Piccadilly and Westerhope.
Hannah TD please remember to bring the swords! And the same to whoever has the spares! Also Hannah TD if you could transfer the £25 for shoes that would be great.
Thanks all,
Becky
Hello to those who have had their shoes resined.
You'll be pleased to know these are done and ready for Monday. They came to £25 each (normally £30), and having forked out for 6 at once I'd really appreciate if people could transfer the money to me speedily!?
Shoes belonged to: Emma, Hannah TD, Hannah N, Sue, Anna (and me)
My account info is:
Rebecca Such
Lloyds Bank
12647860
30-97-70
If you could ping me a message to say you've transferred the money, just so I know, that'd be great. Should £25 be too big a chunk in one go please let me know and we can arrange something.
Thanks all!
Becky
p.s. going forward I think the guy will generally only charge us £25 so if anyone else needs it doing it should still be for that rather than £30 (Hannhorah I know you were interested so you can give them to me to get done at some point if you want, although your stepping is so loud I'm still not convinced you need it!)
Hello all,
Thank you for everyone's attendance and contributions yesterday, I think we got through lots of stuff! Those who weren't there please look to Hannah's minutes which should appear in the next week once she's had a chance to make sense of them!
I just wanted to have my attitude to choosing people for DERT made really clear so everyone is on the same page - if you have any thoughts or questions please do just get in touch!
The main DERT set is always chosen to best represent the team - ideally we have the best steppers and dancers who can show off our style and what we can achieve when we really put our minds to it! At the same time it relies a lot on each individual being able to contribute the necessary time and energy in advance, so as to best prepare. That means coming to the vast majority, if not every, practice from January to March, all of the crawls and all of the day practices (we have at least 2 plus a Westerhope one). Options for crawls and day practices will come soon. I know it's a long time in advance but it does help me in my decision making.
Other than the main set we are more flexible. As mentioned we will, if possible, have a different Spotlight set/some different doing Piccadilly. This would still only contain people that were confident enough to perform it well and who I thought could represent us properly, but it doesn't need the same intense time commitment in advance. Trad would ideally be performed by an entirely different set to the main set to allow practices to go ahead - I know Hannah being in both was tricky for both the Westerhope side trying to practice and for Hannah herself! Westerhope isn't as technically hard as Piccadilly, but it still needs alot of work to make it look good, if we were continuing it exactly the same as before practice time could also be spent on Jubilee and Piccadilly by the same people, if the trad leader thought Westerhope was good enough to do so.
Showcase - few ideas of what we could do but an emphasis on everone being on stage. Which I think is a great idea, it looked fab when we did it this time, although again it did take having everyone there on multiple practices to make it work.
More generally I know there are various people who want to learn new positions. I'm keen for this to happen as well, partly so everyone continues to enjoy dancing! At the same time I think we can all say that Jubilee is not up to scratch at the moment so before progressing people I'd like to take some time to get it neat again. It's meant to be as tight, energetic and precise as Piccadilly which it just isn't at the moment, so I will try and tackle that. I think as was said yesterday older members have got complacent as to how to perform it because we've done it for so long, and newer people probably haven't been given some of the finer details yet because we've been focussing on getting it out.
This is a video of Jubilee from DERT 2014 where we came 3rd in the Championship. It's not perfect but I think it gives a reasonable impression of the energy and snappiness we want.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDlCXZaYGzI
[https://www.bing.com/th?id=OVP.dJOoamgbdASduoovrm0x8wEsDh&pid=Api]<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDlCXZaYGzI>
Tower Ravens Rapper - DERT 2014<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDlCXZaYGzI>
DERT 2014 Tower Ravens Rapper
www.youtube.com
I hope that all seems reasonable. If there are any questions or points which you disagree with me just give me an email/come and chat at practice. 2017 I think everyone would agree there was a wonderful team feeling at DERT, not everyone was dancing, but the support spectators gave was amazing, as a dancer it was so uplifting to look out and see everyone smiling and cheering!
Becky xx
Hello all!
Big well done for today, I got the impression we went down really well. Special thanks to Westerhope team, I thought we did a really good job on not a lot of practice :-)
Agm tomorrow. Please bring diaries as a good opportunity to settle some future events.
I have cups and serviettes, if you want cutlery or plates bring your own. I also have gin, if someone can provide tonic we're sitting pretty.
See you ready to start at 7.30.
B xx
Sent from my Sony Xperia™ smartphone
