That was something that came up at the Sunday morning meeting. Steph said there is a document that says "good sword handling includes x, bad sword handling includes y" but it's just good and bad, no gradient and no suggested marks so one judge can see all of the good things and award 10 points and another judge and see all the good things and award 15. I imagine Tom's response to any post-DERT complaints will be "that's for the new committee to decide". X Sent from my iPad

Well done Laura! :D Been having lots of fun playing with the spreadsheet. We beat gaorsach and Thrales in sword handling, equalling with steel. Presentation better than black swan and silver flame. In the spotlight our stepping equalled sallyport and presentation was better than Kingsmen. Small but affirming victories. I think having a points guide for judges/teams would be so useful to work out where we stand and what we can actually improve on. I really hope this committee will make a big impact! Kx P.s hope everyone is feeling ok, we both have coughs and my legs are still cramp jelly :P On Monday, March 14, 2016, Hannah Norman <hannahruthnorman(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Which judge gave the marks for presentation I wonder. S x Sent from my iPad _______________________________________________ Tower Raven's mailing list team(a)towerravens.org.uk

Re Westerhope - thanks must be given to Sinead for laying the groundwork on this - Thanks Sinead! But I am very puzzled and a little aggrieved about the presentation mark. Taking into account everything which comes under this category, I can't see how we could have scored less than S&S. Our kit was FAR superior. And if we weren't smiling, I'm sure we were all consistently not smiling, so how would they know if that was a conscious decision or not? The only thing I can think is that at the end we finished stepping on a 4 instead of an 8, but surely the points for that should have come out of either music or stepping, and not presentation? I can understand getting lower marks in all other criteria (except music of course), but our presentation was excellent. At the risk of sounding like Thrales, it does feel as if the judges are predisposed to look more favourably on some of the North Eastern teams. With regards to music in the trad dance, I'm surprised that we only got an 11 when Thrales got 14 and 15. I thought MJ was noticeably bad on Saturday evening - her recorder kept making bum notes which was very off-putting, and one of the tunes she played was not traditional but her own composition. How could their music have scored so much higher than everyone else? It's like this year the judges were told "Thrales have to win because they keep complaining" and so the rules were changed, and the fact that this year they didn't actually perform as well as they have done in previous year's was ignored. I wasn't expecting to win the trad. I wasn't even expecting to be anything other than last place. But what I do expect is marking which reflects the performance. Very disappointing... From: connollysue(a)hotmail.com Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2016 23:02:57 +0000 To: ffion_coch(a)hotmail.com CC: team(a)towerravens.org.uk Subject: Re: [Tower Ravens] DERT results To be fair, even if he issued explicit instructions to the judges, Tom can hardly be held responsible for the marks they gave. It's a bit like football. If a referee misses an obvious foul, penalty, etc his or her lack of a decision still stands, despite any subsequent video proof. I hope we don't decide to complain because there would be little to gain and we might appear mardy. I'd prefer us to ask the new committee for clearer guidance for the future. S x Sent from my iPad On 14 Mar 2016, at 20:06, Ffion Mair &lt;ffion_coch(a)hotmail.com&gt; wrote: That was something that came up at the Sunday morning meeting. Steph said there is a document that says "good sword handling includes x, bad sword handling includes y" but it's just good and bad, no gradient and no suggested marks so one judge can see all of the good things and award 10 points and another judge and see all the good things and award 15. I imagine Tom's response to any post-DERT complaints will be "that's for the new committee to decide". X Sent from my iPad On 14 Mar 2016, at 19:55, Becky Such &lt;rebeccasuch(a)hotmail.com&gt; wrote: Thrales are confused by the presentation results as well (for them and us!) in both competitions. I've just checked the rules but, as far as I can tell, there is nothing to explain what any of the categories actually means (including the allusive buzz). Ken has proposed, post AGM and all results, comments etc coming out, we could both email Tom Besford to say a polite version of wtf were people looking for? And the fact that we don't know why we were penalised. It might be that the comments will explain things but it would be nice to know what they're looking for for the future anyway. xx Subject: Re: [Tower Ravens] DERT results From: ffion_coch(a)hotmail.com Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2016 19:42:37 +0000 To: rebeccasuch(a)hotmail.com CC: team(a)towerravens.org.uk Definitely well done Laura on the writing and everything else. I think only 10 for presentation is nonsense though. It was by far the best female kit there! I guess presentation is more than just kit though unfortunately. Really looking forward to reading the judge's comments on the trad. X Sent from my iPad On 14 Mar 2016, at 19:18, Becky Such &lt;rebeccasuch(a)hotmail.com&gt; wrote: This appeared on the Star and Shadow inner members page that I am privy to, I don't know where it came from or if it's available anywhere else so apologies if it's a dull repeat! What I don't think we've seen is the trad individual marks. Looking at these I think we all need to give Laura a huge well done, we got extra points for the effort she put into the written element and ensuring we then performed it as closely to that notation as possible. WELL DONE :) <Results.xlsx>_______________________________________________ Tower Raven's mailing list team(a)towerravens.org.uk _______________________________________________ Tower Raven's mailing list team(a)towerravens.org.uk _______________________________________________ Tower Raven's mailing list team(a)towerravens.org.uk _______________________________________________ Tower Raven's mailing list team(a)towerravens.org.uk _______________________________________________ Tower Raven's mailing list team(a)towerravens.org.uk This email has been sent from a virus-free computer protected by Avast. www.avast.com