Birmingham Comp 2024 report:

Hi everyone!

We would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who came with us to Stoke on Trent over the weekend. It was amazing to be able to take the biggest team we’ve had this year by over 20 people!! We hope you all had a brilliant day, and for those of you who unfortunately couldn’t join us on the day we hope you’ll be able to join us next year!

Congratulations to everyone who competed as well. I haven’t seen many of them yet but I’m sure you all have incredible videos from the weekend that I hope you’ll treasure for years to come. In particular, congratulations to everyone who made the finals for making this probably the longest finalists list I’ve done so far: George & Clara, Justin & Liv, Solly & Robyn, Katie & Ellie, Emmanuel & Julia, Jenny, Helen, Mat & Anneka, Rich & Dan (and their hats), and last but definitely not least, Ralph & Gemma!

Now on to the thank yous, a very long list of incredible people that this day would not have been possible without!

🎉Our judges: Gary Foster, Diane Haywood, Greg Gillespie, Chris Savage and Jason Parkinson, who did an amazing job on the day judging so many rounds on such tight timings. They have asked me to pass on their compliments to you all on the atmosphere and the standard of dancing from all of you!

🎉Alex and Tamasin: our scrutineers for the day, who volunteered to take part in the running of the comp despite a very busy schedule with NUDC, SUDC and IVDC coming up very soon! Thank you so much for helping with all of the entries, as well as all of the last-minute round changes due to the numbers in the room

🎉Jackie, our brilliant coach and compere, for keeping us all on track on the day, for teaching us so well so far this year, and even more importantly for making sure we had such an amazing venue. We owe you so much for this!

🎉 Kyle, our music man, for doing such a great job of choosing the music that I’ve had requests from other unis asking what songs he chose so they can use them for their playlists!

🎉 Janice, Shaun, Sam and everyone in the venues team for being so patient with us both when sorting out the admin side when planning the comp and on the day itself with all the issues, and being a pleasure to work with throughout!

🎉 All 25 teams who turned up to the competition. We are so grateful to all of you for turning up and making it an amazing day! Thank you also for having so many of you that I was originally wondering where I was going to be able to fit you all. We hope to have the same problem again next year!

🎉 Our sponsors, Ballroom Bling and the Carrington Riding Centre, for kindly donating their time and money to making the competition possible for us. Thank you as well to Carrie for turning up to staff the Ballroom Bling stand. We loved having you there with us!

🎉 My team of helpers: Clara, Dan, Holly, Liza, Jamie, Jenny, Rose and Zaki for helping keep the comp running as close to on-schedule as we possibly could have done, and for keeping me sane throughout the day (I really appreciate it).

Special mentions to people who went so far beyond what was asked of them:

🎉 Rose, for taking so many shifts on an absolutely freezing front desk and helping keep the competition together, even through the organisational nightmares in the morning and evening.

🎉 Holly, for taking the majority of the running for the results and recalls throughout the entire day – every single one of us who made a round owes this to you.

🎉 Justin, Liveta and Liv for their months of tireless effort and sleep loss for helping making this comp exist, as well as keeping things together on the day. Thank you so so so much to all 3 of you!