Sorry for the delay in responding to your e-mail. Unfortunately we lost all internet and e-mail access for nearly 2 weeks thanks to an error by the boradband provider and today is the first day that i have been able to access our blog again.

Wilma had contacted me shortly after the closing date for entries to the dancing competition to explain what had happened and asking if we could accept a late entry for Alita. The gathering has a poicy of not allowing any late entries for any reason, however because of the circumstances in this instance i spoke at length with our dancing convener to see if there was anything that could be done before i replied to Wilma.

Unfortunately we had to take the decision that we could not make an exception even in these circumstances. We did not do this lightly and we all really feel for Alita and the rest of the family.

There are a number of reasons that we felt we had to stick with the ruling of no late entries. Firstly we had a situation last year where an overseas dancer who normally finishes in the top six in the worlds did not enter as she thought her father had entered her and he hadn’t. It was decided in this case that we could not accept a late entry in her case becasue to do so would be unfair to the dancers that had entered on time and may miss out on a place in the final or event a trophy if we accepted this late entry. Having not allowed that dancer to compete last year it would then be extremely unfair if we allowed a late entry this year in similar circumstances.

Another reason is that by the time that Wilma made us aware of what had happened we had already told a couple of other dancers that we could not take a late entry and if we then allowed Alita to compete we would not be playing fair by those dancers who had been told they couldn’t compete. Finally, integrity is vital to an event like Cowal with so many championships being competed for. People need to be able to trust the system and the way that we work. If we were seen to make a one off exception to the rules then people could rightly question our integrity or the reasons for our decision. It would also mean in future years that others coould miss the deadline and expect to be allowed to enter as we had done this for someone previously.

I know none of the above is going to make Alita or you (or even Wilma) feel any better about what has happened but hopefully it will give you an insight into why we couldn’t accept a late entry for Alita.

I am truly very sorry and can only imagine how upset Alita and the rest of the family must be.

I know it is no replacement for being able to compete at Cowal but if you decide that you still want to come to the event I will arrange for you to have 4 seats in the main grandstand on the Saturday so that Alita and the rest of you can have a good view of the world championships finals and i will also arrange for Alita to get a Cowal T-shirt and fleece. All at no cost.

if you wish to accept this or discuss any of the above further please e-mail me on my direct e-mail malcolm@cowalgathering.com as i am not int he blog everyday.

I hope to hear from you again

Malcolm Barclay
Event manager

the link that is marked “click here to enter the Scottish National Championships” is for Thursday’s dancing competition.

I hope this helps

Malcolm

A new feature for 2010 is that we have a large screen TV coming to Cowal to make it easier for people who are not in the grandstand to watch the dancing live on the Saturday.

Unfortunately the news regarding the 2009 DVD is not so good. It has not been possible to overcome the problems that we experienced when trying to put together the DVD. Most of the sound and some of the picture footage of the worlds was lost when a hard drive became corrupted, and although it had been hoped the information could be recovered this has not been possible.

We are obviously very disappointed at this and would like to apologise for anyone who hoped to get one.

Kind regards

Malcolm

also, where can I purchase the 2009 World’s Highland Dancing Championship DVD??

I understand there were some technical difficulties, but I hope they have been sorted out and if you could please advise how much the DVD is and how I go about ordering it.

Thank you

Terrie Kember