Duffers Guide to the Charts

This is a rough guide to explain what the charts are for and how they work.

There are a number of special competitions throughout the year known as CRE's (Chart Rated Events) or NSC's (National Selection Events) or even simply EADA competitions – its all the same thing. The results of these competitions go to make up the chart.

The winner of each individual competition gets 12 points, second gets eleven and so on, we’ll go into more detail on this a bit later, but for now imagine its similar to the Formula One Championship scoring, (only nobody’s wheel falls off and fewer people get black flagged).

This guide will cover a number of different questions:
What are they for?
Some Myth Busting
Who can enter
How are the charts selected?
the point system
the number of events
ranking
How selection works
Some anomalies in the charts

So lets start with the obvious first question.

What are the charts for?

Every year, EADA receives a number of invitations to competitions such as World or European Championships. The invites ask for England’s ‘best couple’ or best two couples. The question is, who’s that then? The charts are used to answer that difficult question.

The charts work on a rolling basis. That is, every time a new competition result is added to the chart, the oldest result falls off the other end.
Before we go any further, lets do a spot of...

Myth Busting!
There are a couple of myths regarding the charts that I’m going to squish right now!

Myth number 1
EADA orgnises and runs the competitions
No it doesn’t. No no no. That’s not the case. No-sir-eee. Nope!

Each year, EADA awards chart status to a number of competitions, and these are organised and run by the promoter. The nearest analogy I can give you is that Michelin award “stars” to various restaurants, but they don’t roll their sleeves up and fry the fish fingers themselves. Its the same sort of thing with the charts, without the food.

Myth number 2:
You have to do all the chart events.
Again .. ooh no no noOo! Not the case!

For the majority of charts, there are 9 comps in a year and only your best five results are counted in the chart. You can do more than that if you wish, but you don’t have to. No you don’t – No…. really…. You don’t .

Stop sobbing.

Who can enter?
Chart competitions are open to any EADA member who is eligible to represent England in international competitions. To be eligible, one of the partnership has to have a UK passport and elect to dance for England. (Both have to be EADA members).

By taking part in chart events, this is taken as electing to dance for England. So don't dance in the chart events if you have hopes of being selected for Wales or Scotland because you will have to wait at least six months before you will be allowed to.

The age grouping is slightly different from the usual Sunday circuit. To find out more about that have a look at the Duffers guide to ages

How are the charts selected?
The Chart Committee is made up of all those on the council who compete, plus the parent rep. In Summer they get together with a list of all the competitions that have applied for chart status for the following year. They then spend the day working out the various permutations to come up with the list for the following year. It’s a pig of a job.

Obviously we have to place the right number of competitions for each category, but we also try to spread the comps out evenly throughout the year, and distribute them accross the country.

We can only go on our own opinion of the competitions. If you send us feedback forms, we have a far more accurate picture of the quality of the competitions. If you know of a well run comp, why not have a chat with the organiser and ask them to apply for a chart event? In one category last year we had ONE competition from the North apply, so we had no choice but to award it.

Once the chart committee has made its final selection, the promoters are contacted and asked to pay. It is only on receipt of their cash that the chart status is confirmed. This explains why sometimes the promoter advertises their chart event before we have published the list - because the cheques in the post guv - honest! If they don't pay, the event may be awarded elsewhere, so don't trust any info till you get confirmation from EADA.

The money raised in this way goes towards paying for our couples to fly overseas to represent us.

The Selection Game
To give you an idea of the task, have a look at this puzzle: and time how long it takes you. No, there's no prize for doing it the fastest.


The point system

As mentioned earlier, points are awarded depending on your finishing position. It goes like this:

1st place: 12 points
2nd place: 11 points
3rd place: 10 points
4th place: 9 points
5th place: 8 points
6th place: 7 points

Below 6th but making the final: 6 points

Semi Finalists 5 points
Quarter Finalist 4 points
The round before quarter finalist 3 points
The round before the round before the quarter whatsit : 2 points
Bored now: you get the idea.

One thing to note is the scoring for Ten Dance comps. The point scores for those placed 1 – 6 remains the same. If you are outside the top 6, but make any final, you get 6 points. Now don’t get all confused here, If you are outside the top 6 but make TWO finals, no, you don’t get two lots of six points - that would be silly, you still only get the 6.

After the competition the results are sent in and added to the chart.

This can sometimes take a little while. Occasionally, there is a dispute about the result that has to be resolved before the chart is updated. Once the result is in, the scores are entered into our system, and MEMBERSHIP IS CHECKED. If BOTH parttners are not up to date members - well, you know that advert for road tax where the car gets flattened into a cube in front of the happless driver? - Imagine the same thing happening to the bit of paper with your points on it. They get crushed. (no expense spared on this duffers guide!)

So that leads us on to looking at the chart in a bit more detail:

Lets start with:

Number of events.
Most of the charts are used to select couples for world championships, but there are others that are there because the membership requested it.

For Juvenile, Senior II Latin, and Senior III Ballroom there are 7 competitions in the year, and the chart takes your best 4 results.

For all the others, the best 5 results count, and there are 9 competitions in the year. You can opt to do more if you want, so if you do seven competitions for example, the best five results will be used to calculate your chart position. This means you only have to do 5 out of the 9 competitions, but you can do more if you want.

But you don’t have to. NO – you don’t. - I don't care what the others have told you they're wrong so stop getting stroppy or I’ll make you wait in the car.

Again 10 dance is different, in that there yarer 5 comps In the year, and the best 3 are counted.

Here’s a table with all them thar numbers in one handy little package.

"Hold on there D'Artagnan!" I hear you cry. " What’s with the “rank” then?"
Well I’m glad you asked.

Ranking
Be very careful how you say that.
If you look at the chart you will see there are "ranked" couples and "unranked".
You become ranked after you have done the number of comps as listed in the last column of that nifty little table.

As the selection starts (oddly enough) at the number 1 ranked couple and works its way down. If you’re not ranked, then you are highly unlikely to get selected. So its worth doing the minimum number at least if you want an England cap.

Also, invites to elite squad training are generally made from the numbers of the ranked, not "unranked" - there is a bit of an exception to this in that couples who have just moved up an age category and have not had enough time in the new chart to assume their rightful place can be asked to attend at EADA's discretion.

How selection works.
Selection is based on the date the invite is received. If you are at the top of the chart the day the invite comes in, then the secretary will pop a letter off to you asking if you would like to represent us.

sometimes you get a smarty pants who go up a level and start winning cos they're that good. Do we use our discretion and say "well they may not have all the points but lets send 'em instead of the top couple"?

No. Is the simple answer to that. If you haven't done enough comps to get you to the top, then you haven't done enough at that level to prove that you are consistently super. So there is no element of subjectivity in the selection for representation.

Here’s an important bit. YOU HAVE TO REPLY! If you don’t, the invite goes to the next couple in line. - then the next - then the next - We'll go into more detail on this in a future Duffers guide.

Invites to elite training days are selected based on chart position 90 days prior to the training day. The reason things are done this way is to automate the process and remove any discretion on the part of the council to select "their favorites" . Having said that, remember smarty pants couple who are winning everything, but not there yet? Well we do have a bit of leeway here to invite them to the training days.

Some oddments in the Charts:
It will be worth having a look at Chart FAQ as this repeats a lot of the stuff there.

People disappear from the chart.
Ooh - sinister! When a couple split up, they are removed from the chart. This is not EADA expunging their memory from the pages of history, rather it is keeping the charts as up to date and accurate as possible. I know of a couple who split, then a month or so later they received an invite. It made the split all the more painful.This is why its important to tell EADA if you split or change partnership.

Also, the couple may go up an age group.Same thing, we remove their scores from the chart as they are no longer able to be selected at that age category.

Points are not awarded.
My favorite.
If your EADA membership is not up to date, you should not have been allowed to enter the comp in the first place. You most certainly wont be getting your points. Don't bother trying to argue the case, no one is above this rule. If membership is not up to date - stay home.

The score is marked *11*
If an EADA comp falls on a day you are away on international duty, you will get points awarded for that EADA comp which are the same as your average score (to the nearest whole number) this way you don't drop down the chart because you were representing us.