NiaGara Falls Tabulating DISASTER and some winners!!!!

[whattaheck]

OK...the powwow was hot, it was long...and it was VERY unorganized!!!
1st, they cancelled the Iroquois singing contest they had been advertising for months. THEN, the biggest disaster was the tabulating, this took 2 1/2 hours to get over with. They had boys in girls catergories, women in men catergories...it was a mess. They also had a tie in golden age men that they didn't break, so they just gave them both money. Almost every catergory ,with exception of the drum competition, had some sorta mix-up! In the team dance they called a team name but the wrong number, didn't stick around to see what happen with that. I think they end up shelling out a lot more then they advertised, paying all the people that they messed up on.
I hope they get their act together by the Salamanca powwow next weekend. Here's some winners I know for sure, they called back so many people it was hard to keep track.

Drum Contest Winners
4th Young Guns
3rd Eagle Flight
2nd Stoney Creek
1st WhiteFish

Men's Smoke
5th Trevor Jones
4th Kyle Dowdy Jr.
3rd Jordon Smith
2nd Cam Hill
1st Lyle Anderson

Womens Smoke
5th Lisa Jonathan
4th Reese Bomberry
3rd Helena Rivera
2nd Tesha Emarthale
1st Tia Smith

[**Summer_June**]

That was really messed up..
All i know is that:

James Wrightman won Teen Boys Tradish

Womens Jingle (18-34):
4th- Shannon George
3rd- ?
2nd- Shannon Beetso
1st- Rowena Roberts

[JingleJammer]

YEA and CONGRATS to Rowena and Stoney Creek! miss you guys this weekend, but i know you had a ball up north! Hopefully I can catch up with Rowena again sometime before the winter!!

[chazziff]

sounded like a fun evening!! lol .. yea rite!!

well congrats to all "who rightly" fully placed anyways!!

[lakotasoo]

Disaster is puttn it nicely!

Dont mean no disrespct and maybee some constructive criticism to any of the event coordinators...we have vended at this Niagara event for a few years now and between the switchin of sites and to some of the event people this year...our vendor lady resembled a rugged biker woman and we were fraid to ask questions-! to the absolute mess on Sunday. Last year we dealed with a total different staff who were polite came around to visit and check on us-An event lady named Karen, a lady that has a name of laxmomsomething on this website and her daughter, has really long hair? didnt even see any of them this year=why the big change. sure showed the inexperience of pow wow. We going to take next year-maybe more off from this circuit or until they brings back people who know how to run an event.

[hummingbird1966]

Niagara mix up...

We were the women's traditional team dancers that were called "tradish nish" we didn't know that the men's traditional team dancers were called the same thing... so when that team was called up for first place team dancing, we naturally thought it was us... we had no idea that it was the men. So after celebrating for 5 min. thinking we were good enough for first, we found out it was not us, it was the men's team. To save this from happening again, like at many other powwow's that sponsor team dancing, the teams should be given their own team dancing number or letter, in case there should be 2 names exactly the same, like in Niagara. Congrats to the men's team, it was an honest mistake to go running up and think that our team won, since it was our name too.

[~Nataniyaz~]

teens gurls fancy

1) Shibabe Hodge
2) LaDonna King

Mens tradish (18-39)

1) Adrian Klein Sr., Illinois

Womens Golden Age

1) Debbie Klein

Jr. Girls Fancy

1) Waboose White, White Fish Bay
2) Skye Black cattle
3) Otisha Roberts

Jr. Girls Jingle

1) Sierra White, White Fish Bay

Mens Fancy (18-39)

1) Darrell Hill Sr.

[Ol'Girl]

1st 18-35 Mens Trad - Adrian Klein
1st 36-49 Mens Trad - Charles Belisle
1st 18-35 Mens Fancy - Darrell Hill
1st Golden Age Women - Debbie Klein
1st Jr Adult Women Fancy - Tracy Recollet
2d " " " " " " - Teresa Magnuson
3d " " " " " " - Becky White Eyes
4th ?
5th ?
1st Sr Adult Women Fancy - Mariette Sutherland AWESOME!
2d " " " " " " - Michelle Lonechild
3d " " " " " " - Barbara Whitehead O'Rourke
only 3 in there
1st Teen Fancy Shawl - Shibabe Hodge


When calling out Golden Age Men, they announced a tie for fifth place, at 9:30pm Eastern time!!!! People probably missed work after having to travel more than 10 hours.

THREE HOURS CALLING WINNERS IS ENTIRELY RIDICULOUS!!!

[Kayedos]

a rebuttle?

Hi all! We're finally adjusted to being back home. I needed a few days to cool off and rehydrate *L* Well I've been reading the posts, and well, I never was known for just sitting and keeping my mouth shut-*L* I gotta respond. I'd encourage everyone to write in either on here or email the pow wow committee (haven't a clue of thier addy) because they do all read this. I really think they need the feedback-both positive and negative. It's the only way it will improve.
Well my take on it all is that there will never be a real winners lists cuz who knows who the real winners are!!! BUT my congrats goes out to all those who placed (rightfully and mistakenly). They had I estimated about 320 dancers-not counting the wee ones. A great turnout considering there was 2 other great pow wows the same wkd. I enjoyed the layout better this year (but then again I wasn't dancing in the 104 degree heat-aye). The conveinence of the new hotel being right there was great-with a great rate too. And I liked how the elders could park down in the parking lot by the pw.
Okay I didn't understand why the pow wow was moved to border crossing weekend since the border crossing had no part of the powwow afterall, but eh well. And I felt sorry for both the food vendors and the dancers. There were 3 food stands right along the grand entry walkway and along the dance arena. The food stands didn't have adequate room for customer line up and if someone had turned around and spilled their food on a dancer during G.E.---what a mess that would have been! There might have been for all I know. Not a biggie I guess, but it could have been. Last year with all the complaints of the "wrestling mat" they had to dance on, I was pleased to see carpeting instead. My happiness was deflated when I realized there still some sort of foam underneath and I then watched the weather report and seen rain coming. The next day, (even with the committees best effort to suck out the moisture) water slash up the legs and soaked the leggins and mocs of the dancers. Shoulda just rolled up the stuff up. Sunday when it finally dried, I could just smell mustiness. But then again my nose is on overdrive (pregnancy hormones) *L* coulda just been me! Ummm.... the MC was stuck behind the drums again. He was so far back from the dance area the Judges/AD would have to scream back n forth with the MC-always drawing attention. Shoot I got all excited when I heard the loud voices- I always like a good fight, but it wasn't. Good thing he had a loud clear voice. The sound system was good too! And okay so it took 2hr and 45 min (by my watch) to announce all the winners, but whose fault is that to blame? The tabulators for not following through with paper for the first time he used this new system? The Head Judges for waiting last minute (6:30) to anounce tie breakers and not contantly checking their tabulation to see if everything is going correctly? Or just plain the committee for their lack of experience in catching and fixing these problems in a timely orderly fashion. It could go around and around. At least the problemS were fixed to the best of their ability. AND since I'm ranting, *L* I didn't appreciate the ahem (white) guy assisting the tabulator getting all snooty with my family this wkd. The committee ran out of money for the tiny tots (shouldn't have paid the unregistered ones since they make a big deal abt them having to be registered to get paid then don't follow their own rules). But anyways, they took down her number and said they'd pay them later. Well then the tots were excused. We headed to the pool and when they later called her number-we weren't there, they repeatedly called it over and over, my inlaws went to retrieve it but were told that they had to show the number, and hurry up. Then the guy tried to tell my hubby this and that how it's done-blah blah blah. I'm pretty sure he knew more abt pws than that guy. Even the MC told the guy to chill out and quit nit picking. We didn't even want the money after that (but my tot did) *L*
All in all, it wasn't a horrible weekend. Just the end of it was. I'm not apologizing for anything. Their actions not only make themselves look bad but the Seneca Nation too. Although I was not on the committee this year, I still came to support the pow wow, and I really did enjoy the new hotel. It's a live and learn world, and some ppl have a lot to live and learn I guess. I do hope all the kinks are worked out for the Salamanca pw and wish them all the best. I appreciate the compliments from *certain* ppl, and hope to see y'all around the pw trail. Happy dancin'........

[jinglinHUNNY]

i just wanted to say that the carpet was easier to dance on than that thick mat last year, but on sunday when it was 90 degrees, the carpet must have been 110 degrees, burning everyone's feet right through their mocs! besides that and the tabulating disaster, it was a fun pw..but hopefully they figure out those scanners for Salamanca so things can run a bit more smooth

[Wesley Cleland]

Man the pw was cool. mixs up like that always make pws so much fun. jk. lol. the one thing i found funny was the barcodes on the numbers. I felt like i was a product in a check out line. "Mens Fancy, on special today for 2.95", lol, but other than that, it was straight.

[ndneyez]

I agree with just about everything Kayedos had to say. I was not dancing however....pulled in late from some mean fabric shopping in NYC . However, I know MANY of the dancers and I heard the EXACT same complaints. Perhaps a big tent to cast some shade on the dance arena could alleviate some of the issues with the temp. of the dance floor. I know more than a few people that went home with some burnt, blistered feet .
I do have to say something in defense of the head judges. It is my knowledge that they had nothing to do with the tabulating. They simply handed the ballots over to the tabulators and weren't informed of any ties until much later. I was standing there when one of the tabulators handed Orlann the long list of ties.
I must also add that they were using the committees system for judging. I run my pow-wow committee and know that in order to keep so many ties from happening you CANNOT have points that end in 5's and 0's. This is simple math. All of the points ended in 5's and 0's, which makes for MANY ties. Hopefully they will keep this in mind for Salamanca or not matter what happens we will watch many tiebreakers again.
This was one of the first pow-wows I've "spectated" in a long time. Most of the time I'm participating.
Ok. Ok. On to what I can remember:

Junior Women's Traditional
1) Stephanie Maney
2) Sara Loft
3) Crystal Abel
4) Crystal Recollet
5) Challis Isaac

Junior Women's jingle
1) Rowena Roberts
2) Shannon Beetso
3) Kit Landry
4) Shannon George
5) Shkebe (Kit's sister)

Junior Women's Fancy
1) Tracy Recollet
2) Theresa Magnuson
3) Becky White Eye
4) dont know her name
5) Kelly Murphy

Junior Men's Traditional
1) Adrian Kline
2) SUPER TALL guy in the red beadwork....lol
3) Will Hedgepeth
4) Some straight dancer
5) Another straight dancer

Senior Men's Traditional
1) Charles Belisle
2) Maheengun Shawanda

Dang....bad memory!....lol Thats all I can remember!

[bvr_wmn]

Man the pw was cool. mixs up like that always make pws so much fun. jk. lol. the one thing i found funny was the barcodes on the numbers. I felt like i was a product in a check out line. "Mens Fancy, on special today for 2.95", lol, but other than that, it was straight.

$2.95? that's kinda steep. JK

[Blackbear]

Keep in mind this was kinda a first powwow since it was a collaboration of two separate organizations. Give them your feedback so that they can learn from thier mistakes this year to give an even better powwow next year. I wish I coulda been there.

[~*Oji_Flava*~]

Ok, My only question is...

Why did we have to fill out the paperwork when we arrived at registration?
I registed online, to be told I had to fill out the same questions that were on my paper and sign it.
I thought the whole point of registering online was to prevent this there.

Also...I had fun. The heat was outrageous!