Eight members of SCC (25% of our members) attended the Sussex Federation print competition at Burgess Hill on Saturday afternoon and I suspect that most of us expected that we would end up being placed 10th or 12th as usual. However, we were in for a great surprise, as my e-mail to Chairman Chris on Sunday morning explained:
Dear Chris
I am extremely proud to be able to report to you our outstanding performance at Burgess Hill yesterday afternoon when our club was placed 3rd overall.
This was against 18 clubs many, if not most of them, with considerably larger memberships, and is far and away our best result ever in living memory.
In the Open comp we were placed 3rd with 411 points behind Seaford and Worthing who were joint 1st Equal with 414 points. (effectively we came second!?)
In the Development comp we came 5th equal with Chichester with 397 points, with the winners Bognor getting 414 points, another very good result for us.
For our little, but very nice, club to get results like these was absolutely BRILLIANT. We beat all the big boys like Chichester, Bognor, Steyning and Eastbourne, who all have 100 members against our modest 32, and this is in my view was an outstanding achievement, and it should give you a glow to be Chairman when we have done so well.
I will of course give a full report on the event win the coming days.
Derek
What a wonderful surprise! Very well done to all the entrants. The marks were as follows:
The Open competition
- ‘Kestrel’ by Anne Nagle 57 (out of a possible 60); what a score! (only 2 other people got this high score)
- ‘Bee-Eater” by Anne Nagle 55; another stunning result Well done Anne (112 out of 120!)
- ‘The Dancer’ by Di Walker 53; ‘Cwymorthin Chapel’ by Martin Tomes 53; both very good scores.
- ‘Black-Headed Night Heron at Nest’ by Jean MacWhirter 52; ‘Agapanthus in a Bottle’ by Janet Brown 51
- ‘Salzburg Cathedral’ by Martin Tomes 48; and finally the dunce ,’Cumbrian Landscape’ by Derek Grieve 42
All of this got us 3rd position, so very well done to all.
The Development competition.
- ‘Puffins’ by norman Kirby 54; ‘Geranium’ by John Gauvin 54;
- ‘Wistful at Brighton Parade’ by Jane Coward 53;' Singled Out’ by Daisy Kane 51;
- ‘Dusk by the Thames’ by Daisy Kane 50; ‘Blondie’ by Peter Picthall 48;
- ‘Band Ready Sir’ by Norman Kirby 45; ‘Dartford Crossing’ by Glenn Donnelly 42;
Very well done to all of these as they came 5th equal with Chichester, and one of the judges commented that this was a very good group of pictures.
If you wish to learn more, the results will eventually arrive on the Sussex Federationwebsite.
I would finish by commenting on the competition as a whole. For a small club like ours to select 16 prints of 'competition entry quality' (with restrictions on the number of authors)is quite difficult, believe me. Ken Scott’s own club had trouble finding entries for the Development class, as did Worthing. There are just too many entries. The organising club must have a nightmare organising the competition on the day. We get too few pictures spoken about by the judges and we get no scores until the last few minutes when they all comeout in a great rush, making it quite difficult to keep up with what has happened. We are all sent off with sheets of the aggregate scores from the three judges, but nothing about the final combined results. So we all leave with our heads buzzing trying to make some sense of it all. In the past there have been 21 clubs taking part and this year there were only 18; so some clubs obviously find it all too much, and I do not blame them.
If there were six entries in both classes it would be so much easier. We would hear many more comments from the judges, which would make the whole affair much more enjoyable for all.
In spite of all that we had a very good afternoon meeting friends from other clubs and the organisers did a good job in what must be a very hard work to organise showing 144 prints. The three judges were very good and apart from a technical hitch at half time, it all went off very well.
Once more, very well done Storrington.