The competition was held as usual at the Kings Centre,Burgess Hill which unlike its surroundings is a really nice hall.
It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and frankly I would have been far happier elsewhere enjoying the wonderful weather.
However, we were shown some really great pictures, 210 if my maths are correct. The prints were all displayed nicely in an adjacent hall before the main event.
Southwick CC ran the event very well and we had three accessors: Alison Cawley ARPS DPAG EFIAP; Martin Fairs, and Caroline Colgate ARPS.
The competition has at last been modified and now there were six entries in each of the Open and the Development classes.
This year eighteen clubs took part and SCC had six members present, to watch proceedings, which is twice as many as last time.
The Development class was first and the format was as follows: The order of the clubs was randomised and first up all six PI copies of the prints was shown on a very big screen (and they sometimes were on display for a Very short time) and then we saw each of the entries separately. Then one of the judges would jump up and speak about just two of the prints from this club. It turned out that sometimes they were the ones with the highest marks and sometimes not. In our case the best prints in this section were chosen, both by Kevin Harwood and the comments were very favourable!
We then had a half hour break for refreshments before looking at the Open prints. In our case, Di Walker’s ‘Berber Sheep Market’ got favourable comments, although her other entry ‘A Quick Snack’ got higher marks. This was a brilliant picture of a dragonfly with an insect in its mouth and got SCC’s highest mark 50/60. The other print commented on was Jean MacWhirter’s ‘Burgerbukta Spitsbergen’ which was also favourably mentioned, but sadly it got fewer marks.
Two pictures stood out for me, firstly one of the first we saw which was a very well thought out and complicated picture of a Clockwork Orange which must have taken hours to produce, and which was awarded a medal. It got the maximum marks available i.e., 60! Then in the open comp a picture of an olive grove which I thought was beautiful and it too got a medal. It was made by a Chichester member and there were no members present to pick up the award!
Finally we came to the prizegiving, and medals were given to the three outstanding prints in each section and then the cups for the winning clubs. Eastbourne won both sections with Steyning 2nd in the Development with Chichester 3rd. In the Open, Bognor Regis was 2nd with Steyning 3rd. Very well done to all of them.
We came 10th in the Development and 9th in the Open competitions. Congratulations to all our entrants particularly Kevin who got 53 and 49 for his two entries.
This result was much better than last time and we were where we usually end up, in the middle! We are a third of the size of the winning clubs and should be proud of our club (Small, but beautifully formed) and how we generally get on in these County level comps. We have some very talented people and there is more new talent on the way up as the likes of me sink gently in the West.