I arrived at the football clubhouse a little later than usual to find a small band of members huddled together in the car park. Anne rushed forward to say that she might have put the wrong code in the security keypad and now they could not get in (rest assured Anne that would not happen), So I tried a couple of times as well to no avail. I then tried to ring the caretaker’s number which I had from some years back, but being Storrington no signal.
So I went round to the Sports centre to see if they would let me phone from there and maybe suggest another number. The duty Manager eventually emerged and gave me a number for the football club, and let me use their phone. So, firstly I tried the number that I had for the caretaker but as I got through I was told in each ear simultaneously that he had arrived here on other business.
He tried with his input number and after a while pronounced the system ‘down’.
Prior, and in the middle of all this, a red faced David Seddon announced that it was all his fault as he had failed to book the hall. If he had kept ’shtum’ he would have got away with that!
At this point Audrey (our resident angel) strode into the mix having made a couple of phone calls and announced that we could use a hall in the Sports Center (with a coloured wall) or we could go to the Methodist Church in School Lane where there was a small hall available. So we ‘uped sticks’ and repaired to said Venue.
A very nice hall it was too with very comfortable chairs and a very big screen.
At just after 8pm we started our meeting at which we were all going to try our hands at judging.
We had submitted three images each and these were projected in no particular order and David produced one of our names out of a hat to stand up and judge it.
Sadly I was first up and was faced with a very good BW image about which I luckily gave a good resume as it later turned out to have been taken by our expert of the ‘BLACK’ art (and white), Ray. Whew!! We had been issued with paper and pen and we were to write down the marks we would have given each image before the duty judge pronounced his mark.
I annoyed Janet, who sat beside me, by announcing after each mark awarded whether I agreed with it or not. ‘Just because you agree does not make it right’ Janet insisted quite rightly.
Ray Foxlee produced a brilliant BW landscape which John Goodfellow (and I) gave 20 marks, and Janet also produced some very good images, as we have come to expect.
David had masterminded a really good fun evening which we all enjoyed and found useful; and hopefully he slept peacefully after his transgression?