Anne Nagel kindly picked me up in her car and we arrived at the Tangmere Centre Hall in good time. We went inside and were immediately told by a very nice Lady that we would not be charged entry fee, but would we please buy some raffle tickets instead. Inside the hall we found another cheerful lady selling raffle tickets with a big smile on her face. It transpired that they must have sold of good number of tickets as the Hall was pretty full, so Chichester camera club who were running the event must have done quite well we hope.
The meeting was called to order at 7:30 by the President of the club John Bradshaw who wore a shirt to die for! The chairman of the club was AWOL and the President had to use a half full glass of water attacked with a spoon to catch our attention; (If CCC do not have a gavel, they will now be able to buy one with the proceeds from the raffle).
It turned out to be a normal camera club meeting with notices being read out and reports. The club had recently taken part in a competition at Southampton and they had done rather well, one of the members had obtained a gold medal and another lady a certificate and these were presented and pictures taken on a mobile phone. Then a request for help for a forthcoming event with the promise of a cup of tea.
The club business over, we then proceeded to hear from Cliff Carter about the competition and he welcomed the judge for the evening, Lisa Beaney, and he gave out other notices.
Then out of the blue the first image came up on the screen and we were off with Round One.
In this round Steyning kicked off with a very good photograph of an Osprey which had just taken off from a lake. A brilliant picture which was awarded 20 points. Liz Barber's picture entitled ‘Into the Abyss’, scored a creditable 19 points. And so at the end of the round, we lay Second.
In Round Two Alex's Image of ‘Paul’ scored 16 points and we remained in Second place.
In Round Three, there were three more 19s and Kevin Harwood's Picture entitled ‘The Breakfast Chase’ scored 16 and at the end of the round we lay third, with Steyning still in first place.
In Round Four, my ‘Male Bearded Tit’ scored 17 and we rose to second equal again.
In Round Five two 20s were awarded to mid Sussex and Southwick and Janet's ‘Going Underground’ scored 18 and we fell back to third place again.
In Round Six, David’s ‘Man in a Red Hat’ scored 16 and we remained at third equal. We then had the Tea Break which was served in an adjoining room.
In Round Seven Liz Barber's image entitled ‘Tulip’ scored a 20 and Steyning also scored 20. and they remained in first place whilst we went up to second place .
In the Final Round, Anne Nagle’s ‘Swans Taking Off’ was awarded 15 points and we went back to third place equal with mid Sussex, which was of course the final result for us.
We then had the presentation of the shield to Steyning and the best image was awarded to Steyning's Osprey. There were only Five 20s awarded and eight 19s out of 64 images, so very well done Liz. The Judge was very hot on imperfections in the pictures, noise and artefacts mainly brought about by Post Processing, and Lisa explained in each case how these could be avoided.
Then finally we had the raffle. The prizes consisted of two bottles of wine and two boxes of chocolates and we were not lucky.
This is the first Regnum Crouch competition that I have attended in 20 years where it was fitted into a normal club evening, rather than having it as a stand alone event, but we had a very enjoyable evening, and saw some great pictures, so thanks to everyone involved. The full list of scores are on the Regnum Crouch website.