Six stalwart members of our club attended the Wivelsfield Green Village Hall to cheer our club on in the Sussex Federation's Digital Image competition this Sunday afternoon.
The Judge was Jack Bates FRPS MPAGB who comes from South London and was well known to the Sx. Fed. Chairman Ken Scott, who of course is a good friend of SCC. Ken Scott explained that a key member of the Sx. Fed. committee had resigned at the exact point that the details of this competition were due to be sent out, which resulted in every one, including the judge of course, having to move very quickly to get everything in place in time. We had selected six images because we had not got the paperwork in time for our selection meeting and did not know how many entries were required. So, a member of East Grinstead CC (who were organising the event) rang John Gauvin in a panic to find out which of our PIs to remove. Luckily for us, John removed the correct image as the other one was a natural history picture which the judge was not favouring, as it turned out!
In Round One our first image_Ian MacWhirter's 'Glaucious Gull with Guillemot prey' was awarded 16 points and there were also 2x19s and 2x18s in this round, and we were 11th out of 22 clubs taking part.
Round Two saw Ian's excellent 'Courting Polar Bears' awarded 19. At this point the judge said that when he first went through the entries (110 of them!), he awarded too many 20s and realised that in this sort of competition that was too many, so probably all of the 19s would have been 20s, got it? So very well done Ian, particularly as it was a wildlife shot!!! This placed us in First equal position! Wow!
In Round Three our entry was Anne Nagle's 'A quiet moment' which was of a juvenile Girraffe with its Mum. This stunning shot was given 17 which we began to realise was a very good mark in this competition, especially as it was nature again! In this round there were also 3x20s 2x19s and 2x18s and we ended up 5th equal in the ratings.
This was the moment for the tea break, when Di Walker and Daisy carried out the most amazing and outrageous 'queue barging' I have ever witnessed, and as I was one of the beneficiaries of this outrage, I had to take my tea outside to drink it as I was so embarrassed! In the interval we had some chats with our friends from Steyning who were understandably a bit quiet as we were doing much better than them.
In Round Four, Martin Tomes' 'The Adur from the Sussex Yacht Club' was awarded 17 (our favoured mark of the day) and without showing positions we then went straight on with Round Five, in which Di Walker's 'Stilettos' got yet another creditable 17.
This put us finally 3rd equal with 86 pints (or 5th equal if you want to be really correct!). East Grinstead the host club came first with a very good 93 points out of a possible 100, very good indeed. In second equal place were Eastbourne, Hailsham and Seaford clubs with 87 points each; and then Storrington, Bexhill and Crawley clubs with 86 points. Steyning were 10th, yippee, and Chichester 15th, but they only put their second team in this competition. Excuses!
Just to add to our glory, Jane, Daisy and I all won prizes in the raffle.
This is by far the best result that little StorringtonCC have ever achieved in any Sussex Fed competition as far as I am aware, unless someone like Jean MacWhirter who has kept records of all competitions since 1867 cares to correct me. I would like to thank my team of selectors on doing a really good job in the selection of our entries.
The only down side of the day was that so few members turn out to support us in these competitions. Sadly, it is always the committee members (and Jean) who attend.
Very well done Storrington.