NCPS Annual Exhibition 2011 - Inter-club Competitions report

L&CPU President Christine Widdall presents the
Alan Adshead Trophy to Wigan 10 (Gwen Charnock)

 

Judge Mike MacNamee presents the
North Cheshire Challenge Trophy to Wigan 10 (Austin Thomas)

 

Judge Mike MacNamee presents the award for
"Best Projected Image" to Austin Thomas for "Cheetah Kill"

 

Photographs supplied by Jon Allanson

Following a long-standing tradition, the Wednesday and Thursday evenings of our 2011 Annual Exhibition were taken over by the big inter-club competitions (now known as the "North Cheshire Challenges") and it was a delight to witness once again the enthusiasm and support from the clubs and their visiting members, support that we rely upon for the continued success of these events.

On Wednesday, 21 clubs entered 5 prints (and submitted digital files for projection) for the Alan Adshead Trophy competition. Each of the 105 prints was, in turn, awarded a mark out of 20 accompanied by a constructive criticism from our judge, Ray Brammall ARPS DPAGB. Ray had travelled across the Pennines from Doncaster on this, his first visit to Poynton and made a very considerable challenge look easy. His relaxed style and pertinent comments were well received by the audience. We soon realised that the knowledge and experience gained over many years in club photography was standing him in good stead and would guarantee a fair result at the end of the competition. Although there can only be one winner, the great majority of our 150-strong audience seemed to leave with a broad smile of satisfaction, confirming that the evening had gone well.

Thursday saw a packed house of 200+ here to witness our major knock-out competition for the North Cheshire Challenge Trophy which goes from strength to strength. This year a record 150 digitally projected images from 30 clubs were dealt with, and extremely competently, by judge Mike McNamee FRPS FBPPA. Mike has performed a similar task for us on previous occasions at Poynton so we were confident that this prestigious event was in very capable hands. Again no-one - despite the eventual winners' runaway victory - could have been anything but impressed by the skill and ruthless efficiency with which Mike handled the task of gradually disposing of so many quality images.

The Results Tables for both events confirm that our friends from Wigan 10 are still the set to beat, but we can be encouraged by the performance of North Cheshire PS as, once again, we finished right up there in the top bracket. Even when pitted against the best images from such a wide range of leading clubs we've proved we can more than hold our own!

I would like to thank, on behalf of North Cheshire, all those who took part in, and travelled over to witness, these competitions. I am aware that collecting, collating and submitting entries places a considerable burden on hard-working Competition Secretaries. Their efforts in submitting all those correctly prepared files before the deadline really is appreciated. I hope everyone enjoyed their visits to Poynton. The team certainly appreciated all the favourable comments received on the night about our running of the events. We were also made aware of the odd mistake and shall be trying even harder to please everybody next year when we look forward to welcoming even greater numbers back to Poynton for another crack at winning these major trophies.