There were 11 members who travelled up to Alton Camera Club for the tri-club competition, with our opponents Farnborough CC and our hosts Alton CC. Our team comprised of Helen Otton, Matthew White & Kev.
Since our trial run, we had held a series of zoom meetings, with a few other selected society members, to decide what images we would take and discuss the strategy that we would use. Out of our allocation of 36 images, we had identified 10 images as those to play in our ‘lead-off’ rounds.
Well, that theory went out of the window in the first round, as we had to play one of our bankers to save losing a point or playing a discardable image. Indeed, by the half-time break we had already played 9 of our lead images, with 6 rounds which we would be leading, still to go.
The pace of the evening, while appearing to be quite relaxed, was far from it. The time pressure of assessing and selecting your images to meet the first up, was quite intense and I must admit, I was very happy to make it to the break.
I thought we came more into our own in the second half, as we got more familiar with the evening. One of our benefits was that we had a couple of repeat images, (Butterflies and Horses), which scored well as our opponents had already played their similar images. This, of course, led to more 2-point rounds.
The standard of images across the whole of the evening, and all teams, was very good. There were some stunning images, both technically and in composition.
In the end, we finished a very creditable 2nd place on 40 points, only 1 point behind Farnborough CC, with Alton CC on 35 points.
I thought the Society was well represented, in the standard of our images and the turnout of our members. We probably took first place for the involvement of our members. I hope all who attended had an enjoyable evening, you will have to ask them.
I would like to thank Helen & Matthew, for their efforts on the team and the following members for the use of their images.
| Anita Taylor | Ann Erkut | Chris Morris |
| Dan Clarke | Dave Kirkland | Dawn Blight |
| Hellen Otton | Maggie Hickish | Mary Gardiner |
| Matthew White | Paul Harknett | Rob Day |
| Sarah Townley | Stephen Townsend | Steve Green |
Would we do it again, well you never know? We may be asked to participate in what may become an annual event; indeed, we may even invite the clubs to our hall. That is for discussion within the committee and having space in our calendar. But, if we do, we have certainly benefitted from the experience.
Kev Melsome
Competition Secretary & Vice Chair