There was a good audience for the club’s first competition of the season which was judged by Maureen Dennis. Maureen is a regular visitor to the club because she has a great sense of humour, plenty of anecdotes and a lot of photographic expertise. She was also the perfect judge for the 48 entries in the themed digital section 'Life in the Garden' - a title that gave plenty of scope for wildlife, macro and even small landscape images to be entered. Maureen’s knowledge of wildlife was particularly useful as she explained the various attributes of the many species on show and by the end of the evening the club was extremely well educated!

The results were as follows:
1st Paul Carter for 'Sparrows Drinking' - a delicate shot of the two sparrows with some excellent reflections, 2nd Paul Carter for 'Hoverfly on Fuchsia’, 3rd equal Bill Summers for 'The Potting Shed' and Derek Carpenter for 'Bursting with colour'
Highly Commended went to: Tony Drew (‘Bee Fly on Windowsill’ and ‘Common Garden Spider’), Sue Howard (‘Slowworm’ and ‘Coming in to land’), Rachel Carter (‘Bird Feeder Thief’), Andy Howson (‘Hunter’)

The Open digital section attracted 22 entries. The results were:
1st Rachel Carter for 'Gannet' a great shot of this bird in full flight and perfectly sharp
2nd Viv Burridge for 'Beauty in the eye of the beholder'
3rd Derrick Carpenter for 'Sky Art'
Highly Commended went to Paul Carter (‘Red Boat on Lake’ and ‘Cheetah Posing on Termite Mound’), Polly Knowles (‘Spanish Busker’), Viv Burridge (‘After The Ball’)

It was good to see some new members getting images held back for awards as this shows that the club is flourishing and that a high standard of photography is being maintained.