October 2018 saw the annual inter club print championship, again held in Blackburn which made attendance easy for me. To qualify for this event the clubs must finish in the top two of their respective federations or have made the final in the previous year’s competition. My club, Chorley PS qualified by finishing 4th in 2017 which meant that two other clubs could represent Lancashire & Cheshire, they were Wigan 10 and Warrington PS.
The competition itself was top class with outstanding prints made by clubs from across the UK. There were, as always, genres of images that featured more than others, nature was its usual exceptionally high standard and there were a lot of travel images showing, typically, elderly folk in their meagre environments. High key prints seemed to score well as did snow scenes, with or without wildlife. Kingfishers have all but disappeared to be replaced, it seems, by Mountain Hares. Some previously well received prints scored less well than may have been expected. Landscapes did very well, dispelling perceptions that this genre fares badly, indeed they seemed to score better than the more creative images. The judges did well as they consistently scored images in a matter of seconds, if anything the prints appeared to score a little higher that last year as there were quite a lot of (well deserved) 15s recorded.
Results wise, Chorley PS finished 3rd in the final (4th last year) just above Wigan 10 FC (4th). Warrington came a very creditable 2nd in the plate completion which made for a reasonably successful day for our local clubs. Rolls Royce (Derby) we’re top club at the end after scoring heavily throughout and Catchlight of NI won the Plate competition.
I had three prints across the 1st round and final, all scoring 12 points, so no top scores this time.

Alone