PAGB Inter-Club PDI Championship

Some of you will remember back in March Chichester came top at the SCPF PDI Championship, which meant that we were one of two clubs from the SCPF to represent the Federation at this national PAGB event held in Warwick, the other being Yateley Camera Club.

On Sunday 6th July, seven of us travelled up to Warwick – three Selection Committee members to take part in the competition and four others with a keen interest in the competition and were there to observe the proceedings.

Following the last Selection Committee meeting, we had to register 40 PDIs in advance from which we could choose the entries for each of three rounds. We also had to select eight of those for Round 1 in advance so the competition could get underway quickly once we were all seated and introductions had been made.

The three judges at this event were:

• Barbara Jenkin ARPS EFIAP/d3 GMPSA/p SPSA BPE4 (WCPF)
• Paul Radden DPAGB EFIAP/g PSA4 (EAF)
• Paul Stanley FIPF EFIAP/p ESFIAP (IPF)

At the end of Round 1 the Selection Committee members assessed what types of image were scoring well and which ones were not doing quite so well. We then had to select a further eight different images from our 40 for Round 2 after a well-deserved coffee break.

After Round 2 was completed, the scores from both rounds were added together and the top eight clubs were selected for the Final competition while the rest competed for the Plate, both of which were judged after the lunch break. We had a strong score in R2 (97 points) coming 6th overall in the round but our R1 score was slightly lower (93 points) so our total from the two rounds meant we were just two points short of qualifying for the Final competition and ended up in the Plate, competing against 28 other clubs.

During the lunch break the Selection Committee members huddled together to select our eight images for the Plate competition, which could include up to four previously used in R1 and R2. The rules of the competition restricted us to just two Nature images in each round, which is where we are strongest at the moment, and no more than two images from any photographer.

The Plate was judged straight after the lunch break and our eight images scored a total of 99 points. We then had to wait until after the Final competition was judged, a coffee break and some presentations before the results were announced.

Overall we came 4th in the Plate out of 29 clubs which is our best result ever in this competition. Preston were 3rd with 100 points, Southport 2nd with 102 and the winners of the Plate were Keswick with 105 points. Yateley came 7th with 97 points so it was a good result for the SCPF too.

Unsurprisingly, our top scores came from Nature images – Jim Munday’s “Sparrowhawk with Starling” scored 15/15 in R1 and was reused in the Plate where it scored 14. Julia Wainwright’s “Fight for Life” also scored 14 in the Plate competition. We also had scores of 13 from Ann McDonald’s “Girl with Baby” and “Nutcracker Fight”, Peter Rocchiccioli’s “Mount Fuji on a Misty Day” and Jim Munday’s “Storm Noa at Newhaven”.

The PAGB have now published the full results on their website here, along with images from the winning panels and medal winners here.

The featured image is “Sparrowhawk with Starling” by Jim Munday which was our highest scoring image in the competition.