Firstly, thanks to all the entrants and our supporters for making the competition such a success.

This,as many of you may know, was the first competition we have organised, and we decided that we would run it in parallel with the Locks Festival here in Marple.    www.marple-uk.com   


We received over two hundred entries, some from as far as South Africa, others from writers in the furthest reaches of the UK and Ireland.

All entries were judged anonymously, and the adjudicator had no knowledge of either the name of the entrant or their location.   


Our competition was somewhat different to most in that it was non-profit making; we gave our services freely and without payment, and when the final bills are in, there will almost certainly be money left over to benefit a charity.
The enormous amount of work involved in reading the entries and dealing with communications was worth every minute of our time in receiving such accomplished writing.
We have decided to support the Nordoff-Robbins Music therapy charity, and a cheque will be sent to them after the prize giving on 5 July.

I was really impressed by the quality of the entries; most were well written, and presented in a pleasing way, nicely printed on good quality paper, or neatly handwritten as was the alternative for the under 16’s entries.