Everyone arrived in good time on a very wet, but thankfully not windy morning.
The hedges fell into two categories, very light for the novices and Super veteran class, and "interesting" for the rest.
By interesting I really mean horrible. it was very gappy, and had been flailed at about 3 foot leaving a huge gnarly knot with a fair number of tall growths on top. This meant a lot of hard pruning to reduce the weight. The vast bulk of the competitors opted for chainsaws from the start, Frank started with hand tools but quickly switched. David Dunk however stuck with hand tools, as of course did the novices.
Such a tough hedge meant almost everyone was pushed for time, however all sections were down by the finish horn, although one was without binders.
Our novices produced some really good work this year.
Congratulations to all the winners
Massive thanks to the judges and stewards
Pictures to follow
Bob and Des judged last years regrowth, and as well as overall 1st 2nd 3rd they marked each class, so for fun here are the details
Veteran
1st Dave Truran
2nd John French
3rd Clive Gilligan
Novice
1st Natasha Stonestreet
2nd Gwyn Alford
3rd Graham West
Senior
1st Mike Mason
2nd Matthew Beard
3rd Russell Woodham
Champion
1st Nigel Adams
2nd Tony Gallow
3rd Gary Moore
Sadly I managed to mess up the names/cants for the new Super Vet class, this has now been corrected.
sehls_competition__results.pdf |
This year we agreed to select the 3 best scores, as this does not penalise people who judge at events during the season.