I have no news from the PDI judging but know detail from the prints. GCC entered 29 colour prints and 23 monochrome prints. The judging panel of 3 were relatively inexperienced and loathe to give a 5-score to anything. In consequence there were none of the over 1000 prints with a score of 15, only about 3 gaining 14 and less than 10 gaining 13 ('Ice Queen' from Lesley Hughes I think was our only 13). This meant that the more-experienced panel of 3 judges who made the 'Alliance Selection' (20 each of non-nature Colour Prints and Monochrome Prints plus 20 Nature Prints for NCPF to enter into the PAGB InterFederation Competitions) had to look through the 12s and 11s piles to pull out a shortlist of the very best from which to select. The 'Highly Commended' awards target is the top 10% of entries but this year that is exceeded as the whole 12s pile and above received HC. We gained 18 HC awards from our 29 colour prints and a further 6 from our 23 mono prints. Then we achieved 2 Alliance colour print selections ('Ice Queen' from Lesley and 'Final Position' from Janet Maddison) plus 2 Alliance mono prints selections ('Fetch' from Morgan Stephenson and 'Jailhouse Symmetry' from Bob Campion). But best of all was in Nature Prints where 7 were alliance selected, more than 1/3 of the total 20 future NCPF entry. These are 'Sibling Bonding' and 'The Silent Stalker' (Jane Jeffrey), 'kingfisher with Stickleback' and 'Bearded Tit doing the Splits' (Morgan Stephenson), 'Arctic Tern Feeding Chick' (Peter Fawcett), 'Redshank in a Tidal Pool' (David Brown) and 'Begging for Food' (Peter Maguire). From the 11s pile a further 4 Portfolio Selections were gained: 'Arctic Chick Begging for Food' (Peter Fawcett), 'Common Blues Paired on Knapweed' (David Brown), 'Tokyo Night Time' (Nick Lambert) and 'Horse Whisper' (Les Allan).
More to follow when I have the PDI results. David Brown 13/04/2026.