This year we celebrate the 75 anniversary of the newspaper SUR.
Their sister paper SUR in English has been bringing the local news to english speaking people in the Costa del Sol for 29 years. Next year is their 30th Anniversary.
Recently they ran a competition for schools teaching children in English from ages 4-18 years.
I had the pleasure and honour of being asked to be one of the judges of this competition along with the former British Consul, Bruce McIntyre and journalist/entertainer Peter Edgerton by the energetic and enthusiastic editor Liz Parry.
The first point to make is that these things take a lot longer than you imagine.
Essay and Prose: Wading through varied essay subjects – many copied and pasted from Google – is hardy enlightening. The winner came in the form of a very simple story by a 10 year old that was written from the imagination, and it was decided to award another prize for written work to the essay entitled “Facebook”.
Painting: Everybody can paint and there were plenty of entries and the variety large. Two judges picked the same winner. This was a difficult one to judge as the age groups were diverse and the talents were not matched.
Poetry: A 16 year old came through the winner of the Poetry competition. Not an easy task to pick a winner. The standard was very good.
Grateful thanks to Liz Parry for her kind invitation to judge. I believe all of the judges felt the same. Congratulations to all of the participants whom we would like to encourage to keep going and enter many more competitions.
The competition judging and results was published as a supplement to the Sur in English edition on 22/03/2013.
Liz Parry, Peter Edgerton, Roger Cummiskey and Bruce McIntyre.
