UK nationals today

[madgarry]

Hi guys ive just got home from running this year Uk national pipe smoking championships and final one due to upcoming smoking ban, this years show was dedicated to Balraj Singh a JHPCB member who sadley died recently and with sales of his estate pipes and the raffle we raised £1750 to donate to charity with more to come from pipes left to go onto Ebay. Myself and the treasurer got to the venue at 0915Am and proceded to set the venue up and were quickly joined by eager competitors and traders who got there early. Trade stands this year were supplied by John Hollingsworth Tobacconists, Bill Ashton Taylor(Ashton pipes), Ian Walker(Northern Briars), Mustafa(Maximus) Imp meers, Colin Leeson(Invicta Briars) and Jan from Jan pipes in the Czech republic, they had some great stuff on display and many people felt like kids in a sweet shop, including our own RonB who purchased 3 Ashtons to my knowledge(Deep pockets Ron).Up until 12 oclock it was setting up tables,chairs, time keeping aperatus, laying out of the pipe and tobacco and goody bags, while all around us the amassed throng chatted,smoked and consumed lunch and beer . Finaly my fellow setter uperers had chance for lunch and a pint and pipe, then straight into regestration and people finding their seats, then the countdown while people loaded there pipes and then the off as matches struck and clouds of smoke decended into the air like the aftermath of a bombing mission, this is when it starts getting serious as the competative edge takes over. This years pipe was a Northern Briars hand made rusticated Bulldog (I have a spare for trade if anyones interested) and the tobacco was P Stockebby Optimum. The clubs reprisented this year were, The Pipe club of London, JHPCB, The Norfolk pipe club, The South west Pipe club, The Halifax pipe club, The Northern briars club(Ex Stafford pipe club), and Smokers Forums. Every one made it past the dreaded 10 min mark. The event went on for a while before people started dropping out at about the 35 to 45 min mark and the final winner with a time of 1H 17m 18s was Tim Knight from JHPCB(Well done Tim). The winning club was JHPCB who posted a combined time off 3h 33m 34s, second was pipe club of Norfolk 3h 04m 10s, 3rd was Pipe club of London 2h 30m 56s, Smokers forums gave a respectable time of 2h 7m 46s(Well done guys). All competitors recd a goody bag at the end, all in all a good day was had by all and it was real nice to put faces to some of my fellow smokers forum member, RonB, Caskwith, Jim Mcphail and Marty Gould and of course Maximus whome I met last year... Ide like to offer my thanks to all in the trade and fellow SF members who donated all of the multitude of prizes we had and helped make the event so good for all concerned. Ide like to finish off by saying that this is the last such UK event(I wish it wasnt) and if by any chance a way around the ban can be found so another can be held, I wish all the best to whomever takes over the organisation and running of it as ime standing down from my role as main organiser.. Thanks to all who paticipated today its been a pleasure and honour to run this show for you and great fun participating in competition with you, I hope you all enjoyed it as much as me, signing off from my ramblings Garry Weston(Madgarry)