Congratulations to Jim Butterworth for winning the Best Deciduous category with his Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) that was on the Aka Matsu club display.
This was fast and furious to say the least and all done by 5.30pm only an hour after the show had finished. Many hands make light work, and it was so true in this instance.
This year’s show was another success with over 400 visitors and over 100 bonsai trees on display as individual exhibits or part of a club display or shohin or mame display. The show also had a wide range of traders and purchases of bonsai and associated sundries seem to be selling well on the day.
This year was amazing, the club members and volunteers who helped out on the Saturday for the set up did a great job and everything was in place well before 8pm.
Here is the list of Awards that will be given out at our Winter Image Show this year on Sunday 24th February, we hope to see you there.
- Best Overall Display in show
- Best Deciduous tree
- Best Evergreen tree
- Best Chuhin tree, approx 45 cm from soil
- Best Shohin display, approx 20 cm from soil
- Best Mame display. Approx 10cm from soil
- Best Club display
- Best Tree/Pot combo, awarded by Walsall Studio Ceramics
- Best Accent, awarded by Mendip Bonsai, judged by John Trott
- ‘Arihato Award’, Best small tree, awarded and judged by Kit Bowns
A massive thank you again to Andy Pearson of Stone Monkey Ceramics for his donation of these two gorgeous crackle glazed pots as raffle prizes for the Swindon Winter Image Show on Sunday 24th February. Raffle tickets will be available on sale at the door for £1 each as well as throughout the day so don’t forget to buy yours and there will also be many more prizes to win, so hope you are lucky.
This unique pot was made by Stone Monkey and I am sure that everyone will want to own it. This special commemorative pot for Armistice Day will be travelling with him at each of the bonsai shows that he will be attending this year. He will be selling raffle tickets at £3 each and all monies received will be donated to the Royal British Legion. Stone Monkey will be trading at our show this Sunday and the raffle will then be drawn later on in the year at Heathrow Bonsai Show on the 20th of October 2019.
Here is the list of judges and a fine body of people with a huge experience in the hobby.
1. Steve McKee [Head judge]
2. Mark Cooper
3. Ritta Cooper
4. Andy Jordan
5. Bill Baker
6. John Brocklehurst
7. Paul Eslinger
8. Andrew Hardman
Anand Arihato was/is a teacher. He was taken from us too early. That said if you consider his spiritual belief he is still with us, around us or within us. He was (I will use past tense from now purely as I look upon things from a Western perspective) a great believer in knowledge and he shared a great deal with me on bonsai and his philosophy in many late night emails. To have had this opportunity to talk was a singular honour. He affected me in a way very few people have.
This year we have 10 visiting bonsai clubs and societies to our Winter Image Show on Sunday 24th February. If you are interested in the art or hobby of bonsai then come along and meet some of the clubs as there is bound to be one near you if you want to join one.
- Bristol
- Ashfield
- Phoenix
- Warminster
- Splinter Group
- Newbury
- Aka Matsu School of Bonsai
- Solent
- Surrey Heath
- Glynderi