A little late, I know but I’ve allowed ample time to take down decorations, recycle Christmas cards and dispose of Christmas trees.

Michael Round has stepped down as competitions secretary, leaving an impossibly large pair of shoes to be filled. I will do my trepidatious best with fingers (and toes) firmly crossed.

I’d like to start 2024 by making a few changes, namely:
- all competition entries to be submitted by email - no more snail mail entries in future.

- the existing deadline for entries has been advanced by one week to the 8th of each month - the earlier the better to achieve the target of circulating submissions to members and collating and distributing the results by the end of the month.

May I remind contributors the adjudication scheme is first, second and third with respectively 3 points for your first choice, two for second and one for third. Positions on the podium will depend on the sum of individual scores.

We start the competition year with an autobiographical anecdote (up to one thousand words) to be sent to ken.franklin@zen.co.uk by Thursday 8 February. The next event is the Herbert Spencer Poetry competition with submissions to me by 8 March, so plenty of time to exercise those poetic muscles either in blank or rhyming verse.