World Book day 2010

2010 Winners announced for the creative writing competition which was open to all ages at Ceredigion Museum

The theme for this year's World Book Day competition was MUSIC

We encouraged all writers to come up with a short story, poem or article about MUSIC.

Ceredigion Museum, Arad Goch Theatre in Education Company and Ceredigion Library Service have once again come together to organise a writing competition to celebrate World Book Day. Jeremy Turner from Arad Goch judged the competition once again this year and the winners were announced at the Coliseum on Thursday 4^th March.

Jeremy said he was pleased to read all the entries and once again judge the World Book Day competition. Besides finding a big variety of interesting ways of interpreting the theme of music he also said that each work he had chosen had a spark of excitement which added a certain twist of surprise at the end of the writing.

This element of surprise was often the thing that lifted the piece of writing out from the crowd and made it a winner. He wanted to encourage each of the winners to continue to write but added that many of those who entered the competition were good.

Mary Matthews who plays the piano for an hour in the Ceredigion museum each week came along to help celebrate at the award ceremony on at the Coliseum, Aberystwyth. She brought the old theatre back to life with a huge variety of songs and music. 'She inspired us all with her playing,' said Jeremy . 'Besides old film scores she played all sorts of music, usually fitting in with a seasonal or topical theme.'

Sue Jones Davies read out some of the winning entries together with Jeremy. The Competition categories consisted of various age ranges. Each winner received a book token for their efforts.

Winner for the under elevens were joint first prize going to three entries: Lewis Drakeley from Ysgol Rhydypennau who wrote a short poem, Laura Hughes, from Ysgol Llanfarian who wrote a story about a boy called Thomas titled 'Gifted' and Aled Jones from Ysgol Gymunedol Talybont who wrote a poem titled 'Cerddoriaeth'.

Winners in the 12-17 category were first prize Hamni Sahi, from Ysgol Penglais for her story 'The Sound of Music', second prize went to Maximilian Zinn, Ysgol Llanbedr Pont Steffan, for his poem 'Musical Instrument' and third to Kara D again from Lampeter school for her poem 'Music'.

The two adult winners were Ted Parry of Aberystwyth for his poem for two voices and a drum called 'This Music' and Nigel Humphreys for his poem 'Eroica'. Congratulations to them all.

'We were all pleased to be working together once again' said Stuart Evans from the Ceredigion Museum, 'especially with Cwmni Theatre Arad Goch'. He thanked Jeremy Turner for all his hard work in judging the entries. 'Jeremy and Sue Jones Davies read out the works brilliantly and made the afternoon a special occasion once again. A big thank also to Mary Matthews for the great piano playing. Mary plays each week at the museum, do come and listen to her any Tuesday afternoon and enjoy her music. Music will be the theme for this years Big Draw competition in October too. So get drawing. '