Is that the drone safe guy is it? or the winner?
If I’m reading it right, “Andy Betts” is the winner? Are you a member here Andy Betts? 
And have Lotus been in touch about your use of their Esprit logo 
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I popped his name in the search bar earlier thinking the same 
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That was my first thought, too.
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It was a good evening; quite a few people there and no shortage of food and drink… V glam surroundings. Nice speech by the CAA chairman and Jonathan, CAA Campaigns man was on hand for the unveilings…
I pointed out the frustrations about the competition rules; the pointlessness of restricting the urban categories and the issue that stopped me entering, handing over the rights of pictures to the CAA… But I also said it would be good to make it an annual competition if they genuinely wanted to engage with the drone community more.
Had a chance to talk to a few of members of the unfortunately-named “counter drone” team from the counter terrorism police HQ of the Met, who were all very keen drone pilots, had their own models, and spend much of their time teaching police forces across the UK to try and spread consistency and common sense for interpreting and implementing the law, which is often slightly different or lacking detail when compared to the ‘guidance’ of CAP 722. They lamented the difficulty of using Altitude Angel and so I was pushing the use ‘Good 2 Fly’. They want a simple and useful app to recommend to flyers they engage with… @PingSpike I will be in touch…
It’s easy to be a little cynical about the whole competition but it does seem they genuinely want to engage more with Dronies, so that’s a good thing.
I also pushed on the lack of numeric C-classifications and the consequences of alienating the entire UK drone community by trying to make all existing drones legacy in 9 months… It seems an extension to the transition period is very likely…
Also met up with @legal_eyes so was good to meet up with a fella GADC member!
Anyway, here’s some pics… only the category winners were on display; all other entries were on a large monitor…
Cheers!
Ian
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Sounds great! Let’s Hope it is a yearly thing and the entry process is much easier. 
Nice report @ianinlondon. I totally support their initiative to make drones a “good news” story, but they really do need to sort out the shambolic organisation if they do it again next year!
Should let GADC organise it next year
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Bring on the ‘banter’…
“I’m sorry, your picture was taken at twilight. That’s neither day nor night, and the fact there’s a couple of buildings in it hardly makes it urban…”
Actually, they did say they were after third parties to assist / handle as it took up too much time. I pointed out my work’s staff photo competition attracted over 2000 entries each year and they managed; but they were very definitely looking for ideas and volunteers. @PingSpike I’ll be in touch. Again. 
Well, we managed to stage the Birthday Brawl and almost retained our sanity.
Is there money in it?
Would we have to host a cheese and wine evening too?
The venerable ChallCom Caterers (est. a couple of minutes ago) could handle that. And to fund the entire enterprise we will force request the CAA to up the operator registration to 25 quid a year
Some of the pictures on the stands look pretty average from where I’m sitting, but hey, I take pretty average pictures too! You get the impression from Ian’s report they didn’t have the manpower to put the effort in.
As much as like GADC getting a mention, do we really want the CAA folks poking around here and forcing the place to up heavily moderated because someone’s video is questionable to wether they were able to keep VLOS, let alone talks about drone hacks!
Obviously if someone wants to follow some dreams and work/be associated with CAA, go for it, just keep somewhere underground for the rest of us to hide.
Let them try 
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Pride and glory??
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Yes. In fact the overall winning shot was a simple nighttime down shot of a roundabout… Very every day…
I think they already do. When I mentioned the GADC they said they didn’t want to be accused of favouritism by always coming to this club…
Trust me. Eyes see everywhere… 
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