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Welcome

Welcome to our website. It contains no viruses or trojan horses but it's absolutely riddled with worms !

As well as informing you about this year's event, we plan to build up an archive of the history of Wormcharming in Blackawton. If you have photos, videos, stories or details of past winning teams please contact the Web (not Worm) Master to add them to the site.

6th May is Wormcharming day

If you failed to spot it in the header at the top of the page, the Blackawton International Festival of Wormcharming takes place on 6th May this year. In recent years, the date has always been fixed as the first Sunday in May but, apparently, this has not always been the case. I am indebted to Adrian Kyte for providing the following newspaper clipping relating to the 2nd International competition in 1985. It would seem to have taken place on 31st March.

Sport sporting fancy dress on 6th May !

The theme for The 31st Blackawton International Festival of Wormcharming is"Olympix" - the reason is fairly obvious . So sporting fancy dress of a sporting theme is the order of the day this year. As ever, there will be prizes for the best themed outfits - and it's free to enter.

Merchandise

Remember last year's Woodies ?

This year we have an exciting new range of "worm" mechandise. For the past several months, Richard P has been collecting unwanted pewter tankards and melting them down to reuse the pewter to cast a fine set of worms in the form of badges and key rings. See them shortly on our "Merchandise" page.

The T-shirt design has yet to be finalised so you still have the opportunity to submit the winning design. Entries please to the Worm Master.

Remember - all proceeds from the sale of our merchandise go to our nominated charities so please be generous in your purchases.

Medals and crowns of honour

This year's winners will receive awards befitting the "Olympix". In addition to the merchandise mentioned above, Richard P has been busy producing not only handsome pewter medals for the winners but also pewter laurel crowns. Pictures coming soon.

Tallest sunflower competition

Adrian Kyte (pictured) has provided the results of the Tallest Sunflower competition for the past three years:

2009 Adult: Mike Patterson 2.59 m Child No entries

2010 Adult: Mike & Rosie North 3.32 m Child: Seb & Rowan 2.67 m

2011 Adult: Mrs Wood 3.80 m Child: Georgia 2.39 m

Photos of the winning entries will shortly be viewable on our Gallery page.

Think you can do better this year ?

National worm shortage ?

The following item appeared in our news last year. So what did happen happen in 2011 ? Our roving reporter, Bert Quigley, is currently researching the matter add will be reporting back on his finding shortly. So for all that's happening in the Wormcharming world stay tuned to www.wormcharming .co.uk.

We're only too aware that the economy shows little sign of recovery. Is the same true for the country's dwindling worm population ? It may not have been well publicised, but it is true that 2010 was a poor year for worms. At the World Wormcharming Championship in Willaston in Cheshire the contest was won with a paltry 43 worms. In the previous year, the winner set a new world record with a staggering 567 worms.

Even worse, in August 2010, at the Woodhall Wormcharming Festival in Lincolnshire, not a single worm was charmed out of the ground by any of the competitors !

Here in Blackawton we can only hope that the worm god of fertility has looked kindly on upon our South Devon village in the past year. We will find out on May day.