RWT Quiz Final

Radnorshire Wildlife Trust

PRESS RELEASE 2nd August 2006
NAIL-BITING VICTORY FOR SCHOOL WILDLIFE QUIZ CHAMPIONS
RWT Wildlife Challenge Quiz Champions Ffynnon Gynydd proudly display their trophy. Team members Ryan Carter, Lucie Williams, Imogen Cripps and Abigail Dixon Davies with (left to right) RWT People and Wildlife Officer Linda Tedford, Ffynnon Gynydd teacher Helen Davies, question master Pete Jennings and RWT trustee Bronwen Jenkins. Photo Julian Jones.
Four wildlife whiz-kids from Ffynnon Gynydd school have been crowned County Champions 2006 in the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust’s annual Wildlife Challenge Quiz. The quiz was launched last year, with funding from Awards for All Wales and the Co-op Community Dividend Scheme. The aim is to raise children’s awareness of wildlife and countryside issues and to encourage them to care about their local environment. All Radnorshire primary schools are invited to take part, and this year 15 entered the battle. After two fiercely-fought rounds in which schools competed against their neighbours, four made it through to the Grand Final: Ffynnon Gynydd, Knighton, Newbridge-on-Wye and Rhayader.
The Grand Final was held at the Nature Discovery Centre at the Wildlife Trust’s Gilfach Nature Reserve near St Harmon, with Pete Jennings, Head Countryside Ranger in the Elan Valley, acting as quiz master. The rounds included both individual and team questions covering natural history and specimen identification, with light relief provided by outdoor activities. Each round of the final was closely fought, with very little to choose between the leading teams. In the end, Ffynnon Gynydd claimed the championship by a short head, with Newbridge-on-Wye coming a very close second. The winning team was presented with the RWT Wildlife Challenge Quiz trophy, presented in memory of Dr Brian Baughan, a benefactor of the Trust. They will hold the trophy for a year until called to defend it in 2007. The trophy is in the form of a leaping salmon which has been beautifully carved from Gilfach hawthorn by Pip Amos, a volunteer with the Trust. One of the delights of Gilfach in autumn is to watch salmon leaping the Marteg falls to reach their spawning grounds high upstream.	Competing teams in the Grand Final absorbed in identifying the different parts of a flower. Photo Linda Tedford. Pip Amos with the leaping salmon trophy that he carved from hawthorn from Gilfach Nature Reserve. Photo Linda Tedford
Quiz organiser, RWT People and Wildlife Officer Linda Tedford, said that she had been delighted by the response that Radnorshire schools had shown to the quiz and impressed by the children’s knowledge of wildlife. Linda said, ‘The quiz has been tremendous fun from start to finish – now everyone is looking forward to next year!’ She also expressed her thanks to the teachers at all the schools taking part, and to RWT trustee Bronwen Jenkins, who helped enormously throughout.