Christmas drink drive poster competition attracts 900+ entries

Pupils from across Gwent designed posters for a competition to help publicise the region’s Christmas anti drink drive campaign. Over 900 entries were received for the competition, which is organised jointly by the road safety section of Capita Gwent Consultancy and Heddlu Gwent Police.

"Selecting the best entries was a hard task," said Penny Thorpe, Gwent’s principal road safety officer. "It was clear that a lot of thought had gone into the posters, with the standard being higher than ever."

The winners were presented with their prizes at a ceremony at County Hall, Cwmbran on 4 December. Mr W Horne, assistant chief constable presented Rachel Moore with a £100 cheque as senior winner and Ceinwen Morgans and Laura Taylor with £50 cheques for 1st and 2nd runners up respectively. Mr Bob Brierley, director with Capita Gwent Consultancy presented the junior winners and runners up with similar sizes cheques. The winner was Naomi Dennehey and 1st and 2nd runners up were Grace Hart and Lisa Saunders.

"Enjoy yourself at Christmas, but think of the consequences of drinking and driving," was the message from the senior winner Rachel Moore of Tredegar Comprehensive. Junior winner Naomi Dennehey's poster featured Santa Claus and suggested an alternative tipple for the old gentleman with, "You don't need sherry to be merry, have a milky white Christmas." Naomi plans to buy a cat with her prize money.

In addition to the winners of the poster competition, entries by Molly Pritchard age 13 of Caerleon and Daniel Morgan age 9 from Monmouth, were selected to form the basis of the Capita Gwent Consultancy Christmas card for 2002. Each received a cheque for £50.