It gives me great pleasure to be able to announce the Galapagos Conservation Trust's 2008 annual competition for Tortoise Club for Schools, Junior and Galapagos Schools members.

The competition, this year, is to write a poem about conservation in either Galapagos or the United Kingdom. Your poem can rhyme, although it does not have to, or it could be presented in the form of an acrostic poem or haiku. It can be about conservation in general, or focus on a specific species. Information is available on our website about flora and fauna on Galapagos and about conservation projects that are being and have been undertaken there.

Guidelines for entries:

• The poem should be presented on a piece of white A4 paper (290mm x 210mm);
• Either landscape or portrait orientation is acceptable;
• The piece of paper on which the poem is written should be decorated;
• Entries should be clearly labelled on the reverse in BLOCK CAPITALS with the child's name, age and home address (or, for Tortoise Club for School entries, the child's name, age, class and name of the school);
• Entries must be written by the child entering the competition;
• One entry per member/child (for Tortoise Club for Schools members, a maximum of 35 entries per sponsoring class will be accepted).

Entries should arrive at the Galapagos Conservation Trust office no later than Friday 23rd May 2008. The competition will be judged in the week commencing Monday 26th May 2008, with results being announced before the end of the summer term.

I can also now reveal the prizes that will be awarded to the winner, and to the runners up taking second and third place.

The winner will receive a beautiful book called 'Galapagos - Islands Born of Fire' by Tui De Roy, as well as one year's FREE junior membership of the Galapagos Conservation Trust.

The second place runner up will receive a hand made Kosen tortoise, popular with many of GCT's supporters.

Third prize will be a book about Galapagos. The actual book will be chosen dependent on the age of the third place winner.

The winning entries will be featured in the next junior newsletter, and also on the Galapagos Conservation Trust's website.

So, with great excitement on my part, our annual competition is launched. I wish everybody the best of luck with writing their poems. I cannot wait to see the entries, the standard of which I expect to be extremely high following the submissions of work that have been sent to us for the website.

Last year's competition was very popular, and the Trust received a large number of entries. We hope that the 2008 competition will be even more popular, and I look forward to receiving entries from your school in due course. If you have any queries or questions please do not hesitate to contact me at tortoise@gct.org.

Best wishes and good luck!

Tom Garner
Tortoise Club for Schools Co-ordinator

Read about last year's competition here.