News
NUPG Best of 2019!

The Northern Underwater Photography Group held their Best of 2019 competition this month. This event is one of the highlights of the year for members who can enter images into four categories: British & Irish Close Up, British & Irish Wide Angle, Overseas Close Up and Overseas Wide Angle. There is also a prize for the best image using a compact camera and a trophy for the overall winner. This year, Yo-Han Cha was selected to be the guest judge.
Yo-Han said he had real trouble selecting the winners from a great showing of images in all the categories, although he said that the Overseas Macro was the toughest of all. It must have been a little strange for him to judge a competition that he has been competing in for many years, but he did a great job of talking through all his favourite images, and handing out 4 or 5 awards in each category.
Here are the results
British & Irish Close Up
- British & Irish Close Up Winner by John Spencer
- Runner Up by Caroline Robertson-Brown
- 3rd place by John Spencer
- Highly Commended by Ken Byrne
- Highly Commended by Maggie Russell
British & Irish Wide Angle
- British & Irish Wide Angle Winner by Maggie Russell
- British & Irish Runner-Up by Ken Byrne
- British & Irish Wide Angle 3rd place by Alex Tasker
- Highly Commended by Donovan Lewis
Compact Camera
Overseas Close Up
- Overseas Close Up Winner by Caroline Robertson-Brown
- Overseas Close Up Runner-up by Maggie Russell
- Overseas Close Up 3rd place by Caroline Robertson-Brown
- Highly Commended by Justin Beevor
- Highly Commended by Maggie Russell
Overseas Wide Angle
- Best of 2019 Winner by Nick Robertson-Brown
- Overseas Wide Angle Runner-Up by Maggie Russell
- Overseas Wide Angle 3rd place by Paul Ansell
- Highly Commended by Caroline Robertson-Brown
- Highly Commended by John Spencer
- Highly Commended by Justin Beevor
After Yo-Han had selected his favourite from each category it was up to the audience on the night to select their overall winner and crown the Best of 2019 champion. It was Nick’s shot of a shark swimming over wrecks in The Bahamas that took this overall honour.
Each category winner took away their choice of bottle of wine and Nick took home a rather super wooden whale trophy.
The NUPG have a really exciting programme for 2020. Please have a look at their website for details of upcoming speakers and meetings.
Marine Life & Conservation
Jeff chats to… Veronica Cowley, a contestant in the See You at the Sea Festival Film Competition (Watch Video)

In this exclusive Zoom interview, Jeff Goodman, Scubaverse Editor-at-large, chats to Veronica Cowley, a contestant in the See You at the Sea Festival Film Competition. The See you at the Sea Festival was an online film festival created by young people, for young people.
Veronica’s film – Worse things Happen at Sea – can be seen here:
Sixth and final in a series of six videos about the competition. Watch the first video HERE with Jenn Sandiford – Youth Engagement Officer with the Your Shore Beach Rangers Project and the Cornwall Wildlife Trust – to find out more about the Competition. Each day this week will be sharing one video in which Jeff talks with the young contestants about their films and what inspired them.
For more information please visit:
- Project website: www.beachrangers.com
- Cornwall Wildlife Trust: www.cornwallwildlifetrust.com
- Cornwall College: www.cornwall.ac.uk
- Our Bright Future: www.ourbrightfuture.co.uk
News
Peli proud to support COVID-19 vaccine distribution

We know Peli from its popular camera cases, but from discovery to distribution, Peli’s temperature-controlled packaging is now delivering COVID-19 vaccines all over Europe and the Middle East
With the pandemic recovery just underway, COVID-19 vaccines and therapies are rapidly becoming available for use and they must be safely distributed worldwide, within their required temperature range. Peli’s BioThermal™ division is providing temperature-controlled packaging to meet this critical moment, protecting these crucial payloads.
Peli’s innovative cold chain packaging has been trusted for nearly 20 years by pharmaceutical manufacturers to safely ship their life-saving products around the world. To meet the current challenge, they have adapted their existing products to provide deep frozen temperatures when required for the newly developed life sciences materials. Current and new offerings will ensure the cold chain is maintained throughout the vaccine or therapy’s journey, maximising efficacy and patient health.
“We know that pharmaceutical companies are in all phases of the development process for vaccines and therapeutics and working tirelessly to bring safe and effective drug products to market quickly,” said Greg Wheatley, Vice President of Worldwide New Product Development and Engineering at Peli BioThermal. “Our engineering team matched this urgency to ensure they have the correct temperature-controlled packaging to meet them where they’re at in drug development for the pandemic recovery, from discovery to distribution.”
Peli BioThermal’s deep frozen products use phase change material (PCM) and dry ice systems to provide frozen payload protection with durations from 72 hours to 144+ hours. Payload capacities range from 1 to 96 litres for parcel shippers and 140 to 1,686 litres for pallet shippers.
New deep-frozen solutions are ideal for short-term vaccine storage, redirect courier transport of vaccines from freezer farm hubs to immunisation locations and daily vaccine replenishment to remote and rural areas.
Peli BioThermal temperature-controlled packaging is currently being used to distribute COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics, either directly or through global transportation providers, in Denmark, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and the UK as well as in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, with more countries set to join the list as the pandemic recovery process rolls out.
To learn more about the wide range of deep frozen Peli BioThermal shippers, visit Peli.com and PeliBioThermal.com for more information.
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