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The 2024 Forum Awards Results Show.

Forum awards 2024 Best Firestorm

The winner buy a 44% of votes cast is...... Drum roll....

Dori. Well done Fabio...No prize or certificate but have a virtual pat on the back.


Forum awards 2024 Non Best Firestorm

The winner buy a 60% of votes cast is...... Drum roll....

AlMcQ's RD400 drag bike. Well done Al...All we need now is to see it in action...Get on with it man.

Forum awards 2024 Best Forum Meet.

For some reason there were two polls for best meet & Best meet up...Despite this obvious clerical error it made no difference as DevonStorm 24 won both.


Forum awards 2024 Op Storm Highlight.

A clear winner with 57% ... The Padstow Sirch Meeting Devon 24.

Forum awards 2024 Least Progress. A draw! Both with 38% of votes cast... Mark Gl_Rs Special Storm & Flatline's very long awaiting Ducaffy is it still out there ?

Forum awards 2024 Tinkerer of the Year. Step up to the plate... Buzzer... Well done sir your builds are something special. Please don't ruin a Firestorm tho...

Forum awards 2024 The Partner Who's put up with the most B/S about Bikes.

Well done Mrs Buzzer...Best to keep him in the shed...



That's it folks... Thanks for taking part in lasts years madness. Keep it up in 2025.

I'm off to the after show party but due to financial constraints no ones invited.

Just Frank who's depressed as he didn't win anything this year...

Good job Mac, thanks for doing this again

Chris.

nice work Mac, and well deserved winners (well at least one of them)

bloody brilliant yet again mac ..

i will nip out and tell dori the good news

Dori says cheers lads ..

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Well done. Mac, another Forum tradition maintained.

On the subject of traditions, I am ashamed to have to admit that I let the standards slip this Christmas.

For the last (almost) 30 years we have hung our Christmas tree upside down. It's not entirely about rejection of the whole unnecessary satan Claus myth; it started as a practical solution to a problem.

In our previous house we used to put up an artificial tree in the conservatory. It was a lean-to style which I built, and the roof led right up to the window ledge of the first floor, so had 17ft of headroom. When our twins were born, we had also just acquired a couple of cats, and found very quickly that a normal tree on its stand was a magnet for small hands and paws.

Applying logical a thought process, (which, at the time, I was still capable of) I decided that suspending the tree from the conservatory roof would lift it high enough so that adults could walk under it and it would be out of the reach of small fingers.

So, up it went, and it looked bloody stupid.

I have no clue as to why, but my brain then suggested that I try hanging it upside down. When I did, it looked a lot better. Any decorations attached to the end of branches were no longer buried on artificial foliage; they hung in clear air, and the whole thing looked vibrant and colourful.

We have carried on hanging the tree upside down ever since.
When we moved to our current house the ceilings weren't high enough to hang it inside, so it moved to the porch.




And there it has remained every year since. Until this season...

In December '24, the tree started to show its age. When I unfolded the lower branches a couple of them snapped off, so I issued an emergency appeal to the local population for an unwanted tree, and one was donated. I went to put it up in December, but found that, over the last 30 years, design "improvements" have crept in, under my radar.

On our newly-acquired tree, where the branches join the trunk, (instead of fixed wires which you had to bend into position) they've added little loops that act as hinges, so that when you lift the tree up in the usual orientation, the branches fall into place as a natural consequence of the effects of gravity and their own mass. But when inverted, they won't hold their position, slumping back to the trunk. Great for storage, but not for me.

I considered welding, but the plastic artificial needles might not have cooperated due to the heat produced.

As it was too late to acquire an old design of tree- all of the new ones in B and Q were of the new design- we had to endure the shame of having a "normal" tree this year, to my chagrin, and the p1sstaking of my friends. But I have now tracked down an old-style tree, so it will be business as usual next December, and every December going forward.

By the way, the eagle-eyed amongst you might have noticed the little boat affixed at the pointy end of the tree.

That, of course, is the ferry at the top of the Christmas tree.

Anywho, well done, Mac, traditions are, I think, worth the effort in keeping them, even if you eventually forget how and why they started, and it doesn't seem worth the time and trouble.

Tony, that was one of the best laugh's I have had this year
Your upside down tree makes perfect sense to me

Talking about Up Side Down things, you have now got me thinking about USD forks again

Chris.

and as for the comment about not ruining a storm, i believe that's my job...

haynesjones66 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 13, 2025 4:20 pm and as for the comment about not ruining a storm, i believe that's my job...

Chris.

Well done to all the winners and great work Mac.

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