Win a Strong Island T-Shirt – And the winner is……Mutton Geoff.

Well, it’s actually Lisa, but as the competition tides turned when everyone either guessed correctly or just copied what the last person said we changed the rules slightly. So to keep things more interesting, and seeing as naming a Seagull is much more fun we decided to take the winning pick from the obscure to the sublime responses from our readers.

Some classics for sure, and some randoms too. I’ve no related thoughts on why you would call a Seagull ‘Mutton Geoff’, but it made us laugh. So congratulations to Lisa. Email me the address you would like the tee sent too and I’ll post it out to you.

Oh, and hey, why don’t we send out some stickers and badges to the rest of the ‘contenders’ for getting involved with the comments. We’re nice like that and we appreciate your input to Strong Island.

Send your addresses to tristan@strong-island.co.uk. No cheeky cheaters…

Strong Island Homebrew 2012 – The Results

Wednesday night saw the tasting and judging for our second annual homebrew competition. Once the golfers had departed for the next hole the judges got cracking going through the 14 different entries. Due to there being so many entries this year plus our first lagers and ciders the field was split in to beers/ales and ciders/lagers with the top three winning awards.

The beers category began with last year’s best in show brew re-entered. This year it had been slightly modified and changed. Island Hopper you might remember being brewed by Irving & Co. Brewers and sold as Strong Island Hopper around Portsmouth early last summer. A number of other beers from local teams and from as far as Essex entered beers and it was a tough call to pick a winer from all the quality entries.

The competitions first lagers were tried at the start of the second category judging, with the rosemary version going down a storm. Fragrant and tasty. The ciders were entered by lots of teams and ranging in different potency and taste.

The final results are shown below:

Category Cider/Lager
- 1st: Milton Pride (Cider)
- 2nd: Tucker B’s Rosemary (Lager)
- 3rd: Ginsters Paradise (Cider)

Category Beer
- 1st: Dry Dock No. 1
- 2nd: Elder Tail
- 3rd: Dark Matter

The Best in Show award went to Dry Dock No. 1 which will be brewed by Irving & Co. Brewers ready for sale in Portsmouth around May. The winner was very highly regarded and is sure to go down a storm on those early summer days. Looking forward to it!

Strong Island would like to thank the judges for their hard work…the teams for entering and Little Johnny Russells for hosting the event. Cheers!

Strong Island Calendar – January 2013 contributions now welcome!

I’m quite excited to announce that this December Strong Island will be launching our 2013 calendar. I know you may wonder why we are being so organised announcing it in January 2012 but we are planning to collate the calendar over the year.

We are now accepting your contributions for the January 2013 page. The ONLY rule is there must be a link of some sort to the local area. You can send your images to calendar@strongisland.co.uk.

Originally we were going to run this as a photography competition asking people to send in photo’s from Portsmouth and Southsea area taken during the previous month. We then decided we’d like to open it up to other diverse art forms such as graphic design, illustration.

For Januarys contributions there is no theme but it’d be nice to see some photo’s taken during New Years Eve/Day. If you have any questions please email us at calendar@strong-island.co.uk.

Keep an eye out on the website as more information about the calendar will be published over the year.

Win a Strong Island T-Shirt

During a Spring clean over the weekend I came across a solitary Strong Island tee from our first ever run. Rather than put it in the shop we thought we would offer it to you, the readers.

How can you acquire this now rare and sold out piece of Strong Island history you ask? Well, it’s easy….

Simply comment on this post and tell us what building the ‘Dollar’s Store’ is suited above and what road it’s on and we’ll pick a random winner from the list next week. Bonus bonus points go to the best Seagull name in the form of stickers, badges and pride.

Strong Island Calendar 2013

I’m excited to announce that this December Strong Island will be launching a 2013 calendar. Yes 2013! I know you may wonder why we are being so organised announcing it in January 2012 but we are planning to collate the calendar over the year using your contributions.

We’ll start accepting contributions from everyone next month. Originally we were going to run this as a photography competition asking people to send in photo’s from Portsmouth and Southsea area taken during the previous month. To reflect the wealth of creative talent in Portsmouth we have decided to open the competition to various art practices which include graphic designers, fine artists and illustrators. This will be a great opportunity for you to showcase their work.

The calendars will be available to pre-order from November and available early December.

More information on how you can make your contributions to for Januarys page will follow on Weds 1st February.

PRIMARY – A Phoneography Exhibition by Strong Island – Call for entries

A quick reminder about our latest exhibition PRIMARY, a Phoneography exhibition by Strong Island and we are even happier to announce that it’s open to you, the readers.

With the continuing increase in impressive camera technology in mobile phones and the ability to alter, tweak, post process and upload the photos to social media networks and websites like Instagram, the popularity of Phoneography has never been greater.

PRIMARY invites you to get out and about around Portsea with your mobile phone camera and take photos of anything and everything based around the three primary colours red, yellow and blue. What you photograph is entirely up to you, but submissions will only be accepted if they stick to the theme.

The call for entires has now begun and the deadline is the 31st of January 2012 with the exhibition being held in March of 2012. Photos can be taken on any mobile phone model and we ask that a maximum of 3 photos per applicant are sent in to primary@strong-island.co.uk.

Click here for more information.

Happy Christmas from Strong Island

Myself and Paul would like to wish all our contributors, readers, supporters and friends a very Happy Christmas. Hopefully I’ll see many of you out and about in Southsea over the next week or so for a few cheeky beverages. Have a great time and if you’re off work give me a buzz.

Strong Island & Bored Winter Social – Photos

Last night’s Strong Island & Bored winter social at the RMA was a good one. Sadly we didn’t have any cameras between us so only have a few phone photos, so here they are. Just want to say a quick thank you to Bored, the RMA, Nick Courtney and to everyone who braved the weather!

Selected Tees only £15 with Free Postage – One Month Only

‘Tees have been flying out and we’re down to just 1 small Love Hate and 3 medium Winter tees’

For the month of December we are putting both the Strong Island Winter tee and the Love Hate tee on special offer. A snip at £15, and don’t even worry about the postage. We got it. There are only a handful left and as with all our tees, once their gone their gone. We may rerun a design, but not in the same colour. There are various sizes available so head over to the store HERE and see if you’re in luck.

Strong Island & Bored Winter Social

It’s that time of year again so don your scarves and warm jackets and get yourself down to RMA Tavern for the Strong Island and Bored Winter Social. There will be free Mulled Wine, Hot Spiced Cider and minced pies to warm you up (first come first served), LIVE music, good people and all in a top notch boozer. We hope to see you all there. Click HERE to get the printable poster. and check up over at Facebook HERE.

And if anyone feels festive and generous out there feel free to bring any delicious treats or nibbles to share around.

PRIMARY – A Phoneography Exhibition by Strong Island – Call for entries

This coming new year we will be proud to announce our latest exhibition PRIMARY, a Phoneography exhibition by Strong Island and we are even happier to announce that it’s open to you, the readers.

With the continuing increase in impressive camera technology in mobile phones and the ability to alter, tweak, post process and upload the photos to social media networks and websites like Instagram, the popularity of Phoneography has never been greater.

The ‘of the moment’ ability to take a photo at almost any time and any place by most people has really driven the fact that the camera does not make the photographer. By which I mean, you don’t need an expensive camera to take outstanding photos.

Agreed, the quality of the physical image may not stand up to the big guns, but new learnings in composition, style and aesthetic by a new generation of camera users via online media has really driven this popularity, and encourage people to go beyond a ‘quick shot’.

PRIMARY invites you to get out and about around Portsea with your mobile phone camera and take photos of anything and everything based around the three primary colours red, yellow and blue. What you photograph is entirely up to you, but submissions will only be accepted if they stick to the theme.

The call for entires has now begun and the deadline is the 31st of January 2012 with the exhibition being held in March of 2012. Photos can be taken on any mobile phone model and we ask that a maximum of 3 photos per applicant are sent in to primary@strong-island.co.uk.

Please submit along with your photographs your name, photo title, phone model, location of photo on the island and any post process apps you used, if any, to achieve the final shot.

We look forward to seeing all the entries, and the final installation will be something special using every photo submitted in a slightly different fashion from your average photographic exhibition. CLICK HERE TO PRINT YOUR OWN POSTER

Poster by Tristan Savage & Photo by Paul Gonella

It’s going to be a Strong Movember – Closed at £725

Righto chaps, it’s time to clean shave your boat race and get that mighty moustache on the grow in support of Movember for The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. For 30 days of November you can help support and raise awareness through selflessly parading your top lip for charity.

You can sign up yourself, as I’m sure many of you already have, or you can join the Strong Island team and seek out sponsorship as a team. Through the Strong Island Movember page you can ask people to join the group, make donations, upload photos and post updates via the MoSpace page, Facebook and Twitter.

Head over to www.mobro.co/StrongIsland if you would like to get involved and grow a Strong Moustache to help raise awareness, or simply head over to www.uk.movember.com and sign up to personally raise money.

The funds raised in the UK support the number one and two male specific cancers – prostate and testicular cancer. The funds raised are directed to programmes run directly by Movember and our men’s health partners, The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. Together, these channels work together to ensure that Movember funds are supporting a broad range of innovative, world-class programmes in line with our strategic goals in the areas of awareness and education, survivorship and research.

Poster: Tristan Savage