MORE than 960 competitors from across the Westcountry took part in this year's annual Music, Speech and Drama Festival according to Phil Taylor, chairman of the festival, speaking at the annual meeting at Saltash Wesley Church Hall last week. He went on to say that the adjudicators for next year would be Margaret Bailey for speech, Andrew Hansford and Oliver Gledhill for the instrumental section and finally Jeffrey Wynn Davies. Mr Taylor welcomed mayor Bob Austin to the meeting, who congratulated the committee on promoting drama and music and said he hoped that they would continue to make Saltash the centre of the arts. Mike George, vice chairman of Caradon Council, said he would investigate the reason for the withdrawal of grants for the arts, of which the festival had received financial help in the past. Phil Taylor said more members of the public had attended the festival, which was a good step forward and the festival had more friends. Speech secretary Mary Frantom reported an increase in speech entries, and Kathryn Bunkum, vocal secretary, said the vocal section had 334 entries. Sue Davies, instrumental secretary, said the instrumental section showed a slight decrease. Sue Hooper, general secretary, spoke about the Child Protection Policy which comes into effect next year, and she had attended a child protection workshop recently. Treasurer Brian Davies reported a satisfactory balance in hand.