As individuals and teams prepare for the usual categories of Throw and Catch, Static Relay, Target Throwing and Russian Egg Roulette, the organisers have announced the newest challenge - the Eguchet.

Andy Dunlop, founder of the egg throwing event at Swaton and founder president of the World Egg Throwing Federation, has created the rules for Eguchet.

It involves creating a version of the old medieval siege weapon, the Trebuchet. It acts on a see-saw mechanism, pulling back the arm of the device before releasing it and flinging an object towards your target.

Andy Dunlop said the idea came from some local farmers and they are already engineering their third version in the village. At least six are being built around the country after it was announced on their website last week. They have also had interest from groups in the USA and Australia.

Andy said: "We knocked up an Eguchet with a couple of neighbours and managed to hurl an egg 85 yards and the metal bucket at the other end was only half full of lead weight. We are aiming for 150 yards. Mark three should be better."

He said they had put a size limit to avoid 60-foot high machines being wheeled into the arena capable of hurling cows!

Andy has even invited Hollywood star George Clooney to patronise the event as the film actor has rigged up an egg throwing machine to his home security system to fire at the paparazzi. They have not yet received a response!

The aim of the Eguchet event is for eggs fired from the machine to be caught by a team member. A successful hurl is judged as one where the egg is caught without touching the ground and is unbroken, but teams will still pick up a point if the egg hits its target but breaks.

The World Egg Throwing Federation and Swaton Vintage Day are run entirely without profit to raise funds for local and national charities.

Last year's event was sponsored by Persil and more competitors than ever braved a rain soaked field to take part. Some 1,200 organic free-range eggs were used by competitors from all over the UK and from as far away as Malta, Bulgaria and Spain. The egg throwing championships even attracted international TV crews

Anyone wishing to take part in this year's championships is invited to enrol now. See www.eggthrowing.com for details of how to enter and make your own machine.

l What other competitions would you like to see introduced at the World Egg Throwing Championships? Email your ideas to andy.hubbert@jpress.co.uk or text to 81800, starting your message with SLEANEWS (all texts cost 25p, plus your standard network charge)