Following the Clubs first Yearly AGM meeting tonight it has been decided that we need to set up a New Improved website and Blog for our club. so here it is, the first entry in our New blog. The website will be following soon when we have decided on our host.
It's been a year now since we first started the Glemsford photographic club, and tonight we held our first AGM meeting where all involved were invited to discuss and review the clubs activities of the past months and and decide what we would like to be doing in the coming year. there were many regulars of the club present, and lots of ideas have been put forward, altogether I feel it has been a succsessful meeting.
We also held a small competiton for fun after that meeting. the theme being spring where there were a variety of photographic prizes up for grabs for the winners, I will add more details of this at the end of this post. when i recieve all the details, I will also add the AGM minutes for viewing.
I thought that a good start to this blog would be The Chairmans Report for the year march 2009.which sums up our club nicely :
GLEMSFORD PHOTOGRAPHIC CLUB
Chairman’s Report - AGM - 23 March 2009
We have come to the end of our first year and can take pride in our achievements over this time. At our first meeting we said that this club should reflect the needs of the members and I think we have largely done this. We also said that we wanted to be a club where we learn by experience and so we have tried to include as many practical sessions as we could in the programme.
So what have we done during the past twelve months? We have had practical sessions on lighting, mounting, macro, cropping, still life, studio portraits and water sculptures. We had field trips to Lavenham, Clare and Kersey. We have purchased our projector and Tony made the display boards and light box that are all used regularly. We have had speakers on subjects such as Glemsford’s photographic history, Photoshop, Every picture tells a story and monochrome. We also held our most ambitious project yet with the family portrait day.
So what for the future? We will be looking at affiliation to one of the national organisations. This will bring in quality speakers and get us more recognised as a club. There are competitions, such as the A45 challenge that I think we could compete at and we want to improve the web site, hopefully with a facility whereby we can sell our pictures. I would also like to publicise the club more. There are plenty of people who enjoy photography in this village and the outlying areas and I think we could increase the membership this way.
Finally, I would like to thank the committee for all their hard work over the last twelve months. They have had to put up with my waffling on at several meetings! I would also like to thank the members of the club for their enthusiasm and support. Lets have an even better second year!
Competition Details
along with our aunual AGM meeting we decided that it would be nice to finish off the night with a competition our second ever, with the Theme of 'spring' the entries were split into two groups according to ability, beginner and intermediate, the only rules were that entrants were to submit no more than two photos printed at A4 size, and that all photos must have be taken in the last 12 months.
here are the winners :
Beginner
1st Derek Reeve - Bird of prey
2nd Richard Steed - Lily
3rd Neil Pineda - Dennis
Intermediate
1st Norman Wright- Sunset
2nd ? - Girl Eating ice cream
3rd Steve Fraser - Tower Bridge
I think that these are the correct winners if not please email me (Rachel at bednuts@aol.com) to ammend the details and also if you could please send me the winning photos for post thankyou.
winner of the beginner catogory Derek Reeve and Steve Fraser 3rd place in the intermediate catogory already have so they have the privelege of being the first members of the club to show off their photos.
Beginner 1st place Bird of prey- Derek Reeve
Beginners 2nd Place Richard Steed
Beginners 3rd place Dennis - by Neil Pineda
Intermediate 1st Place Sunset Norman Wright
intermediate 3rd Place Tower Bridge - Steve Fraser
AGM 23rd March 2009 minutes
7.30pm Meeting commences
Committee members present:
Steve Fraser - Chairman
Tony Mitchell – Vice Chairman
Richard Steed – Treasurer
Mick Boon – Committee Member
Rachel Twitchett – Committee Member
Norman Wright – Committee Member
16 club members.
Apologies received from Dennis Gray – Secretary (on holiday)
The Chairman Steve Fraser opened the AGM, reading out his report for the year 2008. This included a synopsis of the things that we had achieved in the past twelve months, areas where we can improve and proposals for the future. He also thanked the committee and the membership for their work and enthusiasm in making the club a success. If anyone would like a copy of this report please email Steve. A copy will be posted onto the blog.
Richard Steed Treasurer tells the club about our finances expenses incomings and outgoings. Everyone is handed the end of year 2009 statement the details are on show for all to see if they wish. The Treasurers report was agreed by all present and no issues were raised.
Membership report - Richard Steed reports that we have in total 41 members, 18 of which are fully paid up for the last year.
Steve the Chairman reports that no members have expressed an interest in joining or replacing members of the committee and it was confirmed that this is still the case. He also confirms that all existing committee members are happy to remain in their posts, including Dennis Gray as Secretary (not present). All members present agree and the present committee is confirmed for another twelve months. Proposed by Tony Wilcox and seconded by Bob Mitchell.
Steve addressed some proposed the following new job roles for the club members:
Web Site Co-ordinator – This role will include creating and managing a new updated website and web blog. Rachel Twitchett agreed to take on this role with support from Norman Wright with researching web site hosts.
Publicity Co-ordinator – This role will include advertising and promoting the group. Derek Reeve agreed to take on this role with support in the design of posters and flyers from Rachel.
Club Custodian - This role will involve cataloguing and keeping track of the movement of the clubs assets, including donated items such as books and magazines and the equipment. Mick Boon agreed to take on this role.
The club fees were discussed and it was agreed to keep the fees at the same rates. Steve proposed that new members and visitors to the club should get their first night free. This was agreed by a majority vote.
Also the meeting frequency was discussed and it was agreed to keep it at fortnightly on Monday evenings.
It was also proposed and agreed that there would not be a break over the summer holidays, in order to make the most of the light nights, however there would still be a break over the Christmas period.
Steve proposed that fees should not need to be paid by members when the club night consists of a field trip as there was no expense to the club and members make their own way to the location. The majority did not agree and it was held that we would remain with the existing system as such evenings were still arranged by the club and the funds raised all go towards improving the club.
Steve addressed an issue that had been raised when the club first formed relating to concerns over legal considerations for photographers and provided copies of legal guidance. Further copies can be obtained from Steve if required.
A brainstorming session was then held with consideration to the following questions:
a. What was good over the past year?
The membership stated the following - Practical nights, waterdrops, still life and portrait evenings. Essentially most of the evenings were enjoyed by the membership.
b. What would you like to be doing next year?
The responses were - To get out more, especially now the evenings are getting lighter and summer is around the corner. Practical nights would be of particular benefit to beginners and it was agreed that the more experienced photographers would work with the beginners. It was felt that these nights need to be structured around a particular subject such as aperture, depth of field. Other responses included speed priority, lenses, filters, studio lighting, flash photography and composition. Other ideas for practicals and field trips included painting with light, live bands, night photography, smoke, treasure trail type outings, challenges and show and tells, mystery objects, Sudbury as you've never seen it before, photo games and throw away cameras.
It was also suggested that we obtain a large local map and mark on it those areas known and used by the membership in order to create a useful record of the best local photographic sites. It was felt that this could also be linked in with the website and blog.
Other speakers for consideration were Mike Fuller, Peter Hebrium, and the local photographer Jon Shaw.
c. What would you like to see the Club funds used for?
The ideas here included a colour calibration system for all to use, a slide and negative scanner, minibus hire for trips out.
AOB:
It was asked if club rules existed. This was confirmed and they are available to any member, either by e-mail from Steve or Dennis or hard copies can be provided.
9.35pm AGM meeting ends.
Took place last night. the members were asked to bring in three photos to put up on the board, Peter spent a couple of hours looking at everybodys photos including some of his own and going through each one individually, giving his opinion of each, whilst offering some good advice hints tips on how best to improve our pictures based on his own experiences of photography, judging and competitions, overall I think he gave us a good balanced opinion of the photography submitted
peter talking about his own work
mid way drink break at the bar
