I recently sent out two votes for your consideration. One dealt with membership. Currently our membership is year-to-year, January to December. The new wording was proposed as; Membership is annual and starts the first of the month a new member joins. Membership must be current in order to enter the club competitions.  This change came about from feedback given by guests and members. Prospective members were not joining the club in the latter half of the year due to the fact they would have to pay an entire year at the time they joined, and then again shortly thereafter. This change was approved by a vote of 30 yes to 2 no votes.

The second vote was to make the Silverman’s, currently associate members who judge and do presentations to our club, honorary members due to their long-term service to our membership. This vote passed unanimously 34 to 0. I have written to them and advised them of their new status.

One of the items this board is working on to assist our members in improving their photography skills is a mentorship program involving our members who have progressed to the Master level. We are currently in the process of soliciting feedback from our Master level members both current and past. Terry Connolly is taking a lead on this project with the assistance of Nancy Goodenough and Liz Lawson. I will update you as we obtain the various ideas presented and look forward to taking advantage of the great opportunity and experience available from these Master level photographers.

It never ceases to amaze me the talent pool we have in the membership of this club. When I watch the competitions and view the various submissions from every category from “B” up to Master level and listen to the comments from the judges I learn something every time. One of the ways we improve our photography is to challenge ourselves and do something new or different. Recently our competition chair Tara, reviewed and put together charts showing the various levels of competition in the various categories that we compete in, Pictorial, Creative, Nature, Journalism and Monochrome.  The most entered category is Pictorial which isn’t surprising. When you start entering the other categories you will force yourself to look at things differently and expand your knowledge base.  I will attach the charts to this email. 

Tim Allen was the winner of Best in Show this last competition with the photo to the left.  Tim is a very talented photographer and is also our Exhibition Coordinator. You will be hearing from Tim before long about an upcoming exhibition, I hope you will take part in it.   Exhibitions are a lot of fun and you may even sell an image.  

Our next program is Studio/Portrait lighting and will take place February 28^th.  Other upcoming programs are Flash Photography and Light Box photography. I could go on but won’t keep you.  In the next several days I will be sending out another vote as we now have a volunteer to be our secretary.  Thanks to everyone who voted on the last two subjects.  Till next time, keep shooting.

Mike