Chairmans Blog 18th January
At our meeting on Thursday we all appreciated the sensible and perceptive judging of one of our favourite guests to The Club, Ken Scott. He was quite critical of technical faults in the Advanced Print Competition but in reality did not find very many. He managed to pull out the best images from Lorna Brown
Peter Rocchiccioli
and Ross Laney
and give excellent feedback on the other images.
We have just finished our Advanced Workers Annual Exhibition at North Mundham which was well visited with over 500 visitors. The feedback confirmed that the photographer’s work that was displayed was of the highest standard ever and showed a variety in both presentation and subjects. It was encouraging seeing so many of the photographic cognoscenti from near and far complementing the work on show. The PDI show on the TV screen was particularly appreciated.
The AV program by Graham Sergeant and Carole Speight who have dedicated many hours to produce was a great entertainment. The quality of the work and the humour and involvement of natural actors from the club made this years program an added attraction from our club.
Iain McGowan with the help of Joy Whiting were brilliant in mobilising something like a hundred of our members to enjoy contributing to all the tasks to ensure the exhibition was a triumph
The dinner on Saturday was a special success and got off with a good start thanks to Heather Coulson’s mulled wine and we all were well fed by Bill McKnight and his delicious dishes. It was a great pleasure to have our guest of honour Walter Benzie to be so welcome as part of our family in the club and we all support him and wish him luck in the reforms he has initiated within the RPS. We welcome him off our waiting list to join the fun in the club when his period in The RPS is over.
The efforts of Sheila Tester with all the volunteers in organising and keeping the catering going using the new kitchen and cafeteria area was impressive and was enjoyed by all in front of and behind the counter.
The engagement of Ann and her raffle ticket sellers was made all the more successful because of the superb images being raffled so all ticket buyers and winners were suitably excited.
The Tombola and variety of prizes meant that many won things they would never have thought of ever owning.
The sales table was filled with a museum of items from every stage and era of photography and how Jon and Joan Barham kept cool and handled all the keen purchasers and got their money was remarkable. The variety and generosity of the members who provided so much tempting goods will be well appreciated when the money that benefits The Club is added up.
Luckily for the club there is a dedicated pool of strong volunteers who manhandled all the panels and stands from Tangmere on Friday and back on Sunday in what I think is record time.
Thanks to everyone involved.
Let us look forward to The Spring Exhibition on 23rd and 24th April 2016.
Jan Davis