Irwell Vale Photography Club was started 3 years ago by a handful of people with a shared interest in photography. Since that time the club has grown rapidly and in the click of a shutter we find ourselves with an email list of 37 members and regular attendance of around 24 members, sometimes more.
The club joined the Lancashire & Cheshire Photographic Union (L & CPU) during 2010 in order to gain certain benefits; namely insurance for the club and its members, and access to some excellent speakers. As a member of the L & CPU, the club is required to have a Treasurer, Secretary and President. The club is also required to hold an Annual General Meeting.
To comply with the latter requirement, the club held an informal AGM last night, Friday 21 January 2011. No formal minutes were taken but the following is a brief note of the matters arising:
The meeting started at 7:45pm with 24 members present. Apologies were noted by Bill Ewing, Bev Willetts, Dawn Tozer & Jean Neville. Members presently holding the role of President, Secretary and Treasurer stated they were pleased to continue and members present were happy with this. Therefore the roles for the next 12 months will be: President, Arlene Harris; Secretary, Mark Watson; Treasurer, Frank Crook.
An overview of club funds was given by Frank Crook and members were told the balance presently held. It was noted some time ago that the club needs to open a bank account and several members are to make enquiries to see which bank can offer us the best deal with the least charges; preferably free! A choice will be made and members advised of the details at a future meeting.
Fixed meetings eg. 1st and 3rd Fridays monthly was suggested by Leo Turner so that the dates could be easily remembered and passed on to potential new members if asked. Mark Watson pointed out that the diary dates had already been set for this year but the suggestion was worth considering for 2012. Meetings are presently held on alternate Friday evenings, with an occasional extra meeting in-between (i.e 3 weeks in a row) to accommodate the L & CPU folios which do the round of clubs several times a year. William Lowe checked the calendar for 2011 which showed there are 5 months this year with 5 Fridays, meaning the club would have less meetings than on the present alternate-week basis. We will look at this again for next year.
Arlene referred to this blog site ( irwellvalephotographyclub.com ) and was pleased to see the site had 4758 page hits since the blog was created back in August. On an approximate calculation, this figure suggestions at least 1500 visitors to the site. Arlene suggested it would be nice to have more members exhibiting photos on the ‘Gallery’ page of the blog and asked anyone wishing to set up a Flickr album to contact her for assistance if they weren’t sure how to go about the process. It would also be good to see more activity on the existing galleries – many of the links have not be updated for several months! Arlene also invited contributions from members: if any member wishes to write an article for the blog, they can email the text to her and it will be added as a post. Similarly, any ideas or suggestion are also welcome.
The popular subject of club outings was discussed and trips are to be arranged to the Wirrall and to Teesdale. Members were asked to add their names to a list to signify their trip options: during the week, at the week-end, or not at all. Details of each trip will be available as they become known and will be added to the ‘Outings’ page on the blog. Members need to pay for their place on the minibus in advance of the trip. The cost of a seat is calculated to cover the hire charge of the bus, so regrettably cancellations cannot be refunded once taken.
To create a programme for the quarter year to April - and beyond through to December - was one of the main items on the AGM’s (imaginary!) agenda. There was much discussion and members’ ideas were read out from the suggestion box. We now have a calendar of events put together, including many practical and learning sessions and members can look forward to a varied programme over the coming months. The programme will appear on the blog after our next meeting on 4 February.
The photo board in the church tea-room, showing a selection of members’ images, was discussed. Arlene suggested that it was out of date – some of the photos being 2 years old or more - and a new member agreed it was looking untidy. Ann Clark suggested that a time slot of 3 months was reasonable for a photo to be on display and several members agreed. The church tea-room, where our meetings are held, is due for re-decoration in the near future at which time the display boards are to be moved to another wall and the existing photos will be removed and a new start made.
The idea of ‘Theme of the Month’, which has recently lapsed, will continue – hopefully with some renewed enthusiasm! and Rachel Wiseman suggested that one panel of the display boards could be used to show members’ Theme’ photos for the month. Ian Bowker also suggested that we could choose our ‘Theme’ to coincide with some of our tuition nights i.e. Macro etc.
New projection screen: When the tea-room is redecorated, the back wall is to be painted white and will be used as a screen onto which we can project digital images. This will create a better surface, and give a better image, than we presently achieve with our collapsible screen.
The meeting ended at 9:30pm.
Thank you to everyone for attending.
