Di Walker reports on a very successful season

Meeting Report

The evening started with the presentationof the cups for last year's competitions.

  • The Anonymous Cup for the photographer of the year went to Peter Michell who was not present to collect sadly.
  • The Dixon Cup for the print Worker of the year went to Daisy Kane
  • The Emmett Challenge Cup for the Print of the year went to Martin Tomes
  • The Taylor Cup for the Projected Image worker of the year went to Paul Hayward
  • The Petworth Cup for the projected image of the year also went to Paul Hayward
  • The Rowling Cup for the most improved Print worker of the year went to Jane Coward
  • The Picthall Cup for the most improved Projected Image of the year went to Peter Michell

Congratulations to all the winners who richly deserved their awards especially to those who carried off two cups each!

We then went on with the AGM which followed the normal pattern with reports from the Chairman, the Treasurer and Competition Secretary.

Then we had the election of Officers for the following season. Everyone stays on as before apart from the Programme Secretary where we have a vacancy due to the resignation of Liz Barber who had to step down sadly due to pressures in her private life. Anne Nagle has very kindly volunteered to fill the job until a new body can be found. We had another resignation during the year from Clive who again sadly stepped down for personal reasons. His job is being done by John Gauvin who is now Competition Secretary with Alex Swyer as his assistant.

The Chairman presented Liz and Clive with a bottle each for their hard work and contributions to the club’s activities.

Other Committee members are Paul Hayward, myself and Martin Tomes who plays an invaluable role as our IT man and also covers doing projection and sound duties at our outside events.

Two other non committee members who have contributed to all our evenings and who are stepping down from duties are John Goodfellow who has looked after our tea break requirements by buying the biscuits, tea and coffee and bringing fresh milk, and Jean MacWhirter who has kept a record of attendees at each meeting and greeted all newcomers. Jean has also raised a large amount of cash for us by running raffles at all our outside events.

Di presented both of these long serving members with a book token each as a ‘thank you’.

By the end of the evening we had two new volunteers to fill both these jobs.

Annie Pegler is going to meet and greet and her husband Stephen is going to see to our tea break requirements. Thank you both very much indeed for stepping in.

In Di Walker’s address, amongst other things, she reported on the 35% increase in our membership and on the success of the outside events that we managed and staged during the year pointing out that we needed the funds raised to swell our bank balance in case we suddenly had to replace any of the club equipment as we cannot insure it.

After a short tea break we had the annual auction of things brought by members for the event. This was run by our resident ‘comedy duo’ Tim and Clive. They had us all laughing as we were ‘stitched up’ with all manner of ‘Stuff’ from herbs in pots to quite valuable Lenses. Between them they raised over £400, which is an all time record. I have to say that we were very lucky to be given quite a number of items of equipment from our old friend and much missed the late Eric Keevy’s vast collection of cameras and lens which his widow Heather very kindly gave us.

We all came away having had a useful meeting with a very light hearted ending.

See you all at our summer events and again next season in September.

Submitted by Derek Grieve on