We started off the first meeting with half the Committee members absent including two vital folk, Martin and Alex, our trusted laptop/ projector operators. Janet not only took her first meeting as Chairlady but also bravely took on the projection. This did not start well as we have a case with all the cables (about 12 of them) and three of us could not identify the correct one to connect the club laptop to the projector. After about 10 minutes we abandoned this approach and as we found a cable that connected Janet's laptop, we proceeded with plan B. Incidentally, we are looking for a volunteer to train up as our stand-by operator of the equipment.
It was now about 7 40pm and whilst the panic was taking place the room was filling up with LOTS of people. Apart from our own old members, we had 9 visitors of which 4 signed up as new members. Welcome to them all and we hope that you enjoy our club. Eventually Janet was able to kick off and started by welcoming all the new faces. She then gave a brief idea of all the good things lined up for the forthcoming season. Then having explained about our Flickr connections, Janet awarded the certificates for the winners for the last few competitions during our summer break_well she tried to, but a large number of them were AWOL.
So then we started on the 10 minute presentations starting with Audrey who gave us a good look at what goes on In Japan where she visited earlier this year. There was a lot of bamboo evident, and lots of tree talk. There were some quite unexpected aspects of life in Japan which most of us would not have dreamed about.
This was followed by Chris showing lots of Sussex landscape pictures which he had presented in a way recommended by a professional photographer, which was to have them all sized 16X9. He also revealed that he had been in the club for 10 years, gosh how that time has flown by!
Next up was our most improved photographer Norman (in my humble opinion). He divided his pictures into several categories: Wild Geese, Windsor, Wisley, Wabbits and Weird. The last category showed how he used Photoshop to convert perfectly good pictures into very interesting abstract images some of which were brilliant.
We then broke for our tea break which had to be a bit shorter as we were running late due to a couple of the presentations running longer than the 10 minutes allowed. But that always happens every year, but in the end things work out and the evening is nicely filled.
Robert Mitchell then told us in his usual very amusing way about how he got to see Mamma Mia from a great height in London without a ticket. We had views of the Stars arriving and photographed form 80 feet above_amazing!!
Then it was my turn to show my first attempt at a slide show to music. I tried to convey the amazing spectacle of the birds coming into an old long abandoned gravel pit at RSPB Snettersham in Norfolk. On a very few times a year the birds fly in from the Wash in their thousands when the tides are very high. I guess not everyone is interested in birds, but they should be!
Finally, Vince Mason showed us amazing underwater photographs taken in Lanzarote where he dived with other members of his family. We saw amazing fish and all sorts of other marine life. This was a first for SCC, in recent years at least, as we have not had an underwater photographer in our ranks.
I hope that everyone enjoyed our first night which is always a bit different and is not a typical club evening.