General Notes from the Secretary
It is with regret that I have received Rolf Rowling’s resignation as the Chairman of our club. For several years he took on the duties of Chairman until the unfortunate problem with his leg. He was very ably replaced during his convalescence by Diana Newnes who did a sterling job until Rolf returned. However since then Rolf says in his letter that it was a struggle for him to carry on and recently other medical issues started to give more trouble. So we bid farewell to him as Chairman but not as a club member I hope. Until the AGM your committee will keep the Club running smoothly with Barry Hammond taking over on the club evenings. If he is absent then some other committee member will stand in. There is therefore an opportunity for someone to put his or her name forward as a candidate for the Chairmans position. Indeed all posts on the committee come up for election at our AGM so anybody who feels like supporting the club in carrying out committee duties put forward your name, in writing to me please and your application will go forward for election at our upcoming AGM meeting later in the year.
Peter Picthall
Slide Competition
There was a smaller entry for the slide competition 21, but again the marks were generally high. There were two 20s, my ‘Church of Santa Maria, Venice’ which won, and Jean MacWhirter’s ‘Puffin’. They had both been given 19 at first, but were upgraded! The 18s were ‘Weird and Wonderful’ from Alf Taylor, ‘Anna’s Point, Antarctica’ from Jean MacWhirter; ‘Chinook’ from Martin Tomes; ‘Turdus merula’ (a blackbird!) from Rolf Rowling and finally ‘Early mist Bury’ from me. All the rest got 17 apart from two 16s.
Ian MacWhirter
Print Competition
Our Judge for the evening was Andrew Perry who was a jovial fellow who kept us amused with his quips throughout the evening, whilst at the same time giving us helpful hints and pointing out the errors of our ways in a constructive manner. We had 30 prints entered and the popular mark of the evening was 17 which he awarded no less than 24 times during the evening (including slides), which indicated to me that he thought that our standard was high.
The print competition was dominated by Mike Davison and Ian MacWhirter, Mike had the winning print entitled ‘Rock and Tree’. He also had a 19 for his ‘Pebble Clusters’ print and 18 for ‘An Evenings Fishing’. Ian got a 20 for his ‘Arctic Tern in flight’,(a really outstanding natural history shot), and ALSO his ‘Black-browed Albatross’ pictures. His other entry ‘Humpback Whale’ got 18. If my maths are correct, he therefore got one point more than Mike. But congratulations to both of them for some really great pictures. There was a further 20 for Martin Tomes for his very good ‘Spiral Staircase’ picture.
Paul Hayward got two 19s for his ‘Artist gone to lunch?’ and ‘St Pauls at night’, so I want to hear no more moans about not being able to compete with the big boys! Two of our other up and coming stars got 19s, Sue Worsfold with her ‘Great Green Grasshopper’ and Peter Picthall with his ‘Mist over the Downs’. Well done to all of you. There were four 18s(including Mike and Ian’s). Sue Jahan ’s ‘Pigeon Hole’ got 18 in her first ever time at entering the main competition. What a splendid result. It seems that we have another star in the making. My ‘I’m a Spanish Lady’ got the other 18. The title was meant to be a play on ‘Little Britain’, but that escaped the judge! Everyone else got 17, apart from a handful of 16s.
The en-print competition had a record number of entries – 31 and was won by Sue Worsfold with a really good butterfly picture, (which you must surely enlarge and enter in the main competition). Second was our reigning champion Paul Hayward with a lovely Ice Waterfall picture and 3rd was Alf Taylor with one of his abstract pictures. These results put the cat amongst the pigeons as Sue now has 6 points and so does Paul. The whole totals are recorded at the end of this report. I tried my hardest to get Andrew to talk about more than the six or so that he selected, but to no avail. Entrants would like to hear more about their end prints from the judge I know, but there simply is not enough time. We will have to give this matter more thought.
En-print totals so far.
Paul Hayward 6 Sue Worsfold 6 Peter Picthall 3 Jane Coward 2 Margaret Gregory 1 Alf Taylor 1
Derek Grieve