Committee Meeting Thursday 5 August 2010

All fourteen committee members gathered at the new President’s house to admire his capacious car park and to sample Rosemary’s tea and coffee.

Under matters arising it was confirmed that the club would purchase speakers, an amplifier and an up to date radio microphone system to work together for general club use. Roger Dye and Bill Chadband would liaise on this. Richard Scaife reported on plans for the Poynton Show, where we are the official photographers, and where we run a photographic competition (Jon Allanson is now the judge) and provide a photographic display. Richard suggested that we need half a dozen photographers for the event. Tony Redford reported that the Keswick weekend is fully booked. South Manchester Club are arranging to provide simultaneous digital projection of the Print images.The Treasurer noted that our previous grants from Cheshire Council are less likely to materialize in future. The Syllabus for the session was now ready and Graham was working on the following session’s syllabus. The Annual Exhibition judge (Keith Brown) and inter-club competition judges (Ray Brammall and Mike McNamee) had been booked, and L&CPU President Christine Widdall had agreed to open the Annual Exhibition. Competition Secretary Paula Martin announced that the competition judges were all booked. Publicity Secretary John Garner led a discussion on the best way to promote the Club. He had several new ideas, including publicising the successes of individual club members. Social Secretary Colin Pickles floated the idea of a weekend in Paris via EuroStar and Riviera travel. A weekend trip might be more acceptable to some members unable to take time off from work during the week. Riviera travel took complete control over travel connections and included several organised tours. They had served us well for our Berlin Trip. Selection Committee chairman, Phil Riley queried whether we should endeavour to include the maximum number of members in our competition selections, or go all out to win regardless of how few members were represented in a particular competition. The general consensus was that we should try and win all competitions. Particular competition rules, such as a maximum of two images per member, should be introduced if it was necessary to expand the representation. Bill Chadband noted that 32 members had stated that they did not need paper copies of Focus, now that all articles appeared on the WEB as soon as they were written. A dozen or so members had indicated that they still wished to receive paper copies, and he had no definite response from the other members. 37 copies of Focus were being sent with the Annual mailing. He invited all members to confirm, or otherwise that they still wished to receive printed copies of Focus. Barry Pearson noted that past issues were now available as pdf files and could be down-loaded from the WEB. Barry noted that the WEB site had been re-vamped, in order to provide easier access, especially for newcomers. Membership Secretary Jill Hargreaves queried whether we needed to issue membership cards ; they served little purpose since members received receipts for their subscriptions. Also she noted that many people did not wear their name badges – was it worth continuing with them. The consensus was that the committee, at least, should continue to wear them, since new members would find them useful. Jill also indicated where the various pieces of loan-able club equipment were presently housed. One piece of equipment, the Optoma digital projector, was presently malfunctioning and it was agreed that we should investigate getting it repaired if the cost was not exorbitant. Bill had provided addressed envelopes for the August postal circular and President Graham Johnston undertook to stuff them and post them. A discussion on the possibility of Club mentoring for new (and other?) members, concluded that two different problems would surface – help with producing good images; and more general help with understanding the club’s procedures and strange (to new-comers) terminology. Graham gathered the names of members willing to help in this regard. Graham also proposed that we might have Club trophies for best Printworker, and best Digital projected image worker of the year, other than paper certificates. He noted that we had trophies for the more specialised sub-categories. He also thought we might more actively promote the L&CPU Annual Competition amongst our members. It was noted that members entered as individuals (though through the Club Competition Secretary) but that if there were sufficient entries in a class, the results reflected back on the club.