Tuesday 17 November 2020

President's Report 2020

This, as you know, was my first year as President of our Club, and what a year it has been, mainly due to the restrictions placed upon the Club by Covid 19.  This year has been marked by the start of Zoom meetings for Competitions and Committee meetings. The Committee has worked very hard this year to try and find ways to engage Club members online and since restrictions eased in person.
 
I think you will agree that some months felt endless while others flew by. However, 2020 has had an optimistic side too and though as a Club we were forced to change the way we conducted our Club business, we have not only survived as a Club but have thrived. The following outlines how our Club has gone from strength to strength over the last 12 months.
As you know, last year we developed a more flexible constitution and this year we again changed some areas to allow for the use of virtual technology for the conduct of Club business and to fine tune some matters that were overlooked in the adoption of the new constitution in 2019. The new constitution has been accepted by Consumer and Business Services; therefore, I'm pleased to say tonight's meeting is operating under the new constitution and its rules.

So, what did we do this year that helped the Club to thrive?
 
To start the year, we had one face to face competition with some fantastic entries. We also had a great visit to the Gorge Wildlife park that was well attended.
 
Our lectures series this year started with Dr Liz Coates presenting an in-person lecture on Covid 19. 
Additionally, this year we had a some very popular, online Zoom Meeting lectures;
Paula – Copyright issues
Geraldine – Photobooks
Livia – Portraiture
Trevor- Astro photography
Just recently a more informal meeting was arranged at the Hall by David Sandison.
 
We had 2 weekends away this year to the Flinders Rangers and to Robe and the feedback from these weekends was excellent.  I hope next year we can continue with multiple weekends away with friends. 
 
Originally inspired by a new member Beryl Hopcroft and organised by David Archdall our “End of Month” photographic get togethers proved to be very popular and well attended. We went to Myponga, Morialta and Port Wakefield.
 
This year David Archdall has continued with our popular weekly 
FOTO FRIDAY which runs all calendar year and additionally had conducted 3 photo challenges which were great fun.
 
Our yearly Snapathon is always a hit and this year we had 85 entries. Thank you to Paula for a great job.
 
As a Club we joined Mawson Lakes at their St Kilda outing and also attended their exhibition. We also took part in the Para Snapathon. 
 
Regarding social media, our public Facebook page has become more popular, with some 1,062 people who "Like" it, and 1163
people who "Follow" it.  These figures are up from last year I think that page is a great way to attract new members 
 
David Archdall has done a fantastic job with our Newsletters. This year we have sent our 12 newsletters. Currently our email newsletter has 178 followers. 
 
Regarding our Club's competitions, as you know the Club had had to organise our monthly competitions via zoom, which has been very challenging for our competition secretary. This year saw only one face to face competition. Our monthly competition entries increased from 959 photos last year to 1062 this year. This is a huge effort from members, our comp Sec and judges who have all leaned to work with Zoom. This year Colin has live streamed most of our competition meetings to Facebook, which is a huge undertaking.
 
The Club was very lucky to be donated a Toyo View Large Format Film Camera which we hope to start using next year.
 
The Committee has met at least monthly this year via Zoom in order to keep the Club running smoothly. I am so thankful to our committee members for the work this year. A huge thank you to Joy Lee Archer as VP, Geraldine Hough as Secretary, Wayne as Comp Sec, Colin J Pearce has undertaken numerous tasks to keep thing run smoothly, David Sandison as Treasurer, David Archdall for all his work on newsletters and Marc Fullager, Tony Jones and Jack Lonie for their help.
 
I’d like to close by thanking those who help the Club in many ways, both our members and our committee. This is a Club of friends where we can share ideas, our passion of photography and time together.
 
Dr Kim Petersen 
President, 17th November 2020

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