Minutes for May meeting

[anna mccolm]

Shows:   Bernadette is showing mixed media work about the clear-cut logging that happened last year near Beddis Road, a subject close to her heart.

A bench to commemorate Bob Rogers was installed on the dock by the float plane shelter in Ganges. A small ceremony took place on the dock on Saturday and Photoclub members and Bob's uncle ate and drank and took photos of each other sitting on the bench. This bench will be much enjoyed by people who can now wait for their plane outside the shelter and other dock visitors.

Fall Fair:   Ross, Keisha and Judy are organising the photography at the Fair this year. There will be 3 prizes of $25 each, donated by Photoclub, Photosynthesis and Photofest. These will be public prizes in the junior, adult and youth catagories and is a separate event from the usual panel of judges. It will be a good opportunity to promote the Club. Help monitoring the photo displays (being available to talk, handing out paper for people's choice awards, stopping vandalism! etc.) would be much appreciated and anyone interested can get in touch with any of the 3 organisers. The Fair will take place over the September 14th - 15th weekend and 1 1/2 - 2 hour shifts will be between 11am - 6pm on Saturday and between 9am - 6pm on Sunday.

Gwen brought up the question of whether we could display some photoclub images at the Fair as the Painter's Guild have a place to show some of their work there. It would be too late for this year but maybe in the future....  Marguerite Lee is on the organising committee and is also a member of the Club so maybe someone could approach her with this idea.

Country Grocer bagging: The Club is doing another bagging session at Country Grocer on Tuesday May 28th between 2.pm - 6.30pm. It is a 'Super Tuesday Special' day and it will be crazy busy. Time will fly as you have fun bagging groceries and talking to your fellow Islanders.  Pierre, Derek, Nikki, Avril, Judy and Anna have volunteered but Pierre is looking for a couple of back-up people. Fifi might be available to share a shift with someone. Contact Pierre if you have time to volunteer;  [e-mail]

The save-a tape programme is working well and the first batch of submitted tapes gave us $61. There is easily as much again waiting for us as soon as I get the tapes counted and handed in so this is really working for us. Thank you to everyone who puts their tapes in the box - No. 62 (which now has a picture of a camera on it for quick identification).

Photofest:  Photofest now has 34 venues and 50 - 60 photographers participating. A requisite of showing photos at Eclectic Visions or any other venue is to sign a waiver form. An email about this was sent to everyone so this is just a reminder to take care of that.

Wendy is looking for a thumbnail image of your photos for promotional purposes.

A roster for sitting shifts during the EV show was produced by Jana and several people filled in their two time slots. I expect this will be on line so other people can fill in the remaining time slots.Opening night is on Friday June 14th and 3 people are needed for that shift.

Pierre is looking for volunteers to go to the  Market on the two Saturdays during the show (June 15th and 22nd) to do a bit of promotional work. Postcards about Photofest will be available to hand out and maybe displayed on vendors' tables, raffle tickets can be sold and visitors can be gently accosted and made aware of the Festival.

Hastings House has donated a dinner for two as a raffle prize. Tickets will be $5 each and will be on sale at Artspring and Gallery 8. Paul suggested an additional $100 top up to the  prize to help pay for the very expensive booze at the Hotel. The raffle draw will be on the last day of the show, on June 27th.

Wendy is working on the Photofest website. There will be a Vendors page, a Sponsors page and a photographers page. This is where Wendy needs an image from each of you. She already has images from past members but please could new Club members (who are showing at EV) send her an image of a photo you have taken and feel proud of so she can include in in the Photographers page.

  Paul McElroy is helping to draft a media statement. This Festival will be advertised all over Vancouver Island and also in Washington. 60 photo clubs will be sent notices.

The deadline for sending information about the images you're going to show at EV is May 31st, so Wendy has time to make the labels.

Next Photoclub meeting:  THIS IS IMPORTANT!!

                                      For the June Photoclub meeting, on June 12th, the theme is 'THE PHOTOS YOU ARE SHOWING AT ECLECTIC VISIONS'. Please send them to Derek for the slide show and please show up at the meeting prepared to talk about them. This enables the group to get some insight into your choice of image and have some knowledge of them to share with interested viewers during the show. 

The two women who were going to talk to the Club about food photography  have cancelled twice so Jana bravely stepped in and offered to share what she has learned from taking photos of food. It was interesting and informative and she passed around cookies as well. There was a promise of banana bread for a future meeting.