Chairman's Letter 2010 - 2011
Mr President, Office holders and members of Bangor and North Down Camera Club,
another year reaches its end and it gives me great pleasure, as your Chairman, to attempt to sum it up as briefly as I can.
It has been a busy year and the club continues to go from strength to strength, both in terms of numbers and also in photographic successes. I will, if I may, address the individual successes first.
A number of our members have had significant results within Nipa and further afield.
In respect of the NIPA competitions, I cite, Alan Hartley who achieved 2nd place and joint 3rd in Round 2, and Joint 3rd in round 3. Alan McMorris, joint 4th and starred in Round 1, 4th in Round 3 and 2nd place in the Tryptych competition. John Bennett achieved a joint 3rd and starred image in Round 1 and Peter Gibson won best print overall. Other members achieved Highly Commended and Commended images.
Mark Allen, and Jack Thompson had some success in their AV work.
The sum total of all of this means that the club finished 6th in the NIPA league table. This is 4 places higher than the previous year, and so I think we should give a very hearty congratulations to those members for their efforts.
Outside NIPA, our esteemed President, Gerry Coe had some of his iphone images published in Master Photography magazine, Henry Doggart had the front cover of The Lords Taverners magazine, Peter Hughes attained his Associate of the Royal Photographic Society and your current Chairman achieved a 2nd, and a commended in the Northern Ireland Ornithologists Club annual competition at Intermediate level and was awarded the Martin McCurry Salver for winning the Intermediate Portfolio.
Congratulations to them.
Congratulations on a non photographic note to Alan Hartley and Kevin Neupert and their respective partners on the production of new potential club members. All best wishes go them and their families.
The current year has been a particularly good one in terms of new members. We have had a number of new starts and this trend seems to be continuing with fresh faces arriving right up until a couple of weeks ago. We at NDBCC are very open to new members of all abilities and ages and we welcome them all. It is always good to have new people along to spice up the membership, and that certainly has been the case with some of our new recruits. Indeed as one of these newer members said recently, they were enjoying being here, and I quote, “to keep the wrinklies in check”.
2010/11 has been another good year as regards our programme and I would say a word of thanks to our Programme committee, Gerry, Hugh and Ray for putting it together. This is a thankless task and I’m sure there was much head scratching to ensure that we had interesting and varied speakers along. You will all have been delighted with our speakers, from outside the club and also those from within the membership, who presented their own slant on photography and perhaps their reasons for being involved, in the way that they are. The fact that we had so many of our own members presenting evenings, is, I believe, testament to the wealth of experience and skill that we have here. Long may it continue.
I’ll summarise briefly, these events, in reverse order.
Hugh, Trevor and Gerry on mobile phone photography. This was a tremendous enlightenment as to what is available by way of Apps, and what can be achieved in the right hands. Some amazing stuff and as I said earlier, Gerry had work of this nature featured in a very highly esteemed international magazine.
15 minutes on their photography by club members. This is always a popular subject as it is good for the rest of the membership to see what interests others in the club. This time round we had Julie Campbell, Christine Pearson, Shirley Graham, Harry Watson, Laurence Henderson and Kevin Neupert. All these members, both foundation and advanced, provided us with an insight into the type of photography they enjoy; and enjoy the experience of presenting this, some of them certainly did.
Hugh Rooney presented an evening on self publishing and how to compile a photo book. A very informative evening with lots to think about, as far as getting work published, is concerned.
Trevor Craig in Patagonia.
Trevor gave us a run down on his trip preparation, both personally and equipment wise, followed by a skillfully executed presentation. It was clear that the preparation for this, was almost as detailed as that for his adventure. Some humour was injected, with the users of a certain brand of equipment having fun poked at them. All in the best possible taste.
The annual print battle with Carrick was hastily arranged by our Competition team of Jack Thompson and Alan McMorris, and despite the last minute organisational panic, the evening went very smoothly indeed. We defeated the visitors by 81 points to 66. The judge was Stephen McWilliams of CB club.
Tryptych presented by Ray Magill.
A very interesting evening this, with some in depth history of the origins of the form. Even back as far as the art of cave dwellers, none of whom, Ray assures me, he knew personally.
Hidden Northern Ireland by Jim Kelso. This was a very interesting collection of pictures and anecdotes gathered up over many years.
Landscape photography Roy McKeown. Suffice to say that this was an evening of spectacular North coast images.
Exhibition panel of Sean Barden. Again, an evening run by one of our own members. Sean presented some prints of local crafts people from Benburb that he had had featured in an exhibition there. Tied in with this was an insight into the local history of Seans home area, Armagh. Something that he is passionate about, and I think his passion for the subject was obvious in his delivery.
Whilst not strictly an evening about aspects of photography, we had our annual quiz night, run by Alistair and Mildred Bell. What can I say about this night, a bit of learning, agitate the grey matter, but most of all, just good craic.
Print battle Spain. This, now annual event, was won by ourselves.
Des Clinton, photos of Romany people.
Always a welcome visitor to Bangor, Des entertained us with his imagery of the Romany people and some Romanian families whom he had been lucky enough to be befriended by.
NI yesterday and today John Lennon.
When I saw the name John Lennon on the list for the year, I did think... the events sub committee have excelled themselves here... Well, it wasn’t that John Lennon, but one, more alive, and locally based, who delighted us with the less well known parts of our little Province, and toilets.
Fashion Photography Jim Crone.
A fascinating evening on how Jim deals with his fashion shooting and some of the terminology used when dealing with highly paid fashion models.
Bob Given Antarctica.
This was of particular interest to me from a natural History point of view. An evening of stunning images that most of us will never get to witness at first hand.
Owing to the sudden unavailability of a scheduled speaker David Foster, John Miskelly and Hugh Rooney stepped in at very short notice to give us an insight into what floats their individual boats, photographically speaking of course.
Seacourt print workshop, presented by Alice Burns. This showed us that thinking outside the box can and does produce some very artistic and beautiful effects.
Chris Roberts once again spent the evening with us talking about how he uses flash in a more creative way, in his every day job as a newspaper photographer, enlisting certain members as willing helpers.
Opening night, as usual, featured short AV presentations of members holidays and a good ice breaker for the new season.
I thank all our speakers for their participation.
In addition to the guest speakers, we have had a number of outside judges to assist in the competition nights. Without naming them, I wish to put on record my thanks for the job they have done over the past season.
It is only since taking on the role of Chairman, that I have become more acutely aware of the work going on in the background. The very fact that this club runs as successfully as it does, is testament to the efforts of a small number of people to whom the membership should be grateful. Each gets on with their elected responsibilities with quiet confidence and without having to make a song and dance about their work. If only we had a Government which performed as well.
I mention specifically, the following few members;
Treasurer, Peter Gibson for carrying out an important task in such an efficient manner, even presiding over a rise in the membership dues and avoiding any fallout.
The McMasters Tool shop in Belfast, to which Peter, I know, had a special affinity, has closed their business. Perhaps as an act of respect to that closure, I notice that Peter no longer uses a McMasters plastic bag to carry around the tools of his office. Still no sign of the red Chancellors box, though. Thank you Peter.
Facilities Manager, Noel Maitland.
Together with teams of helpers, often numbering as many as.... 1, Noel also ran the repainting of the club buildings this year. You must agree that what we are very lucky to have this superb facility, and a facilities manager who always ensures that it is maintained to the highest standards.
Thank you for that Noel.
The work involved in running the monthly competitions, is much more than just displaying the prints in the correct order and category. There is the booking of Judges, sorting prints and DPI’s, collating results and delivery of these results so that we all know at any time, what is going on as regards placings. You will be aware that there are always a large number of entries into competitions and this number obviously adds to the work involved. Competition Secretary Jack Thompson and his very beautiful, and now bearded, assistant Alan McMorris, are the two gentlemen who have been charged with this responsibility throughout the current season. I think you will all agree, they kept very much on top of things in the Club and NIPA competitions, ensuring the smooth running of this very important aspect of the club. I am grateful for their stirling work in this regard.
In a similar vein, I’d like to propose an additional thank you to Alan for his stewardship of the annual exhibition 2011. On a number of occasions, I passed the clubhouse at different times of the day and evening, to find Alan working away at the preparation for the exhibition. Given that Alan lives in Belfast and has a full time job, he has shown effort over and beyond the call of duty. Thank you Alan.
I’d like to thank NIPA Representative Ray Magill also assisted by Alan McMorris, who looks after our interests in the greater world of photography in Northern Ireland.
Webmaster David Roberts, a master in the dark art of web design and things computer. David continues to update and maintain, our site with events and blogs. I’m sure you will agree that this shows the club in a very positive way. Thank you David.
And last but not least, our Information Officer, John Bennett who reports on the weekly activities with such style and aplomb, before passing these to the local paper for publication.
We have had a sponsor for our competitions this year. A considerable number of books on photography were supplied by RU Books, to be given as prizes in the clubs competitions throughout the year. All members who were winners during the year will now have received a book or books. I think you’ll agree that this is something that is very a welcome addition to the recognition of having ones images win a particular round in competition. I would to thank Mark Allen for his delicate methods of persuasion which prized (excuse the pun) the books from RU Books, thats two mentions..... so maybe they will do it again next year!!!!!
Many thanks also to David Best, assisted this year by Sean Barden and Alan Hartley for our summer trips during the off season, to the Armagh area, Springfield House, Titanic Quarter, Belfast Food and Music festival. David, in particular for the trip to the Tractor man, and John Miskelly for taking us to a secret location in the Strangford Lough area.
As I said, there are other members in other posts who have been part of the team involved in keeping things running and making sure that Bangor and North Down Camera Club is being recognised in the wider community as being the successful club that it is.
I thank them for their efforts, not least for the way they were happy enough to deal with any small committee matter by means of email communication, thus saving the need for, often time consuming, meetings.
I would also like to thank the committee, and indeed, membership for supporting me in the post of Chairman, during the year.
There is one final thing I would like to say before ending this summary, and that is to all the club members. Thank you all for continuing to support the club, by your membership, attendance and not least by your entries into the competitions. I congratulate the many competition winners this year and say to those not so lucky in these rounds, keep trying, you can be assured of the support of every other member of the club in your efforts to advance your enjoyment and skills in your photography.
The primary purpose of Bangor and North Down Camera Club is, “to further the practice and advancement of the science and fine art of photography.” Without your efforts, this simply would not happen.
Nigel Snell
Chairman
BNDCC
