New season starts next week!

New Season 2021-22 – Next Week!!

Featured Image: Silent Disco | Cesar Duarte © 2021

The new season at the club starts on the 14th of September, we have another great season to look forward to starting with Elizabeth Opalenik who will be presenting to us on Zoom from California from 7.30pm.

We will be on Zoom until January when we hope to get back in the hall. In the meantime we intend to experiment with a hybrid arrangement sometime in October with limited numbers in the hall and a Zoom facility as well to use from home. More details to follow in due course.

Zoom Link Below.

Online Zoom Details

Don’t forget to renew your membership

If you don’t renew you won’t have access to the Zoom links on the website – or newsletters. You can renew your membership on the website.

To check your subscription, Log in to the website and go to Membership > My Membership from the menu (or link My Membership).  Then select Subscriptions and you’ll be able to see you current (active) /previous (non-active) subscriptions and renew, if required.

New Members Group (NMG)

The first evening of the NMG 2021-22 Season has been planned with details found in the calendar for Thursday, 23rd September 7.30pm.

More information will be available via the NMG newsletter email, which has recently been sent and will be resent again for new NMG members.

Volunteers needed

As the new season gets underway we have a need for helpers for a number of roles, you know the club is run by volunteers, it’s a good opportunity to work with others and help to run the club. Please speak to any committee member if you are interested.

Summer of fun

Thanks to Audrey Nelson and Colleen Slater for organising a great summer party on the beach and thanks to other members for organising a number of well attended events over the summer.

Club Finances

Audrey Nelson has done a great job as treasurer, the annual audited accounts can be found in the 2020-21 Meeting Minutes.

Hope Actually

With the new season upon us and lots of new members, we thought it would help all our members to clarify what Hope Actually (HA) is, where we are with it and how we need your help to pull it off.

We all know how uplifting great photography can be and HA is an initiative suggested by a member to get our (and your!) positive, fun and uplifting photography out into the community where it’s needed. The sort of places HA photos would be displayed are hospitals, doctors surgeries, nursing homes, council offices and other public places.

The initial thinking was that we would build a bank of HA photos and members would, through their contacts, identify places for the photos to be displayed. Unfortunately, this approach didn’t work as well as we hoped. With this, the committee felt that we would let our photography do the talking! So the decision was made, with the support of the Tides Group, to use the 48 space, year round beach exhibition in Brighton to display the best HA photos. Alongside the pictures, would be notices explaining what HA is and if any visitors would like HA photos in their hospital, surgery, etc. then to get in touch with us. Simple!

We have allocated some funds to help organisations that really want your uplifting photography, but can’t afford the printing & framing costs. With this, the committee have agreed to consider each application on a ‘case by case’ basis and have set a total spend cap. It was thought the members would support this help for those organisations that really struggle financially.

So, to pull HA off and make it a success, we need you to submit (via the web site Hope Actually calendar event) up to five of your best HA style photos. Don’t worry if sunsets, etc aren’t your thing; this is the challenge. Photos of concert goers, surfers, street entertainers, sport / action photos, animals, etc can often be very uplifting to the audience we want to reach. Use your imagination and stretch your thinking! And don’t forget each photo chosen for the beach exhibition will have a title, which can be used to add a positive message to support the photo.

So please submit your photos to the HA photo bank via the web site as soon as you can. We set a closing date of the end of September, but we are extending this and will close it when we have enough photos, so please don’t delay.

Once we have enough photos, judges from the committee and the Tides Group (who manage the beach exhibition) will pick the best. The cost to display on the beach front is circa £55 per photo and needs to be paid by the member, just like it has in previous years, with the photo going back to the member at the end of the exhibition. If you want to contribute to the HA photo bank, but don’t want your photo in the beach front exhibition, that’s not a problem.

The committee members now driving HA forward are Peter Castleton, Al Punja and Richard Mole. We are all committed to this great initiative and are asking for your help to make it a success. So, whether you are a new or existing member, novice or experienced photographer, get involved and not only help your club, but give something back to the local community. Any questions, just let any one of us know and we will be pleased to help.

Lee Filters Discount increased to 15%