Business Meeting/Slide Show Essays This Wednesday

This coming Wednesday, May 16 PCLFC holds it’s Annual Business Meeting and Slide Show Essay Night

I.  Annual Year End Business Meeting

Our meeting will begin with the Business Meeting.  Our agenda for the meeting is as follows:

• Welcome
• Recap of the Season
• Financial Report
• Changes and Action Items
• Executive Committee Elections
• Operating Committee Assignments (See below)
• Open Forum
• Adjournment

As we begin to wrap up the PCLFC 2011-2012 Season, it’s time to start planning for next season.  As a volunteer organization, the success of the club relies solely on the efforts of the members.  We have a great club because so many people volunteer their time to help the club run smoothly.  There are several roles we’ve identified that are instrumental in keeping the meetings efficient and informative.  Please take a look at the roles and let Sandy Gennrich (sgennrich@gmail.com)
know if you are interested in volunteering to lead or participate in any of them for the next season.  We will discuss these roles and other club business at our meeting on May 16.

Club Liaison

·        Responsible for bringing to the attention of the membership all available opportunities for outside competition activities

·        Coordinates the NECCC (New England Council of Camera Clubs), CAP (Connecticut Association of Photographers), and PSA (Photographic Society of America) entries in competitions sponsored by these organizations, including timely delivery and return of entries and awards in cooperation with the Competition and Awards Chairperson and the Slide and

Print Chairpersons.

·        Responsible for representing the interest of the Club in activities of the NECCC and PSA; assuring that the benefits of membership are made known to the members of the Club.

·        Act as a clearing house can communicate local shows and contests to club members.

Competition Moderators

·        Log in the prints as they are submitted by the members each competition night.

·        Moderate the competitions by announcing the title and makers of each image and recording the judges scores.  The moderators set the pace for the competitions, so it is important they keep the meetings moving smoothly and briskly.

Digital Projection Organizer

·        Receives images for digital competition

·        Creates slideshows for each digital competition class. Responsible for set up and break down of the computer, projector, and screen (may solicit additional help as needed). Responsible for presentation of digital images during competition night

·        Creates scoring sheets for each competition class to be used by the competition moderator

Field Trip Coordinator

·        Organizes (and leads if necessary) at least two field trips each year.  Where feasible, the membership should have at least two weeks notice of any pending field trip or recommended event.

·        Acts as the clearing house for interesting events and locations.  They will post this information to the web site and make announcements at club meetings.

Hospitality

·        Informs two or three members for each competition night to act as hosts to the judges and to “meet & greet” new or prospective members

·        Coordinates food for the club meetings. This involves soliciting members to contribute food and drinks for each bi-monthly meeting (1. drinks, 2. a healthy snack, 3. chips or crackers or 4. something sweet).  Reminds contributors a few days in advance via email or phone that they are responsible for refreshments at the next meeting.

·        As a practical matter, members asked to be “hosts” may also be asked to provide snacks for the evening

·        Comes early to the meeting to plug in the hot water, set up the food, ice, if necessary, and brings instant coffee and herbal teas for consumption.

·        Ensures the refreshment area is cleaned up at the end of the meeting.

Judge Recruiter

·        Seeks out local artists and other qualified individuals and invites them to serve as volunteer judges.

·        Adds new artists to the Judge Roster each year to ensure we have one new judge at each of our competitions.

Judge Scheduler

·        Schedules three judges for each monthly competition night (nine evenings per season)

·        Maintains a roster of judges with their contact details and bios

·        Prepares Judge Guidelines for scoring and comments.  Provide copies to these guidelines to judges in advance of meeting and reviews with them in person prior to the meeting.

·        Sends out judges’ bios to members no later than the weekend before the upcoming competition night.

·        Greets judges prior to the meeting.  Introduces the judges to the designated Hosts, who will make sure they are cared for before the meeting and during the break.

Mid-month Program Coordinator(s) 

·        Responsible for securing presenters for non-competition meetings.

·        Coordinates and organizes the event.  Acts as host and introduces the event at the meeting

·        Shares information with PR/Membership Chair who shall communicate the event to the club and externally

PR/Membership

·        Responsible for any publication, advertising, and public relations of the club, club events, etc.  The PR/Membership Chair shall arrange with local papers, publications and publicity sources to publicize club meetings and special events.

·        Attracts new members through advertising and PR as stated above.

·        Greets and welcomes new members and guests at regular meetings.  Announces new members and guests at the beginning of each meeting.

Timekeeper

On competition nights, the Timekeeper will:

·        Monitor the 7:15 rule for submitting prints.  Give warnings to anyone submitting late the first time (and keep a record) and advise second offenders that their submissions will not be accepted that month.  Advise the President of the compliance that month

·        A few minutes before 7:30 signal to the group that the meeting is about to begin.  The President shall begin the meeting promptly.  Similarly, the Timekeeper shall signal the group to be seated at the end of the 15 minute break.

·        Keep records of the time that the meetings begins and ends, including the time of the break.  Record the time and number of images in each category in the competition.  Report these results to the Secretary on a monthly basis.

·        Report an annual summary of the competition submissions to the Secretary at the end of each year; this report will show, by month, the number of images in each category.  (These numbers can also be obtained from the Competition Scores section of the website.)  The Secretary will submit these records to the Treasurer to keep in the permanent binder. These records are useful in tracking the trends in the number of images submitted and the time of the meetings, information that is helpful for making policies for number of submissions per member, number of categories, meeting beginning and ending times, etc.

Web Master (Primary and Secondary)

·        Responsible for set-up and maintenance of club web site

·        Responsible for posting competition scores by Sunday after each competition

·        Solicits and posts winning images from each monthly competition. Responsible for sending out a reminder email to winners.  Posts images to the website by Sunday following the competition (pending receipt by winners by Friday).  Updates website with winner images that were submitted after the deadline prior to the next month’s competition.

·        Maintains Member Galleries on the website.  Updates the website with member images in the member gallery within two weeks of submission

·        Posts any information submitted within five days (this information includes, but is not limited to, field trips, outside competitions, member exhibits, photographic opportunities, workshops, etc.)

·        Responsible for soliciting and training at least one other person on how to maintain and post information to the website

·        If the web master is unable to meet the posting timelines above, he/she is responsible for soliciting help from another member to post in a timely manner.

II. Photo Essay Night

Members are invited to submit a digital essay to show the members.  Here are the particulars:

From Wikipedia:  A photo essay (or “photographic essay”) is a set or series of photographs that are intended to tell a story or evoke a series of emotions in the viewer. A photo essay will often show pictures in deep emotional stages. Photo essays range from purely photographic works to photographs with captions or small notes to full text essays with a few or many accompanying photographs. Photo essays can be sequential in nature, intended to be viewed in a particular order, or they may consist of non-ordered photographs which may be viewed all at once or in an order chosen by the viewer.

The Digital Photo Essay is limited to 5 minutes in length per entry.  Sound may include your own commentary, taped music, or sound effects.

If you are creating a digital slide show, you must provide a means to play the slide show.  The Club will provide a digital projector and can provide a laptop with Powerpoint and Open Office as a slide show applications.  You can save your slide show to a thumb drive and that can upload your show to the Club provided laptop.  Slide shows created in other applications must be brought in by the submitter on their own laptops.

*** Open Office is a free application that can be used to create slide shows.  It looks a great deal like PowerPoint.  You can add music, timing, and effects to your slide show using this application.  You can download Open Office by visiting http://www.openoffice.org

For any questions or comments you may have on our slide essay event, please contact David Henkel, information shown in paragraph 9 above..