SECRETARY'S NOTES
It is not quite a complete season since I plunged into the hot seat of Club Secretary. It was not a post I had courted and I only volunteered because, after a spell of nearly eight months without a Secretary, the Club looked as if it might fold. Again. Obviously I can’t judge if I have done a satisfactory job — and I did say at the start that I had absolutely no experience of the post and would welcome all help and advice that anyone could offer.
So if anyone has come here today to grind me into the dust for being totally useless at the job, could I ask that they do it constructively rather than negatively and destructively. After all, I’ve tried my best.
You can see by the number of apologies for absence that our average age is increasing year on year (and I put myself firmly — or should I say infirmly — into that bracket), so it would be a good thing if we could add to our membership with younger blood, keen enough to take over the reins and keep the club lively and vibrant. Perhaps members could ponder this and come up with ideas.
Those members in Area 3 will know that in the past I campaigned for the Club to remain loyal to colour reversal, but the membership decided instead that the Club should expand its interests to include monochrome, colour neg/pos and digital imaging. So this is a decision that we have to accept. In the light of this it was with great pleasure that I was able to send off to Ireland forty enlargements, both monochrome and colour to the selection process for the East Antrim Open Exhibition.
I can tell you now that 8 of those prints have been selected for exhibition. My sincere thanks to David Lewis who helped and arranged with this project on the Club’s behalf. Mike Puttick has had two monochrome prints selected, Dave Deeming has had 2 colour prints selected and Eric Deeming 3 colour prints and one monochrome. I think that’s a pretty wonderful first ever entry into this Exhibition.
Finally I would like to express my grateful thanks to all those members who have sent me kind messages of support during the season.
This concludes my report, but, to save time, I should like to say on behalf of my wife, that she has had no opportunity to carry out any of the duties as Treasurer for this part of the season as the Club books have not yet arrived from the previous Treasurer. Hopefully there will be a report for the previous season to get us up to date.Roy.