AGM, Tom Sage and practical session

Lots of things going on with Reflex at the moment, many of which were summed up in last weeks annual general meeting. It looks like the club committee and members have been hard at work behind the scenes with planning and organising the future of the club. If you didnt make it to the meeting (like me - slapped wrists) then please take the time to read our newsletter which outlines a few changes that we all have to look forward to. As a result of feedback from members there are all sorts of new ideas being implemented, offering us a great deal of variety over the year and even more opportunities to get stuck in and participate rather than just sitting in chairs.

This week we are back to our normal meeting day of Thursday and we are expecting a presentation by Tom Sage, a photographer who worked with the Press association on Fleet street for 15 years and then moved on to work with hot air balloons. It should be interesting to hear his experiences of press photography.

We have a little advance info regarding the meeting in two weeks time on May 24th, this will be our last practical session of the season, now at the moment its all top secret and all Ive been told is that we need to bring our cameras and an empty memory card. We will be venturing outside the walls of the school, so you softie southerners will likely need big furry boots, winter coats, hats, gloves scarves ( ha - waiting for the retaliative abuse ). Oh and apparently it would help if we could all be at the club for 7pm that evening, ready to brave the weather by 7:15.

Congratulations to Mark O Grady who has had a print accepted in the London Salon exhibition on his first ever entry, its great to see our members doing well.
Mark o Gradys flickr

Roy who?

After 20 years of being our competition secretary we finally realised that Roy’s pictures always won so we’ve given him the boot. Well ok maybe not but I had to look long and hard to find a picture that summed up the skill and mastery he has over his camera.

It’s been a great 20 years mate and I’m sure you’d still do a much better job than that long haired hippy bloke whose taking over from you!

Everyone in the club want’s me to pass on our thanks for all the effort (I did try not to laugh when I wrote that bit) you’ve put in over the years but at least this gives you more time to concentrate on your heckling from the back of the room.

Those of you hoping to read about our AGM will have to wait until the newsletter goes out later today or tomorrow to find out about all our plans for the coming season.

How would you have done it?

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised last night. That has to be one of the most well attended AGM’s we’ve ever had! Now come on admit it. You lot didn’t realise it was the AGM and that’s why you turned up! But it was great to see so many of you and even better that you actually made suggestions, asked questions and put across your views on the running of the club. So on behalf of the Committee I’d like to thank all of you for being there and making this last season one of the best ones we’ve had in ages.

OK so now I have a question for you. Feel free to email me your thoughts on it or drag me to one side at a meeting. It’s a very simple question, nothing too taxing for a Friday. All I want to know is…..

Would you have changed anything we’ve done over the last season?

It’s not a trick question. We’re not going to come around to your house with baseball bats if you didn’t like something. We honestly want to know if you would have done anything differently to how it happened. I’m not just talking about at meetings, if you think this Blog needs to be written differently, the email needs to change or Hanneke needs to stop obsessing about chocolate. Anything at all, no matter how big or how small, tell us. You don’t have to come up with a solution to it, although that would be great, just let us know what it was that you would have changed. So if you didn’t like something but aren’t sure what would be better that’s fine. It might take us a while longer to figure out a new way to do it but we’ll have a go.

Thanks Arthur

Last night Arthur Belton performed his last official duties as Programme Secretary. He’s been doing that job for at least the last 10 years! Every season he’s faithfully negotiated dates with speakers and wrestled with the need to keep the programme varied and interesting to everyone. I’m coming up to the end of my second season at the club and during that time I can honestly say there has only been 3 speakers that I didn’t like any of their work or subject matter (yes 2 of them did involve trains).
So I hope you’ll all join me in thanking Arthur for his superb work in keeping us fickle folk entertained over the years and we hope you’ll enjoy all that extra free time your going to have now.

Arthurs retirement from the committee means that we now have a new Programme Secretary, Hanneke Ter Veen. She’s spent the last year learning the ropes from Arthur and we’re expecting a great season of fantastic speakers and wonderfully planned events. Not that we’d ever put her under any pressure of course, but we’re working on forfeits if a speaker fails to live up to expectations!