I am pleased to report that the year 2000 has
been a very prosperous year for the Society.
Competition nights have been well supported by members
all year. The December meeting marked a successful end to the
1999 competition year and bade farewell to the old points system.
The new competition points format has been well accepted by members
and has produced much closer results than in previous years. Special
competitions have also been very well supported resulting in very
high numbers of entries in the Hedda Morrison Competition and
Fletchers Competition. The Society, together with Southside Camera
Club, successfully ran the Allied Camera Clubs Competition. The
ACT turned out its finest performance to date achieving second
placing in the overall competition to Victoria. The Competition
Director's report will cover this in detail.
This year the club night program included a large number of presentations by individuals rehearsing backup APSCON presentations in the event that invited speakers had to withdraw from APSCON. Several successful group workshops were held during the year. I'd like to thank committee members who convened some club nights in my absence and all those who supported club nights by attending or presenting material. The guest night program maintained its standard of high calibre speakers throughout the year. In September, the committee decided that a slight change in format would take place next year. The types of presentations given on the 2nd or 3rd Tuesdays will be interchangeable. This flexible format should allow a better program to be delivered
The club ran three successful exhibitions during 2000. The ACT Alive exhibition attracted large numbers of spectators viewing the exhibition. The committee resolved that due to the rapidly increasing cost of participation, $220 in 2001, the Society would no longer mount a solo exhibition in ACT Alive. The committee proposed that we hold a joint exhibition with PhotoAccess. PhotoAccess has accepted the proposal and we will be operating a joint exhibition on a share cost basis next year. During June, the Society mounted a very successful exhibition of 30 prints at the Canberra Centre. The exhibition attracted a great deal of interest and many positive comments were received.
The Tuggeranong Art Centre was again chosen as the venue for our annual exhibition. The exhibition will be opened tomorrow night. The participation level is pleasing. Approximately half the Society's members are exhibiting seventy-eight prints. The quality of the images submitted and the organisation of the exhibition have been outstanding. Evol McLeod has very kindly agreed to open the exhibition.
In August, an excursion / workshop was held at Narooma in association with Heide & Brian Smith. It was very well attended. The level of hospitality extended to the Society by the Smith's was exceptional and again I'd like to extend my thanks to Heide and Brian for their wonderful hospitality and congratulate the Excursions sub-committee for a job very well done. The Theatre Group remains very active photographing local productions in various performing arts. The Society has formed a nature group and a National Trust group, neither group has been particularly active so far. The Society once again collaborated with ACT Tourism to run the Floriade photography competition. Responsibilities of the respective parties were clearly defined in a meeting early in the year. The Society's responsibilities were restricted to setting competition rules and judging the competition. This arrangement proved very easy to manage from our limited resources and the competition ran smoothly.
APSCON 2000 was hosted in Canberra this year. The Canberra Photographic Society was not responsible for running the conference but members of the Society who are also members of APS formed the bulk of the organising committee. Members of the Society also provided much of the volunteer labour necessary for successfully running the conference. I'd like to congratulate the organising committee and volunteers for putting on a very professional conference with a consistently high quality of presentations. At the conclusion of the conference the Canberra Photographic Society and its members were thanked for work done at the conference by Neville Foster, President of the APS. In addition, a vote of thanks was moved from the floor to members of CPS for being such gracious city hosts providing advice and hospitality to members of APS.
Membership has remained relatively static during the year. I see an increase to the membership as essential to the long-term prosperity of the Society. An increase in membership of (10-15 members) would provide a boost in the diversity of creative ideas and images in the club. In addition, the extra member subscriptions would put us in a much stronger financial position due to the fact that most of the Society's cost structure is not related to the number of members and relentlessly increases each year. Initiatives and some very hard campaigning by members at public exhibitions have only resulted in a small number of new memberships. Participation and attendance rates among existing members remains high with 75-90% attendance at competitions and around 40-60% for other activities.
The committee continues to review the cost efficiency of various types of publicity and has been attempting to make use of new technologies where possible. The ease of manipulating images and text in computers has advanced quickly over the past few years. Members will notice that club posters and other promotional materials are being given a new lease of life as members of the publicity sub-committee learn to make use of new technologies. By utilising new technologies and cutting back on traditional advertising methods, the publicity officer and sub-committee have reduced publicity costs by approximately $500, a saving of $10 per member. Members will notice that this years annual report has been illustrated with members images from the annual exhibition.
It's with an enormous sense of relief that I can report that the Society finally has an operational web page. I've received good reviews from non-members who have viewed the site. I'd remind all members that a web site is useless unless it is updated and we rely upon all of you, the members, to provide images and other material for the site. The Society received a generous offer of sponsorship from Cyberone and will be taking up their offer of a sponsored sub-domain called http://www.photo.canberra.net.au.
Many members continue to participate in photographic activities outside the Society. Malcolm Smith, Anthony Glynn, Gavan Berger, Elizabeth Butler continue to run their photographic businesses. Two of Malcolm Smith's won two gold awards at the APPA's one print taking out the Best Contemporary Portrait Category. Malcolm also qualifed for his associateship just 12 months after joining. I continued my tutoring at PhotoAccess, produced a large photography web site completed my Travel Photography Book and organised a multimedia exhibition of painting & photography in April. A number of members held private exhibitions or participated in group exhibitions or public competitions during the year. To the best of my knowledge these include Malcolm Smith, Anthony Glynn, Gavan Berger, Elizabeth Butler, Graham Stephinson and Joe Cali. In the interests of brevity I have excluded the ACC which is covered in the competition report.
The Society's library and equipment have been well maintained. Some projection equipment is showing signs of heavy use and will need to be replaced or reconditioned in the future. A group that hired the display boards returned them with cosmetic damage. The damage was very recent and the committee hasn't met to discuss this since the damage was discovered. Raffles and fund raising activities have been successfully conducted on a regular basis throughout the year and judges' prizes have always been provided when required. The Society's financial and procedural records have been well maintained. The 2001 program has been drafted and should be finalised at the next committee meeting and ready by the December competition night.
In the last Annual report, my predecessor reported that it was inevitable that the Society would have to vacate current premises and the committee had decided not to wait. Circumstances changed soon after the last annual report was written. The redevelopment project ran into a number of difficulties and progress slowed. The Griffin centre's lease of the present building was been extended to 2003. The committee has decided not to vacate the premises and to monitor the situation.
As is the custom, I have refrained from naming individuals in this report. I feel however that I must break from tradition on this one occasion. Two members of the committee are not standing for renomination. Denis Jessop and Maurice Weidemann have given the Society the best part of four decades of committee service between them. They have always conducted their duties with the utmost dedication and reliability and their contributions to the Society through their committee work will be sorely missed. In concluding, I'd like to express my personal appreciation and to extend on your behalf, a vote of thanks to all the members of committee for all their hard work, energy and dedication throughout 2000. It has been both a privilege and a pleasure to serve with them.
Joseph Cali
President, The Canberra Photographic Society Inc.
21st November, 2000.