Saturday 27th March 2010 sees the end of the Letchworth Garden City Camera Club Annual Exhibition. It ran for a month at the museum in Letchworth town centre.

This is my second camera club exhibition & I had 6 or 7 shots displayed. I was also lucky enough to be one of the chosen four to have their shots featuring on our advertising poster. You can see the shot of the B-17 Aircrew in the first shot. My black & white shot of the B-17 itself is on the right hand side of that shot also.

We had the AGM of the Letchworth Garden City Camera Club last month & I managed to get myself onto the committee in the position of Secretary. One of the other newer – & younger – members also got on the committee so the ‘progressive’ members are hopeful of the club moving forward. There are a few members with ideas on how to improve the club & take it further into the 21st century, so we’ll see how it goes.

I did manage to persuade the club to reduce the subscription fee for the unemployed as I felt the discount they had previously wasn’t sufficiently lower than the normal membership fee.

We had our first committee meeting two weeks ago. It lasted around two & a half hours but was relatively painless.

Among the topics discussed was the idea of a website redesign which I & 2 others will now look at. Watch this space.

Five times a year we have an internal print competition at the Letchworth Camera Club. Thursday just gone I entered 3 colour & 3 black & white prints into the comp which is voted on by 6 members.

Unfortunately, my colour prints didn’t come in the top six but my black & white entries did rather better. The following two shots were awarded first & second, the  footballer winning the best shot.

The American footballer was taken at Hatfield University last week during Sunday practice & the B-17 & crew were shot at Duxford over the summer.

At the AGM the previous week, I managed to get myself voted in as new club secretary!

I decided to take a look at the local camera club.

The Letchworth Garden City Camera Club meets on a Thursday at the Settlement in Letchworth.

I’d been reading around on a couple of forums & the popular conception of camera clubs seems to be that they are full of old fuddy-duddies who are rather set in their ways with very traditional views on photography, who all shoot slide film & black & white on cameras which have wooden parts.

Whilst, in all honesty, the demographic of the club is tending towards the more retired among us of a male persuasion, most members have fully embraced digital technology. There are only a small handful of folk who still shoot slide or film.

My first meeting included a demonstration of some digital manipulation by one of the members using a laptop & digital projector.

The group arrange quite a few competitions throughout their season which runs from September to the following May. These are both internal, against other members and against other clubs.

The club is keen to attract new members & most folk seem very friendly & approachable. There is a variety of standards. I managed to recruit a new member from my contacts on the DSLR User Magazine Forum within 2 weeks of joining who is trying to recruit a new member himself.

If you live within string distance of Letchworth, why not pop down & give it a go. Whilst there is a fee for membership, you can attend a few meetings to see if you like it. I felt very welcomed & am looking forward to my first year’s membership.

I have it on good authority that we are much friendlier than another camera club not many miles down the road who had a better experience on their first visit to Letchworth than they did to another club!

You can find out more details on the club’s website at www.letchworthcameraclub.org.uk