3 May 2008: Notes from the (very long!) AGM last night:

• Next season there will be Projected Digital Image competitions, with A and B classes, on the same evening as the Slide competitions. Slides will now be in a single class. With the falling number of slide entries, the situation will be reviewed at next year's AGM. Everyone was too tired to decide what will happen to the trophies...
• Winners of B class competitions at the end of the year will no longer automatically move up to the A class.
• Speakers will be encouraged to take questions at the end of their talks to broaden the interest of the evening.
• The Viewfinder Editor is to be reinstated as a Committee post. The specific post of Publicity Officer is to be deleted as the function is now mostly performed across the Committee. Details of other changes will be shown here shortly.
• There was a request for a list on the website of certain external events. Watch this space...

14 April 2008: Congratulations to Rashida Mangera (2) and Mike Pole (1) for monochrome prints accepted in the 2008 EAF Exhibition. Both have one print going forward to the Photographic Alliance inter-federation competition.

20 May 07: A new photo gallery by Peter Clark has been added to the site. Galleries by Gordon Anderson and the Sandells were updated recently – we now have 160 images on display, plus seven panoramas.

www.hdcc.org.uk/gallery

5 May 07: Some decisions from the AGM last night, which will take effect next season:

• The number of prints that may be entered in the main competitions will be reduced from three to two. This reflects the greatly increased entry in the last couple of years – an encouraging trend – and will give judges a fairer chance for proper assessment. Both marks will count, and prints cannot be entered (in main competitions) again.
• Two discussion evenings per season will be introduced (at the discretion of the Syllabus Secretary) at which both new prints and competition prints will be commented on (constructively, we hope) by the assembled members. Don't be shy!
• The maximum size of entries in the Small Print Competition is to be reduced to 300 square cm (from 500sq cm), to encourage the production of images that work well at a small size.
• [ Most important?] There will be a tea/coffee break in the middle of the meeting, not at the end as has been the case for about the last 50 years.

14 April 07: Just one print in the EAF (East Anglian Federation) Exhibition this year, by er... your webmaster: The Wedding Car by John Sandell. The Club only entered seven prints this year, from two members, which was a pretty poor show – we understand that some other clubs entered 30-40 prints, and one even (allegedly) submitted 80!

The exhibition of around 200 prints, plus slides, is at the Gibberd Gallery in the Civic Centre, Harlow, from 28th April until 19th May.

3 March 07: We were delighted to hear, just before Christmas, that we had been awarded a Lottery grant under the Awards for All scheme, for the purchase of a digital projector, a laptop and some software. Making the application has been a lot of work (thank you, Brian and Stuart) and there were (rightly) plenty of hoops to jump through.

But at last the equipment has arrived and we've had a chance to try it out. As the photo shows, quite a few experts were required to get everything working properly! The projector is an NEC LT25 and seemed to give a very bright and good quality picture. The laptop is a Sony VAIO A617S. With Photoshop and various other software, members will have a chance to get up to speed with digital, and we will be including training in our programme.

The projector will also be available for the increasing number of visiting speakers who use digital, though some do bring their own equipment. And of course for Club members giving talks. It seems likely that eventually we will merge projected digital images into the slide competitions, as the number of members shooting on film diminishes, but there are a few more hoops to jump through in that direction too.

Photo: John Sandell ARPS