Attendees
Brian Leonard
Jennifer Thompson
Young McQueen
Gordon Ira
Charise Tanner
Craig Shier
Julius Dean
Lynda Smith
Guests: Gail Means
Kathy Jawowski
Not attending
Bronwyn Horvath
Jim Jordan
Jan Vallely
Chuck Shealy
Approval of Minutes:
The President distributed the minutes from the previous board meeting and they were also posted online. Young McQueen made a motion to accept the minutes. Jennifer Thompson seconded the motion. The board accepted the motion to accept the minutes as written.
Treasurer’s Report:
The current club balance is 13,983 dollars including $1,164 for the educational fund and $300 collected for the banquet leaving an available amount of $12,520.
Old Business:
Library Committee:
Gordon Ira said that the library committee of himself, Craig Shier, Kathy Jawowski and Young McQueen was not able to meet. He decided to dissolve the committee in favor of letting Kathy carry on with her work on the library. He suggested that if Kathy needs help she is directed to ask the relevant members. The 2018 President, Brian Leonard, said that the new board may decide to take another look at this issue next year since Kathy will be on the board.
Membership Directory:
Gordon Ira asked if there was any update on the membership gallery issue of getting people to register on the website. Rick Hartmann was not a guest at this meeting and there was no update. Young McQueen talked about the website and noted that there was a way to update the membership listings on the website but that it was not done frequently because it was so time intensive. He suggested that there were ways to update the membership lists that would be easier but that might be discussed later.
Digital Copy of Prints:
Jan Vallely and John Neel are spearheading the effort of getting digital copies of our prints and putting them in galleries on the website. A related issue is how to get digital copies of prints from members. Young McQueen said that a collection mechanism similar to FC3 is possible but he wouldn’t be able to create it by January 1st. He also expressed concern that we might drive people away from entering prints. He suggested we have a system where members can submit their digital copy online for $2 or submit at the meeting for $3.
John Neel who is the 2018 Print Chair said that he would keep a spreadsheet of who has submitted their digital copies and call those who have not submitted them to warn them that their print will not be judged unless they submit a digital copy. This system would be used until the website submittal system is created.
President’s Service Award:
The club has dropped the Vernon Nalley Award and created a President’s Service Award to acknowledge a member who provided exceptional service to the club within one calendar year.
Young McQueen made a motion that “The President’s Service Award be a cumulative plaque where winning names are added each year.” The motion was seconded by Brian Leonard.
The motion passed 6 to 2 members.
There was a discussion about making the Shutterbug Award a cumulative award as well and including past winners. Young made a motion that “We change the Shutterbug Award to a cumulative award including the names of winners for the past 12 years.” This was seconded by Gordon Ira. The board discussed the number of names to include. Gordon wanted it to go back to 2000 or back to the establishment of the club. The motion was not voted on.
Young amended the motion to “We change the Shutterbug Award to a cumulative award with the number of past names included to be determined in the future.” Craig Shier seconded the motion and it was passed by the Board.
There was a discussion about how to recognize members who contributed to the club and are now deceased. Young said that he was developing a section of the website to honor these past members.
Young made a motion that “The President may choose not to award the President’s Service Award in any year where he/she determines that there is no eligible candidate.” Craig Shier seconded the motion and the Board passed the motion.
Young McQueen made the motion that “A member can only win the President’s Service award once in the next five years. At that time the Board should review and revise the requirements of the award if necessary.” The motion was seconded by John Neel. A discussion was held and the motion was not voted on.
Brian Leonard amended the motion to read “A member is only eligible to win the President’s Service Award once every five years.” This motion was seconded by Charise Tanner and passed by the Board.
New Member Initiative
Gordon talked about his idea to have a person write bios for new members and follow up with perspective members. Jennifer Thompson and John Neel said that bios are being written and put on the website with links from Clicks Weekly. Gordon asked if we need a person to follow up with new or perspective members. Brian said that he has been introducing new members to people who have similar interests. Brian has this as one of his top three initiatives for next year.
Assorted Motions
Young McQueen made the motion that “The qualification of an image for a contest category or theme is the sole responsibility of the appropriate Contest Chair.” Charise Tanner seconded the motion.
The discussion included references to judges who changed images into different categories or who disqualified images. Once the judge receives the images he should judge with the understanding that all images have been qualified by the appropriate Contest Chair. It is the responsibility of the chair to speak to the member if there is a problem with the image. The Board passed the motion.
Young McQueen made a motion that “We eliminate the rule allowing pictures smaller than 80 square inches into the monochrome contest.” Charise Tanner seconded the motion.
Young said that currently the monochrome contest accepts images smaller than 80 square inches but if they win, they are not eligible for the end-of-year contest. So he suggests we eliminate this rule. The Board passed this motion.
Young McQueen made a motion that “The club should have three contests a year instead of four contests with a total of four submissions instead of three.” John Neel seconded the motion to start the discussion.
Young felt that it was difficult for the Chairs to find judges. Charise Tanner said that 25% more images per contest would be too difficult for the judges. Mailing 25% more prints would be more pricey. Increasing the number of images would potentially make our meetings longer on feedback nights. Brian Leonard said that we should see how it goes next year since we have ironed out many of our 2017 problems. We can revisit this idea at the end of the year.
The motion did not pass. There was one vote for the motion and seven against.
Young McQueen made the motion that “The guideline and rules on the website be accepted as written with regards to all elements otherwise modified at this meeting.” John Neel seconded the motion.
The discussion is that we should accept what is on the website with the change that we just made about the monochrome contest. Gordon asked why we needed this motion. Young wanted people to recognize that the rules on the web site are the most up-to-date rules and guidelines.
The motion passed 6 members to 2.
Young McQueen made the motion that “The restrictions within the rules on all contest entrees will not be policed by the Contest Chair but left to the conscience of the entrant.” Seconded by John Neel.
The current rules say that it is the responsibility of the Chairs. It is virtually impossible for the chairs to police this.
The motion passed.
Digital versus Print Points in the End-of-Year contests
A motion was made by Brian Leonard that “We have three categories for the Quarterly Digital contests to equalize the end of year points with the Print Contests.” Seconded by John Neel.
The discussion involved how to organize the categories so that they make sense for judging at the end-of-year contest. Brian also suggested that we remove the 2 year limitation on digital pictures. Young felt that this would be unfair to roll up images into three categories because they might not fit together. The motion was not passed by a vote of three for and five against.
Charise was concerned with what to do for this year’s end-of-year contest. Everyone likes the idea of having the same number of annual awards for both the Digital and Print Contests. The Board discussed the pros and cons of creating 3 general categories for the Digital Contest to be used for end-of-year judging but no consensus was reached. The board decided to make a decision for this year only and revisit the issue in 2018.
Charise made a motion that “The Annual Digital Contest for 2017 will be be changed from a top ten to a top 20 contest.” Seconded by John Neel.
The motion was passed by the board.
End of Year Point Calculations
Young McQueen made the motion that “The end-of-year contest points be excluded from that year’s cumulative point calculations and moved into the following year’s cumulative point calculations.” John Neel seconded the motion.
The discussion centered around the limited time frame between receiving the year-end contest results, calculating point totals and ordering awards. Every year we have difficulties with this issue. The motion did not pass 1 for and 7 against.
Transferring Board Positions
If you need to transfer user names/passwords to a new person, take care of this yourselves.
The meeting was closed by the President.