Programme Review

Last year when I wrote about our programme for the coming season I mentioned how it was all falling into a regular pattern. This time around though the committee have tried hard to ring some changes. We still have the six individual competitions but this season because of lower entries in recent years the Holiday competition will take place on the same night as the Travelogue - January 8th 2010.This frees up an evening for an additional item. Another evening being freed up is for the Friends and Family invitation. Last year you will remember this event was disastrous as no guests and only a handful of members turned up. Part of the problem I think was because there was only one week separating it from a previous meeting and caught many members on the hop. The idea has not been entirely ditched though as Friends and Family are going to be invited to FOTY or Film of the Year on March 26th - so please do remember to bring a visitor along on that night. As far as the other competitions go the 1 min, 5 min, Theme (Trapped), will take place on October 23rd and the Non Holiday will be on 12thFebruary. By the way is anyone considering making an entry for TRAPPED yet? If you are please let me know as it could make up our entry for the North v South competition. That entry has to be in by the 31stOctober. More effort has gone into providing instructional evenings and the first of these is "Know Your Camera" with John Green who will be explaining the various functions that can be found on your camcorder. Then on 27th November members will be able to experience "Hands on Editing" where we will be utilizing laptop computers to get the message home. Allen Dyke has kindly volunteered to demonstrate how to write DVDs on January 22nd. On February 26th"Drawn to Animation", we will be looking at different ways of producing animation either as a full blown creation with a beginning, middle and end or as an insert for titling or illustrating a point. Various members will be invited to make a contribution to this event. Bob Hayward has been invited to provide an evening on March 12th. I've no idea what form this is going to take but I'm sure it will be both entertaining and educational in some way or other. There will be three opportunities to see how other clubs perform. The first on September 25th 2009 will take the form of a showreel from Potter's Bar Cine & Video Society. I'm informed by John Parks their competition officer that the club does not tend to make club productions and so the showreel will be made up of entirely members' films. Next, in the New Year we have been invited down to Chichester Film & Video Makers for a50:50 evening as a return gesture for last season. We would like to take a good representation from our club down there so perhaps we could get a couple of volunteer drivers to take members on Wednesday 10thFebruary. Then we have another 50:50 with Copthorne Camcorder Club who have been invited to come along on April 9th. Two good old standbys have been retained and "Members' Films" will start the new season off on September 11th, leaving your choice for "Film Appreciation" to occupy 9th October evening. The venue for the Prize Presentation Dinner on Wednesday 21st April cannot be confirmed at this stage but it's fingers crossed that we can continue with the recent arrangements. It would be impossible to be without an Annual General Meeting and that is set for April 23rd. There have been no suggestions to change the content of the monthly meetings in the summer and so May 14th is set for a Natter and Nibble; Studio evenings are for June 11th and July 9th; and August13th for reviewing the summer projects. There is still plenty of time to alter any or all of these last meetings if anyone has any good suggestions to replace them. We hope that you are going to enjoy the instructional meetings as there is always something new to learn about this fascinating hobby of ours.