Morning All

Coffee Morning Chronicles – Financial Report (or: How We Became Mildly Wealthier)
At this morning’s caffeine-fuelled extravaganza, we heroically raked in and raised an impressive grand total of £148 – proof that ‘The Cake’ is indeed a powerful economic driver.
After the Arts Centre took its perfectly reasonable (but emotionally painful) 20% cut of £29.60, the Camera Club was left clutching a very respectable £118.40.
But wait, there’s more – in a dazzling display of generosity, donations added another £10, bringing the Camera Club’s mighty treasure chest to a whopping and proud £128.40.
In practical terms, this means we can now afford to fund approximately one and a half guest speakers next season! Robin is very pleased!
Huge thanks go to Rhona, Elaine, Freda, and Robin, who generously gave up their Saturday morning to keep the tea and coffee flowing and the cakes circulating – true heroes of the camera club’s hospitality world.
A big shoutout as well to everyone who baked delicious treats and temptations (we see you, secret star bakers) and to all members who popped in, said hello, and bravely sacrificed themselves in the name of cake consumption. Legends, everyone!
All in all, a splendid effort – and a fine boost to the Camera Club coffers. Until the next coffee-fuelled fundraiser, in September!

Quiz: The Charles Flatt intergroup quiz; Hosted at the Arts Centre
We, in a moment of either confidence or mild delusion, entered not one but two teams out of the 13 competing for this most prestigious of quiz-night honours.
Representing sharpness (in theory) was The Snappers: Adrian, Sue, Barry, Lewis and Anne (Lewis’s wife). Meanwhile, embracing a more… interpretive approach to knowledge, The Out Of Focus team featured Freda, Elaine, Robin, myself, and my wife Jill.
Our carefully considered objectives were as follows:
Not to finish first (as the winners have to host next year’s quiz – a responsibility we bravely dodged). ✔️ Achieved!
To come a close second – well… let’s just say we admired that position from a respectful distance.
In the end, both teams settled comfortably into mid-table territory – a perfectly respectable outcome, especially given that some of the questions appeared to have been set by people with access to encyclopaedias and far too much free time.
Top honours went to the Knit Wits with 67 points, followed by the Hanging-On with 63.
And us?
The Snappers snapped up a very decent 58 points
The Out Of Focus brought things into a comfortable soft focus with 52 points.
So, no silverware this time, but crucially, no disgrace either. We live to fight another day… or at least another quiz night.
More importantly, it was a cracking evening: plenty of chuckles, the occasional proper laugh-out-loud moment, a generous supply of snacks, especially salted peanuts, and drinks; absolutely no tears (publicly, at least), and a genuinely terrific atmosphere.
All in all, a resounding success – even if our general knowledge remains… artistically interpreted.

Notices:

Events Cup: Just to repeat! The first Events Cup ‘round’ is upon us.
The destination is Martin Mere Wetland Centre and the 2 dates to choose from are Monday 13^th April OR Saturday 18^th April.
Just to reiterate and remind everyone, you must choose only one date to visit and take photographs.
If you ‘Google’ the destination there is lots of information available and will take about an hour in the car. I would advise to book your ticket on-line ‘cos it’s cheaper!
Now, I’m going on the Monday 13^th April (tomorrow) and will park my car at Kirkland and Catterall Memorial Hall car park at 8.45am and leave at 9am.
If any other members are considering the same date we could meet there and car share where appropriate – considering the cost of fuel at the moment!
If not, I’ll see you there, probably!

Message from Frank: Possible last chance!
We (Mike P and I) have secured Wyrebank, Events Centre, The Moorings, Church St, Garstang, for a portrait and still life session on Sunday 26th April.
The cost is £25.00 per photographer for the session.
The session is 9.30am until 3.00pm, and we will be setting up a number of stations so there will be plenty of time for people to try different settings.
No formal tuition, but Dom said he would be happy to advise.
Please come and have a go and practice; all informal, experimental with a laugh or two on the way; just have a good time with no pressure – honest!
Places are limited and will be allocated on a first come first served basis by emailing me on fjharvey@btinternet.com
Many thanks to Frank and Mike.

Peter Frankish: Reminder!
However, many thanks to those members who have already sent me images for Peter to consider.
Peter raises money for a local hospice and says: “I thought you would be interested to hear that we have been invited to exhibit at the Arts Centre in July.”
I’m wondering if the Club would like to donate images for us to feature alongside our wide range of other product. The general rule of thumb is that our mainstream audience would want to put it on their wall at home! Given you are the local club we would limit other photographic content and could think of as many as say ten from yourselves.
Subject matter – Landscapes, particularly of the Lake District, but also locally and wildlife (garden birds especially) plus anything you may think suitable – but no portraits please. The basic ‘rule-of-thumb’ – any image that you would mount, frame and put up on your wall at home!
Please send to me (that’s Mike) any digital images that you may think would ‘fit-the-bill’ by Sunday 19th April, that’s next Sunday, a week today!
I will then send them all to Peter who will select the ones he thinks will sell, probably any number between 8 – 15. He will select them NOT me!

Coffee duty this Wednesday:
Coffee and tea duty for this coming Wednesday is Robin and Paul H. – many thanks in advance!

Up and coming programme of events:

Wednesday 15^th April – The judging of our final internal competition, ‘Anything Goes.’ The judge is Paul Dunmall – yes, that chap from the other week – yes, him chatting about ‘titles.’

Wednesday 22^nd April – Members Evening. We have 2 talks this evening; one from Stan titled ‘Sports photography with unintended outcomes’ and, for the second part of the evening, a talk by Lewis titled “A journey to Brazil”
Many thanks to both Stan and Lewis for putting together their respective talks!

Wednesday 29^th April – A talk by Tom Lee ‘live’ at the Arts Centre. The title is ‘Infrared Photography.’
Tom says:
I’ll give a brief introduction covering:
What is Infrared, Types of IR Photography, Filters vs Camera Conversion, Subjects, Workflow and Pseudo IR conversion.
All sections will be coved by examples to show what can be expected. A short video showing my photography with infrared. After the break I will work through a few examples in front of the attendees.

Wednesday 6^th May – A talk by Terry Hewitt ‘live’ at the Arts Centre. The title is ‘An imperfect Safari.’
Terry writes: A presentation about my two-week trip for a safari in South Africa. I cover all aspects of the trip and the lecture includes photographs of the whole range of birds and animals I saw.

Phew! That’s all folks and see you Wednesday!

Mike