Castleton & Hope Valley Photographic Society

Castleton was gripped by a snowy blast on this Thursday and so, not surprisingly attendance at the AGM was reduced to eleven hardy members. However, it was a good evening with the agenda being dealt with by the interval and Ann entertaining those attending, once were refreshed, with “Windows, the Good the Bad and the Ugly”

Minutes of the AGM

1. Apologies for absence:- R Fowler J&M Smith A&T Noon H Watson N Fowler S Elliot K Frenkel J Deitch I&J Holmes Z Sampson W Hallam N Chalkley R Clemens
   Attendees 11
2. Approval of the Minutes – Proposed AS Seconded PH
3. Matters arising from the past year – None
4. Ann Smith gave the Chair’s Report for 2023
   As it was the 20^th anniversary year two events in particular stood out. The raffling of the Denis Thorpe photo “Ribble Head Viaduct” at the 20^th celebration. Also the autumn meal was well attended and Roger Moore provided a taxing photo quiz to help the evening along. In 2023 the annual exhibition was erected very successfully on three occasions, Hope and Bradwell churches, followed by our own coffee morning in Hope Old School. The “Scavenger Hunt” was another success as were the numerous presentations by club members and guests throughout the year.
5. John Sampson gave the Treasurer’s presentation of accounts for 2023 and concluded by saying that although we have a slight surplus the club will need to plan to replace the club laptop in the coming years. John also reminded members that the subscriptions for 2024 will remain at the 2023 cost of £35 (£60 for a couple and £5 per meeting for non-members).
6. Election of Officers for 2024 – No nominations were received & committee members agreed to continue for another year, apart from Jason Deitch and Nick Chalkley. President – Ray Fowler continues in office. Chair Ann Smith Deputy Chair Paul Hatt Secretary Paul Hatt Program Secretary Margaret Drabble was accepted and Keith Brown volunteered to help her in the role Treasurer John Sampson Committee members Roger Moore and Ian Stanyon (two further committee places remain unfilled).
7. Any other business a – Addition to the constitution. Keith was accepted as Vice President, Ray Fowler being unable to attend committee meetings. The following addition was accepted to the clubs constitution.
   5.1 The Society shall be administered by a Management Committee consisting of the President/Vice President, the Officers, and not more than two other elected members. 7. Role of the Vice-President 7.1 The duties of the Vice-President are to: a. support the President; and
   b. substitute for the President as and when required. 7.2 The Vice-President shall be appointed at a General Meeting of the Society. 7.3 The term of appointment for the Vice-President is undefined but may be terminated at any time by the post holder or at a General Meeting of the Society

Just before the evening came to a close Keith/Ann presented some of the certificates awarded to members as a result of the exhibition.

For our first meeting of 2024 it was decided that the committee of the society would each present photos on a Winter theme.

Unfortunately Ray was unable to attend so Ann introduced eight comittee members in the following order.

Margaret, Jason, Paul, Ann, Ian, John, Keith, Roger.

The next meeting will be the AGM in February when the chair and treasurer will report and the new committee will be announced.

What could possibly follow that, of course our chair will be pressed into service to entertain the audience once more.

Early December and the final meeting of 2023, the club has had a good year with several highlight such as the rainy outing to Bugsworth Basin, a delightful autumn social in Castleton village hall and of course the 25th anniversay celebration in September.

Apart from national newspapers, New Scientist and BBC Wildlife magazine, Alex has had images used by publications all over the world. If you are interested to learn more I would recomend a visit to his website (AlexHyde.PhotoShelter.com) where you will find the images shown below and a whole host of other fantastic work.

The photographs were amazing and the commentary was enthralling, thankyou Alex for a great evening to conclude 2023.

Karen entertained us for over an hour with a huge variety of sunsets, sunrises, rainbows and misty mornings. From sunshine and rain to snow or frost, there was a Peak District photo to captivate the audience. Occasionally there would be photos of seascapes, particularly at sunset and these were often in places Karen has walked and camped in Scotland. This website cannot do justice to the wonderful evening so I’ll just say “thankyou Karen” on behalf of the audience.

With the chair and the programme secretary unavailable for the meeting, committee member Margaret gave out the notices:-

5 places left on the portrait night, email : keithbrownfrps@btinternet.com or phone 01433 621072;

November 9th our presenter is Karen Frenkel;

A month left to sign up and pay for the winter meal (23rd November).

Our second presenter was Wayne Hallam who gave us photographs on 3 distinct themes.

Another committee member, closed the evening with a warm thankyou to our 2 presenters and a well deserved round of applause.

The Anniversary meeting began with a brief history of the society written by founder and President Ray Fowler (unfortunately not well enough to attend) read by Keith Brown.

Following the introduction and brief history of the clubs origins we were pleased to have a presentation by Honorary Life Member and Guardian Photographer Denis Thorpe.

Many of you will know that Denis donated a print of his well known photograph “Ribble Head Viaduct” as a raffle prize to help raise money for the society. In a remarkable piece of “happenstance” the winning ticket belonged to Ray Fowler!

Another of the photographs that Denis used to introduce his presentation was taken in 1954 of a young racing driver (Roger Thorpe) seen below both in the car and sat enjoying the presentation.

Three important founder members of the society were also present for the anniversary, thankyou Sheila, Norman and Hazel.

Hazel was nominated by Sheila and Norman to say a few words and then Norman joined Hazel to cut the celebratory cake.

An equally important part of the evening was a presentation by Roger Moore all about the origins of the Year Book. First begun in 2013 the year book has evolved from the first manually assembled copy to its current sophisticated digital format assembled by Roger and then printed by Blurb.

Another part of the evening that was almost as important was the “cake break” with a chance to mingle and chat. Many thanks to Margaret and Keith for all the organisation that went into making the evening a success.

Our Chair Ann started the meeting with a big thankyou to Keith Brown who is standing down from the committee in 2024. Keith has been a very active member for 20 years and carried out key roles throughout that time. Currently Keith is programme secretary which is a pivotal role in the society and to that end he already has an outline for the 2024 programme, furthermore he is offering to work alongside the new post holder for 2024. Hopefully by January a new programme secretary will have taken up this generous offer of help and guidance.

In the coming months there are numerous events for members;

Monday August 14th will see members exploring Bugsworth Canal Basin (meet 6pm) with the possibility of a chat and a pub meal afterwards.

Saturday September 9th is our coffee morning in Hope Old School, the exhibition (currently in Bradwell Church) will be on display, hot drinks, cake and a raffle will also feature. If you can provide a cake or a raffle prize please email Margaret@Drabble.org.uk

Thursday September 14th will be the clubs 20th anniversary and we are hoping to have a Dennis Thorpe presentation as well as a talk by some of the clubs founder members. There will also be a display of photos from the many year books, the drawing of the winner ticket of the Dennis Thorpe print and of course plenty of refreshments with time to chat.

Thursday November 23rd we are holding a social gathering/celebration and supper in Castleton Methodist Hall with catering by Jo’s Pantry more details will be emailed shortly.

Guest Speakers – Judy and Mike Smith

Judy and Mike have been catching up on their travels post pandemic so they had a lot of fantastic photos from both hot and cold climates.

They also brought along some of their prints so that the members could see the images close up.

A lovely evening from two great photographers and very entertaining speakers

This is an annual event as many of you know and each year the members that turn up to take part are given an hour or so to take photographs on a particular theme. This year our chair asked them to take photos to convey the idea of TWENTY. Ann gave no other information (after all it is the club’s 20th anniversary) but asked that the participants arrive back by 8pm with 5 photos on their SD card ready to hand them over for collection and display.

After a cuppa and a chat everyone reassembled and each group of images was displayed in the order members had handed them in. After several viewings of each folder Ann asked on the next run through for a show of hands of each members favourite.

The collection that had the most votes belonged to Joan Clough (a round of applause and a box of chocolates were her reward).

Three venues at which a print of each photo is on display with it’s title:-

St Peters in Hope 24/6/23 to 1/7/23 St Barnabas in Bradwell 5/8/23 to 12/8/23 Village Hall Hope Saturday 9/9/23 only

General Category

Theme Category (Beatles)

This term we are setting a challenge for students at the Chorus Trust Schools.

Can you take a photograph that captures the idea of “Altered Reality”? The club used a similar theme (Impressions of Reality) for its exhibition in 2022 and you will find a link to some photos from club members below this introduction. Try and be imaginative and creative but what the club would most like from young photographers is to have a go. As this is a digital photographic competition it does not matter whether you are using a camera or a phone, the file size will have to be limited to enable us to upload the photos onto the website.

The club will evaluate all the photos and place them in one of three 3 categories – GOOD – VERY GOOD -EXCELLENT