Welcome to the NVPS's 46^th year!  I hope you all had a terrific summer, survived this unusually hot weather and had the opportunity to take many great photos. 

I am looking forward to seeing you all again and welcoming new members. We have many continuing and new volunteers as well as a terrific new board of both experienced and new members who have been all been working hard this summer lining up field trips, exhibitions, speakers, educational trainings/workshops, judges and our own members for nine months of learning and camaraderie.  

We will also be introducing some new initiatives in September (Welcome Committee and the Member Resource Program).  Natures Vision or MANPE (formerly Meadowlark) will be a huge photography event of the area camera clubs taking place at a beautiful new venue on November 13^th and 14^th.  John Quigley (Exhibits Coordinator), our NVPS point person and  Yulan Guo, Trinka Reddie and Angelique Raptakis have been working for many, many months on what will be our biggest event of the year. There will be many separate articles on these. Many thanks to all those that worked or are working to make these visions come to fruition. 

We had our transition (old board and new board) meeting on July 18^th followed by a pot luck barbecue at my house. A great time was had by all. Minutes of the board meeting will be available on the website.

Some changes were made last year to NVPS that I hope will enhance the membership experience.   

1) Competition rules were revamped - please read the new rules carefully before entering the September competition. Direct any questions to Bob or Willa Friedman. Please remember the two year rule (photograph must have been captured within 2 years of the competition date) when choosing images to submit.

2) Vice President of Operations is a new elected position on the board. Brian Payne will be serving in this capacity and will be responsible for the operations (facilities, equipment and technical) of our weekly meetings. He will need volunteers to help with lights, sound and other functions. This is a big job - please be sure to thank him and give him any help he needs.

3) Member Support - acknowledges member and/or family illnesses, deaths, and other life-changing events. Please let Gayle Dennis (Membership) and myself know of any members or families in need of acknowledgement.

On a very sad note we lost two of our members this summer. Our deepest condolences go to the families of Chip Clark and Ed Schwarz. Chip passed away very suddenly in his sleep and Ed had been hospitalized for several months with an infection.

The new Welcome Committee spearheaded by Gayle Dennis will help new members acclimate to the club and feel welcomed. The Workshops, Education and Training Coordinator Matthew Schmidt will oversee the new Members Resource Program that was conceived by and will be run by Tuan Pham and Melanie Marts.  You will be hearing a lot more about these two new programs in this issue and on the website. Both of these new programs will require a lot of volunteers so please help out where you can.

Jeff Namadan has joined with Scott Musson to make the NVPS website the best site around. They have all kinds of new ideas. Please check the website often for new content and take advantage of the myriad of opportunities to submit articles, photos, your achievements, etc.

OK, VERY IMPORTANT - COFFEE and COOKIES.  Curtis Gibbens with help from Beth Morrison made coffee and tea for us 2-3 times per month. Tom Brett and others brought cookies and snacks.

We are looking for a new coffee person to make coffee 2-3 times per month (excluding competition night). We have the coffee maker and donations pay for the coffee. It is just a matter of bringing the coffee maker and supplies and making it. Many people take advantage of this nice service so please, I need 1 volunteer to keep it going. Email me please or see me at the first meeting. We don't have a formal structure for cookies/snacks - we just rely on folks to bring things when they think of it. Please consider making cookies or buying some at the store when you do your normal shopping and surprise us!  

I want to personally thank the old and new boards, folks in the other volunteer positions, and the chair people and members of new committees for agreeing to serve. It takes a village to make NVPS the largest, most active, and respected club in Northern Virginia. We have a very talented and terrific membership and I am grateful for all of your time and support..

Tuesday, September 7 will be our first meeting of NVPS.  I look forward to seeing you all and welcome your feedback and ideas throughout the year. It is going to be a fantastic year - I can feel it!

Sandi Croan
President NVPS
pashli@nospamaol.com