Fall is definitely my favorite season. As I look out my windows each day I am in awe of the changing colors and hope you have been taking advantage of the many photographic opportunities that nature is providing us. 

One of my goals this year is to help create even more of a sense of "Community" within our club. We all share a love of photography and learning. Starting on November 10th, I will be starting a monthly "Members Community Dinner" at Chili's on the 2nd Tuesday ( WET -Workshop,Education,Training night) of the month for informal conversation on photography or just getting to know each other.  Please let me know (pashli@nospam!#*&^#)type address - don't copy spam protection(*@.@nospamaol.com) if you are interested in coming on November 10th at 5:30 ish. 

Thank you to all the board members, various committee members and volunteers for another terrific month of programs, workshops-education and training, competitions and members gallery/forum as well as coffee, equipment schlepping and set up, tech team support, newsletter, website, etc. It takes many, many volunteers to make our very active club run as smoothly as it does. I am proud to say that as of October 17th, we have 206 paid members in NVPS. Thank you, Gayle, for your magnificent smile and welcoming ways.  Also, thank you to the many members who go out of their way to talk to, welcome, and assist visitors and new members. We are getting new members almost every single week and I have heard from many that they joined our club because we went out of our way to make them feel welcome.

Thank you also to the Member Support Committee (Fred Chitty, Gayle Dennis, Emi Wallace, and Judy McGuire) for completing guidance on how the club should respond in times of illness and death of a member or their family. The completed guidance is posted on the website and in this issue of Fotofax.

Thank you also to the Competition Rules Committee (Sam Schaen, Scott Musson, Gerry Abbot, Bill Prosser, and me). We just put together and administered a survey to help us get started on the very difficult task of looking at our monthly competitions (rules, categories/classes, advancement, etc.). We are in the process of evaluating survey results and will get back to you all soon with the results and a meeting date where we can discuss it further. Please feel free to send any ideas, feedback to any one of us. We are all committed to serving our membership. 

Finally, I would like to remind folks that flu is now rampant in our area.  We have many members in fragile health who can ill afford to be exposed. Please, if you are not feeling well or even feel that you might be coming down with something - STAY HOME! We will miss you, but not your germs.

Happy fall!

Best,

Sandi Croan, President NVPS