Georgette Grossman called this transition board meeting to order at 7 pm at the Dunn Loring Firehouse.

Members in attendance were:

Alan Goldstein Amy Dixon Andrew Fritz Benito Mayo Beth Morris Bob Friedman Brian Payne Ceasar Sharpe Colena Turner Dale Nelson

Dan Ward Fran Bastress George Lafko Georgette Grossman Ginger Werz-Petricka Jamie Kiechlin Jeff Hancock John Quigley Joy Brathwaite Kevin Egan

Kieu-Hanh Vu Melanie Marts Mike Whalen Sam Schaen Susan Phillips Tami Stieger Tom Brett Tom Pratuch Willa Friedman

 

Georgette explained the reason for this early transition meeting was due to her upcoming surgery. There will be another meeting in August for new board meeting serving in the coming year.

Georgette circulated a sign-in list, as well as one for board members’ contact information.

She explained that one of the meeting goals was to provide time for old board members to meet with new board members and discuss what worked and what did not work in their areas of specialty. She offered examples of good workshops, including the abstract workshop and expressed that “learning by doing” is a good learning tool.

Georgette listed some items for board members to think about over the summer. She asked others to discuss these over the summer, rather than decide on during this meeting:

• Themed competitions: should we keep them or not keep them?
• How should FotoFax be distributed and what should it contain? Are there things in it that we don’t want?
• Our database and how do we keep it current; for example, email addresses become out-of-date.
• We get younger members, but they come and go. What are ways to keep them and others new members who attend meetings?

ATTRACTING AND RETAINING NEW MEMBERS                                                                                      OPEN

The group discussed ways to attract members to NVPS, as well as how to retain them after they joined. Several individuals suggested that NVPS is not very welcoming as a group. Georgette suggested that the loss during the past year of four meetings due to weather and two more for Christmas and New Year’s was very disruptive to the membership.

Andrew Fritz and several other members spoke up in favor of NVPS utilizing social media for this purpose, given that Facebook users often are younger.

Ceasar Sharper spoke of listing group specialties on our website, such as bird photography; Melony Marts said this currently is being done on the website, although it needs updating.

Georgette spoke of wanting more pictures on the NVPS website of people interacting and having fun.

Jeff Hancock and Andrew Fritz volunteered to work on developing a meet-up type section on the NVPS website on which members could post places and times they would be going to shoot. This would be an attempt toward attracting young people—members as well as nonmembers.

To improve our attractiveness to newcomers, Tom Pratuch suggested that the fifth meeting in September be used as a new members’ night, at which signs are posted around the room—with subjects such as nature and macro—for attendees to collaborate with others. Coupled with this, it was suggested that we have a member resource table manned by mentors offering help with cameras and other photography related issues.

EOY BANQUET                                                                                                                                                       Open

A discussion ensued about how to attract more members to the end-of-year banquet. Some participants suggested that fewer people had signed up this year because there had been fewer competitions due to meeting cancellations caused by bad weather. Ginger Werz-Petricka and others recommended designing the banquet to be more than just about competitions. Ideas included having attendees bring a few pictures each to share, two pictures from each portfolio project submission, a few pictures from the members gallery, and having a speaker.[

NATURE VISIONS                                                                                                                                  John Quigley

The Nature Vision dates will be November 14–16, 2014. Submissions will be digital only (versus print) and are to be made during September. Judging will take place October 7–21. The accepted submissions will need to be printed for the Nature Visions exhibit.

The judges will be Mary Louise Ravese, Molly Issacs, and Alan DeFelice. Jim Steele will judge the Open Exhibit. There will be only minimal volunteer requirements; help will be needed only for Friday night setup and Sunday night takedown of photographs. August 1 may be the beginning of ticket sales, but it could be later.

The meeting closed soon after 9 pm.

 

Respectfully submitted,
Fran Bastress
NVPS Secretary/Historian

Approved July 25, 2014