In every June since the Tidewater Camera Club was founded in 1963, you could find members doing their own thing- same with July, same with August each year.  The Club closed down from June until September, until our members voted this April to move to a year round Club which opened the door to having summer Club sponsored activities.  Once you think about it, having a photography club active during the summer months makes all sorts of sense here on the shore.  The rest of the State spends the summer coming here to see the sights and enjoy some time relaxing- why would we want to shut down?  Some folks have summer homes here, and are only here during the summer. 

Newly elected Club Officers began planning  this June for a new club year that was already under way.  If you check out the Club Calendar page on the website, you’ll only find a few activities listed and only for this month, but we are just getting started, and other than members from last year, nobody yet knows about our change anyway.  Fun fact– have already  had more Club activity this June than in any other June for the past 60 years.  We are busy trying out how to have live in-person Club Meetings with Speakers and presentations and also make them available live via Zoom for folks who can’t make a meeting.  We have a group of ‘Digital Content Creators’ who are busy producing programs which we will be presenting on the 3rd Monday each month in the time slot where our Club Competitions used to be.  We tried this out last Monday, June 19 and had 32 people join us for our first two training topics.  Our Landscape & Wildlife Special Interest Group (SIG) still has meetings planned.  We plan to have an in-person Speaker Meeting on July 3 at 7pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Rt 50. 

We call ourselves a ‘member driven club’ which means that we are starting with a plan to make the Club relevant and valuable to members by scheduling activities that we think make sense, and which give members a chance to meet others and make new friends as well as have access to people with experience and willing to share what they know about taking pictures.  It also means that we will watch what members support through their attendance and listen to what types of programs they are interested in, and that will be what we work to grow more of as the year progresses.  For the time being, the Club website is the place to check for upcoming activities.  There is an outing just listed for July 6.  Members and previous members will get a newsletter in a couple of days with the information, but anybody checking the Club Calendar can find it there now.  It’s been a few years since any regular blog posts have appeared here.  We might even find a reason to start sharing things here again. Whatever our members find valuable will be on our radar…