P3D clubs!

[John Baird <jbaird@xxxxxxxxx>]

All this talk about clubs got me to thinking again about starting a 3-D
club here in Kansas City. If any of you folks are in this area and are
interested in helping or just attending, e-mail me at jbaird@xxxxxxxxx .

Doc Tee put out the call for ideas on the club subject and here's mine!!
I've been chairman of K.C. Metro Photographers Association for ten years
now and think this qualifies me to add my two cents worth on this
subject! We started in 1987 with four key people. We divided the offices
up amongst ourselves and began meeting once a month just to plan
activities (gen. meeting, field trips, workshops & ect.). This extra
meeting got to be more trouble than it was worth and graduated to me
just calling these people just before I wrote the newsletter to figure
out what we wanted to do that month. We've continued this "seat of the
pants" planning to the present and it works OK. Sometimes we plan ahead
a month or two but that's rare.  

After being a group for a year we decided to hold elections for new club
officers. No one came forth and the membership voted to retain the same
people. We tried this again the next year with the same results so since
then we just havn't bothered with a change of officers. 

For five years I wrote the newsletter and mailed it myself until one of
the original people became a computor nut and volunteered to take over
these duties. (Thank God, cause I was about burnt out!) Of the original
four people only we two are left. Now I'm co-chairman and Rod is also
co-chairman and treasurer and editor of the newsletter. I continue to
write about one third of the newsletter to take the total load off him.
Rod has also created a web page for us which you can find at:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/5460 ,if you're interested.

Over the years we've experimented with several formats for meetings and
field trips and have finally developed a system that works very well for
us. We have meetings and field trips/workshops monthly. Our newsletter
comes out just a week before meetings to help folks remember to come.
Field trip is the first saturday after meeting, again to help improve
attendence. We get 30 to 40 folks at meeting and around 10 on the trips.
Activities at meeting depend on a quarterly schedule we've devised to
keep up interest. 

Rod and I start each meeting by scanning the news letter for upcoming
events and skip all that Robert's Rules of Order stuff. We open it up
for a short discussion time by members before moving into the featured 
presentation.

The first month of the quarter we feature a guest speaker (usually a
local pro or art photographer) which is given an hour to speak and show
work. After a break (with member supplied drinks and snacks) we move
into a member's "show and tell" starting with prints (hung on a screen)
and then end up with a members slide show. We limit the number to five
prints and/or slides. Meetings last 2 to 2.5 hours.

The second month we feature one of our own members as guest speaker (who
gets space in that month's newsletter) to talk about and show work.
After break we do our normal "show and tell". 

The third month we do our Quarterly Photo Contest. (We found early on
that having photo contests monthly was a big pain and for a long time
had no contests until enough people expressed interest in doing this.)
We have the winners of the previous quarter's contest be the judges and
they are inelligible to enter that quarter. (They've had thier winning
photos up on our web page for three months.) We keep the print contest
requirements to a minimum (at least 5x7 prints unmounted) and have the
slide contest after break. Then if we have time we'll do "show and tell"
for folks that brought work not pertaining to the contest subject.
(We pick the four subjects at year beginning by member consensus.)  
 
Basically, this is what we've learned over the years works for us, not
to say we can't change and will evolve! I hope so! I've wished I could
magically turn all my members into 3-D nuts and then have an instant
STEREO camera club, but it looks like I'll have get a whole new group of
people! I have a couple of folks interested enough to do cha-chas and
getting (or making) 2x2 slide viewers. I'm thinking as I write this 
and am wondering if I could or should start a STEREO division within the 
club!! Hmmm! How about Kansas City Metro Photographers & Stereographers
Association??  Hey! I like it!!!   We'll see!!!

Ok! This only took me three hours to compose and write!! Thanks for
taking the time to read it! I don't know how Doc Tee does it! He must
know how to type!! 

John Baird


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