Board Meeting Sept 26, 2024
Silver Spring Camera Club Board Meeting
Location: Zoom Meeting
Start Time: 7:30 , Adjourned: 8:55
Attendees: Catherine Honigsberg, Miriam Struck, Norm Bernache, Bruce Schaefer Dennis Freeman, Lisa Auerbach, Sherm Edwards, Kay Carkhuff, Pete Morton, Will Rabinovich, Gerry Woods
Not in Attendance:, Marc Auerbach, Frank Gallagher, Michael Koren,Diane Sanders Tanya Riseman, Bob Catlett, Phil Boyer, Owen Epstein, Jim Riley
Guests: n/a
Secretary: The minutes from last meeting were read.
Vice President: Nothing to report other than the audit to be done with Frank.
Treasurer:
- Audit (Dennis & Frank) TD
- Bruce reported dues and donation taken in and expenses. We are ahead this month. Income to date is $3,696.00, Expenses to date is $1,407.00, Current operating profit $2,289.00, Current Bank Balance $8,275.00
- The Board discussed the possibility of running hybrid meetings. New equipment is needed for projecting images especially if we do hybrid meetings. A new lightweight screen is needed. We need someone to measure and order it.Bruce can get the dimensions and then the screen can be ordered. The Board authorized the purchasing of a new screen. Will is also looking into purchasing a new projector.
Cable Release: Sherm reported that Tanya is doing the Cable Release for October
Field Trips: Phil and Owen were not present to report on the next event. TBA
Website, Meetup, Facebook, Twitter: Social media. Gerry reported that the Facebook group has 64 members. The group is 8 years old. He looked at the list and asked if everyone in the group are still members of the club and asked if the list could be checked for current members. Concerns with bots was discussed. The posts are checked and approved by Gerry before they go live.
MPA: Lisa moved that we donate money to charities that MPA sponsors. It passed
Competition: Kay reported that the September competition went well after the changes that was approved by the Board last year.
- Sherm wants to discuss possible revision of points assignments for levels. Current level assignments are based on projected and printed images. His spread sheet will be shared with Kay and sent out to members for verification and general information. The recalculation effects 7 members. Apologies to those “slighted”.
- Lisa wants to discuss limiting discussion time. She made a suggestion to run competitions more time efficiently.
- Turn up the mike so the judge can be heard. We need additional amps. Pete will look into additional lapel and handheld mics and report next month.
Photo Forum: We replaced the image sharing with photo critiques for September meeting. October will have image sharing, 3 presentations.
Other Topics:
- New Database Committee
- Tanya emailed a summary for Dennis to read * (see attached)
- Feedback/critique groups update: Received positive feedback from users. Committee with be reconvened to go over the process.
Action Items:
Purchasing Screen, microphone and speakers after measurements are confirmed. $200. was allocated for it.
Donation to MPA charities confirmed.
Membership is up from last year.
Next board meeting is changed to October 30 (Wednesday) due to Halloween.Send out invite on the 30th.
* Tanya summary of New Database activities:
Report from the Records/database sub-committee:
We have narrowed down the “style” of a future approach for keeping entry records to two approaches.
The first, most familiar option is an Excel/Google Drive hybrid. We are awaiting more information from the Gaithersburg Camera Club which does it this way. It would require a super-user Excel expert(s) in the club who can write macros (coding short programs)., etc. This would be “free” as long as the people involved each subscribe to MS Office for $70/year.
The second approach is the “no-code”, modern program AIrtable, which would require manager(s) who are comfortable with middle-school math, using icons and single-line functions. Airtable is usually used for small business applications and the database can be viewed like a spreadsheet (not totally wild). It is more nimble than Excel. This will cost $255 per year including tax. Alternative copy-cat programs aren’t as good, can’t produce report PDFs, and are not necessarily cheaper.
As well, we are just starting to explore possible ways to store winning images connected to the records database. This is project creep at this point, as the board has not considered whether we want to expand the record-keeping this way.