2024 Photo Contest
Out of a discussion around fresh photos for our club website, the question arose; how best to get new pictures? We could just ask the members to send us new photos or even go out ourselves and taken some, but where’s the fun in that?
Instead, it was turned into a competition that would let the photographers in the club showcase their talents. To make things more interesting, I chatted to long term BMAC member John Bristow of Deluxe Materials, and between us, we came to an agreement that generously, Deluxe Materials would sponsor us to the sum of one hundred pounds worth of products split 5 ways.
Next, thinking caps on to come up with a format and a set of rules which we can introduce to the members at the February meeting. The idea was to have four categories', Action, Artistic, Events and Static, and a Chairman's Overall Choice. Each member could enter up to eight photos across the four categories.
Artistic Category Winners
Action Category Winners
The prize giving and winners would be announced at our October's club night. As an aside I proposed that if we had enough interest and good quality pictures, I would use them to produce a club calendar for 2025.
With all-in place there was little to do except, remind members to take their cameras to the year's events and wait for the entries to come in. By the October deadline we had 75 excellent entries from 13 members, with the action and artistic categories having the most pictures.
Static Category Winners
Events Category Winners
Octobers Committee meeting was one of the more entertaining meetings we've had, as we went back and forth through the pictures until we reached agreement as to the winners. The Prize Giving night was held the following week, where the top three from each group were awarded a certificate and John Bristow presented the 1st place winners their prizes.
Chairman’s Choice Award and Prize Giving
During that time, I had been busy putting together 13 of the best pictures into the 2025 calendar. It also came to light that our club was in its 65th year of formal existence, and as Deluxe Material are celebrating 50 years it seemed ideal for both of us to celebrate our anniversaries through this calendar.
In total we took 30 orders for the BMAC calendar, which helped reduce the printing costs, allowing us to make a small profit for the club funds.
Roy Thompson
BMAC Events Officer.