Camberwell Camera Club

Overview 2009 - 2018

Camberwell Camera Club Inc.  was established as a community organisation in 1953. Local residents including John Kinnear, a solicitor and former Mayor of the City of Camberwell,Wilf Broadhead,  manager and part-owner of York Camera Centre and Howard  Joyce, who had an interest in community activities, conducted an informal meeting, after which an advertisement was placed in the local newspaper inviting residents to a meeting on 23 November 1953. Ten people attended the meeting and the Club was founded.  Under the guidance  of John Kinnear, Wilf Broadhead (also President  of Melbourne Camera Club and foundation president of VAPS), and Don lnchley, the new club quickly evolved, with a constitution and officers elected.    John Kinnear was elected President, Wilf Broadhead,  Vice-President, Frank Nestor Secretary and Don Inchley Treasurer. After three months, the membership had risen to 27 and by the Annual Meeting in November  1954 there were 39 members.

In 1954, the Club became a member  of VAPS  and was well represented  at the first VAPS

Convention in Healesville in that year.

Meetings

For many years, the Club has had two meetings  per month, held on the second and fourth Mondays.  Club competitions for prints and projected images are held monthly.  The Club invites an external photographer  to speak at its main monthly meeting and judge our monthly competition.

The Club has a series of active interest groups - Digital, Portrait, Audio-Visual.  It also runs regular informal Projected Image Nights, in which members  present a body of their personal work.

Twice each month, members are invited to attend mid-week outings to interesting exhibitions and locations, in conjunction with Melbourne Camera Club.

The Club used a room at the Camberwell Branch of the RSL for its meetings from 1985 -2014. In 2015, the Club started to use a room at the St John's Anglican Church at 552 Burke Rd, Camberwell for its meetings, which remains our current meeting venue.

Membership

From a first- y e a r membership of 39, the Club's membership gradually  increased to a total of

106 in 1958. Over the following few years it gradually decreased,  falling alarmingly to 33 in

2003. 2003. The increased popularity of digital photography saw this number quickly rise again to 72 in 2007 and around 110 in 2018.

Competitions

As noted above, the Club holds monthly competitions for its members. Our final meeting each year sees members vying for a series of Memorial and Perpetual Trophies.

The Club hosts an interclub competition each year, in which invited clubs participate. It also participates as an invited guest in interclub competitions hosted by other clubs and has an annual competition with an English photographic club (Leighton Buzzard), as well as actively competing in the VAPS interclub competition.

Office Bearers

The Club has a strong and active Committee that meets six times each year. Office bearers during the period 2009-2018 are shown below:

Other Notable Activities and Milestones

60th anniversary: In 2013, the Club celebrated its 60th anniversary.  To mark the occasion, the Club collaborated with the Camberwell Traders' Association to hold an exhibition of 120 of our members'  images in shop windows along Riversdale and Camberwell Roads in

the lower Camberwell Junction.

Annual Feature Speaker: In 2015, the Club initiated an annual feature speaker presentation night.  The initial speaker was renowned landscape  photographer Peter Eastway.   In 2016, award winning architectural photographer John Gollings was our annual speaker, while in

2017, Master photographer Tony Hewitt presented.

Shutterbugs: Since 1970, the Club has published a monthly newsletter which is now produced both as a published version and available digitally on the  Club's website.  The current editor is Phil Hankin, who took over from Matt Moore at the end of 2014.