Name and Objectives:

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The club shall be called the Caerphilly Camera Club (hereafter referred to as the Club) and membership shall be open to all persons who are interested in photography (still or moving images), subject to them being a minimum age of 12 years. If aged 12 - 16, then they MUST be accompanied by a Parent or legal Guardian, who will also need to be a club Member and pay the appropriate fee. Members who are aged between 12 and 16, will be granted a reduced cost of membership, which will be half of the current membership fee, but they will revert to the full membership fee when they reach the age of 16.

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The aims and objectives of the club are:

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• To encourage members of the community to develop photographic skills.

• Through photography, to give members the opportunity to meet and develop links with other groups.

• To encourage membership from disadvantaged groups, such as young persons and disabled persons.

• To be a non-discriminatory club with equal status for both genders.

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Membership:

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• It is incumbent on all members to conduct themselves in a manner that reflects well on the Club and that doesn’t bring the Club into any form of disrepute. Failure to do this will result in disciplinary procedures being implemented.

• Membership of the club implies the undertaking to comply with, and abide by, the rules of the club in its entirety.The Annual membership subscription shall be fixed for the following year at the Annual General Meeting and be payable in two equal instalments on 1st November and 1st April each year.

 

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Officers of the Club:

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• The Officers of the Club, shall consist of a Chairperson, Vice Chairperson, Honorary President, Honorary Secretary and Honorary Treasurer, to be elected annually, at the Annual General Meeting (or at an Extraordinary General Meeting, should the need arise).

• The affairs of the Club, including the monitoring of the adherence to the rules, shall be managed by a Committee consisting of Officers of the Club and four members, all elected annually.

• All Officers and Committee members are eligible for re-election each year, except that the Chairperson shall not be eligible to serve for more than two consecutive years.

• Candidates for election to membership of the Committee shall be proposed by one member and seconded by another, followed by a vote from the members present.

• The Secretary shall keep minutes of all meetings and administer all correspondence of the club (the exception being that the Programme Secretary is empowered to correspond with Judges and Guest Speakers). The Treasurer shall collect all subscriptions and monies due following authorisation by the members, at the Annual General Meeting. At the close of each year a set of accounts shall be drawn up by the treasurer and approved by the members at the A.G.M.

 

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Meetings, Procedures and Rules:

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• Special meetings (including Extraordinary General Meetings) may be convened on receipt of a written request, signed by at least seven Club members, stating the objective(s) of the meeting, and sent to the Secretary at least 14 days before the proposed date of the meeting.

• At Committee meetings, five members shall form a quorum and at Annual General Meetings it shall be seven members.

• A member may be expelled, or asked to resign from the club, at the discretion of the Committee. The Committee can formally (via a letter or email, sent by the Secretary) request a member(s) to appear before a Disciplinary Board (consisting of 2 or more Officers of the Club and 2 Committee members) and, where an accusation or charge is made, the member(s) shall be given the full and reasonable opportunity to put forward a defence and bring witnesses to that meeting. Any member expelled or asked to resign shall have the right of appeal to a Special General Meeting, called to deal with the stated issue(s). There will be only one opportunity for any appeal to be made. All committee proceedings, and those of any Special General Meeting or Disciplinary Board, called under this rule shall be treated as privileged and confidential.

• The names of any member, whose subscriptions are more than three months in arrears, may be removed from the membership list by order of the committee.

• A member may resign from the Club at any time by notifying the Secretary of their desire to do so. There will be no refund of any membership fee paid, either in full or part.

• In the event of the Club being disbanded, all remaining equipment and monies will be dispersed to other camera clubs, or similar organisations or charities, within the Caerphilly County Borough area.

• The Annual General Meeting of the Club is to be held on the second Monday of October, or as close to that date as possible. The financial year is agreed to end on 30th September each year.

• No alteration or addition to these rules shall be made other than at the Annual General Meeting or at an Extraordinary General Meeting, called in accordance with the first bullet point in this section.

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Competition Rules:

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• The Club runs monthly competitions for Digital Projected Images and Printed Images for some competitions. These are two different competitions, with points being allocated separately, and awards being made at the end of the year for each winner. The Club Programme of events will define when competitions include both DPI's and Prints.

• External Judges are invited to assess these competition entries and allocate points (from 0-20 where 20 is a high score) and to clearly identify which entry is accredited 1st, 2nd and 3rd places in each category (DPI or Print). The decision of the Judge is final and no challenge or adverse comment should be made to that decision, as that would cause some embarrassment to the Club.

• It is the responsibility of the Competition entrant, to ensure that a copy of any winning images (DPI and Print) is forwarded to the Webmaster, so that it can be added to the Club Website.

• There is a defined maximum size for both DPI’s and Prints, for competition eligibility, and these MUST be adhered to. Any submitted images that are over this size will be automatically removed from the competition, but will be eligible for entry to subsequent competitions, providing the size has been altered to comply with the defined maximum size. These are occasionally updated so the current maximum sizes, for both DPI’s and Prints, will be available on the Club website, which is:  www.caerphillycameraclub.com

• Any image can only be used once for any Club competition. If it has been entered for a DPI competition, it cannot then be used again in either a Print or DPI competition. This applies to similar images too. For example, in a burst of any number of images, one should be selected, modified to achieve what the Author considers to be the final image required, and that is the image that is entered in the Club competition – for one time only. All other images of that subject, taken at that location, on that particular day, may not be used for any other Club competitions. Neither will an image, that has been entered in a Club competition, assessed by a Judge and advice given on how to improve it, be accepted for entry to subsequent Club competitions, with those changes being adopted. Such advice is to help with future images, not to allow the image to be entered again in a modified form. Images that are taken from a totally different viewpoint, at the same location on the same day, are eligible for entry, but they MUST be significantly different to any other images that a member has used. It is acknowledged that this will be difficult to police, but it is expected that members will enter into the spirit of what is intended by this rule. Any image that is considered to be in breach of this WILL BE REMOVED FROM THE COMPETITION, FOLLOWING INVESTIGATION BY THE CLUB OFFICERS, and that member affected by this will be informed, via email. It is hoped that such action will not be needed.

• Whilst it is hoped that members of the Caerphilly Camera Club will improve their photographic skills and, therefore the quality of their images, it should be remembered that the prime aim is to keep it as a friendly and helpful Club for enthusiastic amateurs. These rules are set to try to maintain that ethos and to ensure a level playing field for all members, not to make it onerous or difficult. Help and advice is available at all times.

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Adopted and agreed by the club at the AGM on 15th October 2018