AV News Magazine | Page 32

AV News 175 - February 2009 Great Yorkshire AV Weekend Tony Collinson & Bill Barr Bill - I am a member of Carluke Camera Club (go on get your map out or type ML8 into multimap) and my interest in photography is Audio Visual. I have often wondered what the standard has to be and what went on at an RPS Distinctions Day so I decided to take a trip to Bradford on Sat 22nd Nov. With over 4hours drive to get there I decided to go and make a weekend of it, arriving on Friday evening and staying until the Sunday when it finished. This was 'my first time' in Bradford and at a Distinctions/AV weekend. The distinctions days are normally run in conjunction with an AV day so on the Sunday you have another full day of Audio Visual entertainment. Tony - Saturday saw an entry of seven applications for distinctions, three for the Licentiateship and four for the Associateship. As always there were those who were successful and those who were disappointed. Three applicants achieved recommendation for the Licentiateship and one for the Associateship. The RPS distinctions chairman, Robert Albright presided over the adjudications and the panel of six (left) deliberated the entries. For anyone considering applying for distinctions these events are invaluable in gaining an understanding of the standards required by the panel. Bill - Each author's sequence is shown and the judging panel are taking notes. They then retire to another room to deliberate, and compare notes whilst the candidate whose sequences we had seen sits and sweats it out! Although I was only there viewing I could feel the tension and atmosphere for these candidates, waiting to see if they are going home on a high or a low. So when the next Distinctions day comes around, get yourself along to it, you will be seeing AV sequences at the top level. Tony - Sunday morning commenced with the retiring Regional Organiser, Stuart Clarke (right) recounting some of his experiences over the past years. Stuart was presented with the much coveted and rarely awarded Dobson Henry Medal by Keith Scott FRPS, National Chairman of the RPS AV Group as recognition of his 'Outstanding Contribution in the Audio Visual Medium'. Page 30