AV News 177 - August 2009
MFFC AV Evening
J e ff M o rris APSSA
My club, Magalies Foto Fun Club of Pretoria, is strong in AVs, as you will see
from the results of our first salon (See Page 8) There are a couple of die-hard
slide workers and we don't cater for prints at club evenings. There is a
monthly digital image club competition and usually a 'social' evening when
we either have a hands-on practical or a talk by some expert. There are four
AV club evenings a year - likely to be increased soon. The second AV
evening of the year was held on the 7th May.
There were a couple of firsts, including the first time we have had a set
subject and the first time the proposed new PSSA judging system for AVs
was tested.
The winners of the set subject section and star levels were:
Set subject
Chicken Dance
Jacques Engelbrecht
One star
Foto's uit my album
Hannetjie de Lange
Two star
Three star
Four star
Namibia
Antarctica
Big Bang
Cathy Jonker
Annelise de Jager
Marthie Bredenkamp
Well done to all of you.
The evening started with an explaination of the proposed new judging
system. Four judges were then chosen from the audience as guinea pigs to
judge the AVs. As the scores were entered into the system, it became
apparent that there was a glitch in the formulas because everyone got COM
awards! Apart from that, the submission of AVs before the meeting, the
scoring and the calculation of results went very smoothly. The glitch in the
formula was quickly sorted out after the meeting, resulting in no COMs being
awarded and most AVs scoring a Gold award.
After some discussion, those present decided that the idea of having a set
subject was a good one, provided that enough warning was given to
members. The main reason for having a set subject was to encourage
participants to get out of their comfort-zones and do something new in order
to improve their AV skills. Therefore, the set subject for the AV evening on
6th August will be an advertisement for any product or service of choice. We
are looking for the most compelling advert - get the audience to go out and
buy the product or sign up for the service, even if they don't need it!
We are so jealous of AV workers in the UK (and not forgetting Ireland) with
their multitude of competitions, club evenings and training events throughout
the year. While it might be considered expensive to travel within Britain, the
distances are relatively short and gatherings of AV enthusiasts seem to be
very well attended, according to reports in AV News and the List of upcoming
events. There is also a large body of experts on whom to call for judging and
help. In South Africa, the pool of expertise is very small and widely scattered
from Cape Town to Pretoria, a distance of over 1,300km.
Page 42