Dear members

​You may have received an email from Graeme James concerning the Photo Rally Competition.  As President of the Club, I feel it necessary to provide some background and a response.

After the Photo Rally Competition images and results were posted, Graeme scrutinised the entries in the competition, and then raised the matter of the consistency of judging with some of the Committee members.  In response the Committee carefully re-examined the entries that had been rejected and those entries that had been identified by Graeme that were in his opinion also in contravention of the competition criteria.  The Committee reaffirmed that the entries that had been rejected contained prominent elements that were outside of the rally boundary, including the image cited by Graeme in his email.  The Committee also concluded that the images he had identified did not contain out-of-bounds elements that were so prominent that rejection was justified.  The Committee therefore decided that the Photo Rally Competition results should stand.

Graeme does not agree with the Committee’s decision and has unfortunately decided to broadcast his opinion to the general membership of the Club with a proposal that the competition results be voided.  It is my view that this is not consistent with due process in the Club, nor how membership grievances should be aired and resolved.

The Committee has been elected by the membership to run the Club’s affairs, are volunteers and give freely of their time in discharging their duties.  Any member may raise any matter with the Committee and the Committee will engage respectfully to carefully examine and resolve matters raised in consultation with the member.  It is the Committee’s hope that the member respects the decision so taken, whether or not the member agrees. Any member is also free to nominate for election to the Committee at the Club’s AGM, which is held every November.

This Club has come a long way in developing its photo competitions, and the way they are run.  There have been and will continue to be imperfections in competitions from which we have and will continue to learn and improve.  Members’ input and respectful discourse on all matters are welcomed.  This competition will also be learned from and further improvements will be made by the elected Committee in due course.

Kind regards

Nancy Morley

President