Hi everyone!
Can't believe another year has begun already but here we go for the second decade of this century. This is the time of the year for renewal and re-evaluating where our lives and businesses are going. This is also the time for renewal to your association. The new board has met just a few days ago and brainstormed to get some new ideas and projects going. The list is very long!
This is a transition year because we are changing from a fall convention to a spring event. We are the last of the western provinces to make that change but feel it is for the best. A few of us think it would have even been better if it was never switched to fall many years ago, but that is water under the bridge. Because of this change, we plan a slightly different strategy to deliver education and services to you, the member this year.
Next month, we will launch our first New Members course which will be held at Marlene Fast's studio in Mitchell, MB. We are working hard at this moment to secure a very high profile speaker for a major educational event, roughly in the April timeframe. Because we had many members last year who were not able to make it one day or the other at our two-day convention, and because of the additional costs of running that kind of show, we plan to do a couple full one-day programs at different times of the year instead. We will be offering the best pricing we can for this event for members. Non-members will be able to sign up also, by paying a fee that will be determined, that will cover their membership for the year as well as the educational event. This is the way that WPPI has run their convention for many years. The first full day event will be run no matter what but we plan a second large full day event this year in the fall, that will happen on either a Sunday or Monday so the most people will be free to attend. The second event will be run like a business, with an advance booking "drop dead" date which means that without firm committments from enough members to support the event we will not run it. It is time that we need to run our association like a business and this is just one small step in this process. We also plan some smaller educational events and social events to round out the year that we will publish as soon as we possibly can! We would like to reach out to the photographic community that are not currently members to some social events that will hopefully encourage them to become members. There are plans to deliver some webinar content, to replace the website with a new shiny one that will have the ability to post video tutorials and much more. We will connect via Twitter and Facebook on this site.Certainly we realize this is a lot to bite off this year but I believe this overall plan will give our members great value for their membership dollars and we'll work very hard to make it happen. This will be the year of "Just Do It!"..
There will be some behind the scenes work that will need to be done this year as well. As you know, PPOC nationally has been working hard to restructure and harmonize the various regions of the country. In that same direction, our association is making changes that will make our whole national body more consistent. Our membership category titles will change to be in line with everyone across the country this year. There won't be any status change, but as an example, an RPP will now be an Active member of PPOC and PPOC-MB. You will probably notice some of those changes already on your membership renewals this year. We are going to work hard to get our by-laws re-written to follow in line with the national direction wherever possible as well.
There is one other challenging issue on the table this year with regard to the Image Salon. As per our discussion at the AGM, it was clear that we cannot afford to run a full nationally recognized Affililiate judging on our own. We could potentially lose thousands of dollars doing this. We are changing from a fall to spring "convention" along with the rest of the country so there will be no one to share the costs of running an image salon later in the year. That means we have to do it early in the year. Saskatchewan is actuallly facing the exactly same dilemma in the same timeframe this year. This factor likely influenced the relatively low entry we received from Saskatchewan at the judging held in October. One of the ony places we could get our images judged would be at the Saskatchewan/Alberta Symposium this year that starts in the last few days of February. This clearly is too close for some to prepare a new set of images for salon. If that means that the number of entries from Manitoba in the Sask/Alta show is lower than we had in October, it would not meet minimum requirements for the number of photographers competing for Photographer of the Year (miinimum 15) for example, which would not have a good effect on the credibility of that major award. I will be sending out a form to the entire membership shortly after I finish this to ask you, the members whether you want to proceed with an Image Salon this year, or skip this year and hold the next judging in the spring of 2011. There has been some concern expressed after the AGM about this and that is why we are asking the question. This is one decision that should be made democratically by the members of the association instead of just the board.
Once again, I have rambled on long enough so I will end this message to the members now. To all of your who have not yet renewed your membership, I ask you to do so as soon as possible. As a united force our association can achieve great things an individuallly you can benefit in so many ways that I do not have space to articulate here. Finally, if you have any concerns or questions, please feel free to contact me at my email address ken.frazer@gmail.com and I will get back to you quickly. I wish you all the best in the New Year along with great success in your life and businesses.
sincerely, Ken Frazer MPA, F.Ph.
President PPOC-MB
