June Group Meeting-AGM-Plus.

Monthly Group Member Meeting-Wednesday 24^th June-2015-7.00 till 9.00pm

The meeting in June will commence at 7.00 pm PROMPT, with the first groups Annual General Meeting, followed by the normal break for refreshments at 8.00 pm.

There will be NO-CHARGES for attendance at the group AGM.

Member’s, will have the opportunity to meet the group committee and ask any further questions they may have about the group, and help by providing any suggestions to improve or enhance the present ways in which the group operates.

We would like as many members to attend the meeting as is possible, to ensure we have everyone’s input to what is being planned by the group, and that any input provided enhances the current format, to ensure this continues successfully into the future.

This will be the last monthly group meeting at the Willowmere-Middlewich, before the Summer break in July and August, re-starting in September, date TBA. However, we plan to have a number of local instructional photo outings during July and August. Watch the group Web Site ( www.watch-it-and-c.co.uk) for details of these increasingly popular outings.

Following the group meeting we plan to have a curry meal at a local Middlewich restaurant where all are invited. Members wanting to attend the meal should make contact with Cliff Astles, using the group e-mail of 21stctncg@gmail.com.

Number of seats / places may well be limited at the restaurant, so please make sure you book early, requesting number of places required. Members will be required to pay for their own food and drinks.

Cliff Astles

Group Chairman.

News about the website! A message from the Webmaster (Mel Smith)

As part of the move to the website, the details of the next meetings and assignments are going to be displayed on the website rather than on the blog. There will be a link to the correct website page on the Facebook events page, but we hope that as you use the website more you will get used to where to find it.

The intention is that, whenever possible, the information will be available on the 19^th of the month. Occasionally, when there is a special event, such as the North Wales Tour, this will appear early to allow for booking time.

Consequently, the 19^th of each month will be the date on which to expect updates to the website. There will be other updates of course, including those which happen automatically. At the moment these include the blog page (which is updated from Cliff’s Google + linked Blogger account) and the Twitter/Facebook feed (which is an automatic feed from the group’s Twitter and fb accounts).

We are looking into the use of a group Flickr account to update the gallery, provide the members’ photos for the slideshow and a source for the Independent newspaper to view and select photos for publication. The logistics of this is being considered by Brian and me at the moment. If you want to share any information can you please message me direct then I don’t risk missing the information on on the fb feed. This will all be officially proposed and discussed once we know it is a viable option. 

This is important, as we need to establish procedures for any members who can’t (or don’t want to) take up this option.  It is an important move for the group as it will reduce the amount of effort for both the organisers of the group and all of the members (No more re-sizing! Hooray!!)

So that all of the members are aware, there are two other major changes about to be dealt with on the website:

1)      The blog

At the moment comments are difficult to post because of the way the blog is distributed. I have started research into this and believe I have a solution. When this is in place (soon) I will inform you all. All members are welcome to submit a blog on a topic which they feel will benefit the group. Please contact Cliff to do this. It will involve you sending a Word (or compatible word processing) document containing the blog to him via email. Only expected submissions from known sources will be opened to avoid viruses etc.

2)      The forum

The forum has had two issues which we want to ensure are solved before we continue to use this particular application. Firstly, not all of the member sign in information was provided to us so we couldn’t identify who was joining the forum. This was an error in the application and we have recently been informed that they have solved the problem but I have not tested it to my satisfaction yet.

The second, and the more serious issue, was that it linked to member’s fb information automatically which potentially displayed far too much information to the wide world of the Internet. As the group does not want to be responsible for this we need to find a solution. Again, as soon as I have then we will let you know. We would like to use the forum as a means to provide Mal’s  photography Q&A (and more).

Mel Smith (Webmaster)

How to transfer large files.

We are currently considering using flickr for our website gallery and to share the monthly photos with the group at meetings. This should simplify things for everyone, more of this to be discussed soon. However, as mentioned in his latest post, Cliff requires the full resolution versions of some of your photos. I suggest you use WeTransfer ( https://www.wetransfer.com/ ).

This website allows you to transfer large (upto 2 Gb) files from one email to another. You fill in the details on the page and then upload the files. Cliff will get an email and he will be able to download the files. You do not need to sign up for the paid service 'WeTransfer plus' if you have more than 2 Gb to send in multiple files, just send them in 2 batches.

You may get asked about cookies. I can reassure you that I have been using this site for years and have had no issues with spam etc. (It does use Google analytics I believe, but then so does almost every site these days and no data provided through that is personally connected to you.)

Hope this makes things easier,
Mel