It was on April 8, 2015, that I, Diane deGonzague, assisted Anuva Swift with a Photography workshop at the Edinburgh Museum. Later the curator, who was filling in for Anne, and I started talking about the idea of starting a photography club in Haldimand. 

She helped me develop a flyer and did some advertising through the museum about a public meeting to see if there was enough interest to develop a photography club for our area.  She also allowed me to use the museum’s booth at the Caledonia Fairgrounds to hand out flyers and promote the idea of a club. That meeting took place in October 2015. The curator from the museum and the president of Haldimand Art Works were our guest speakers informing us about the local art community, and one of our models, Alex, joined us.

At the meeting, I had attendees fill out a survey of what they wanted from a photography club, personal information, and interests. From that I was able to establish a range of ages, interests, and availability in order to select the best meeting day and time, and topics for speakers, workshops, and photo events. I think we had 12 people attend, which was enough interest to start a small club. 

I had also established a lot of contacts through my courses at Mohawk College and other photo sites, and photo clubs, which included several ladies who expressed an interest in wanting to model for a photography club. These ladies became our volunteer club models!

I met with executives from 3 of the other photography clubs in southern Ontario to establish a structure for our club and partnership. My vision was to have a club without competition. I wanted a club that would make photography fun, informative and supportive. 

I started asking photographers, whom I knew of, to put on workshops and be speakers for our meetings and started booking them for 2016. One of those photographers was Paul Iacoviello, He agreed to put on a workshop on the Legalities of Photography and a Lighting workshop and advised me in developing all our legal forms. 

I established a club membership price of $70 a year and opened a business account at the Credit Union in Cayuga. I also developed membership cards. Membership fees covered speakers, events, rental fees, some workshop fees, entrance fees and our Christmas party. 

I was in contact by email with the members who had expressed interest, and we formed an HPC Advisory Team, consisting of Anuva Swift, Richard Killey, George Novakovich, Paul Iacoviello, Dave Erauw and myself. 

The curator of the museum had gained permission to allow us to have the meeting room for free, until the original curator returned to her duties, which is when I went in search of an affordable venue for the meetings and decided on the Caledonia Fair grounds. She helped with advertising the club and I put notices in the Haldimand Press, and made it known on local photography sites and the other photography clubs,that a new club was forming. 

Molly Stroud set up our Facebook page for us, and Richard Killey began work on creating a web page for us. 

So, on January 14, 2016, with the help of our Advisory Team and new members, we held our first Open House at Edinburgh Museum. Members paid for membership fees and signed waiver forms. Molly Stroud brought the coffee and snacks. George Novakovich and myself hosted the meeting, George collected for the 50/50 draw. Jill from the Design House and a Framer from the area talked to us about Printing and Framing Your Photography. We had 37 members join us!

We had Club Rules!

Rule #1 The HPC is all about FUN!

Rule #2 This is YOUR CLUB!

Rule #3 Be Respectful!

Rule #4 If you have any Concerns, Complaints or Criticisms. See all of the above!

And so with the help of everyone, our club began! 

Members were encouraged to create photo events for us and become ‘Point Persons’ for those events, plus invite their contacts to become speakers and put on workshops. The club was very member driven. We did not want an executive hierarchy. But, as the club grew, we needed to create more structure. 

Richard Killey led a waterfall hiking group. Robert Irvine posted Facebook photography challenges for us, and education material. Anuva Swift put on the Beginner’s Workshop. Dave and Gord created many photo outings, along with all our members. I basically took on the role of club coordinator, treasurer, event scheduler, model Coordinator and Memberships. These roles were later picked up by other members as our club developed.

We had a few other ideas, like re-creating historical photos of the area. Kim Spurr coordinated this, and we met with the curator at the Cayuga museum.

We also tried to develop a photo book of club photos called “Bridges of Haldimand County.” I met with Mark Zelinsky, who was going to assist us in getting it published, but we didn’t get to that point with it. 

Besides the Facebook HPC page, I created a the HPC Models and MUA page. This was an area where our models could sign up and volunteer for events that they wanted to attend, communicate with each other and add other interested models and Makeup Artists. In turn for their time, our members would send them images from the shoots. The HPC models and MUAs are a unique feature of our club, and often attend our photo shoots. 

We also developed a “Display and Sell” Committee, who’s role was to communicate with the local museums, galleries, art shows, fairs, photo contests, newspapers and magazines in order to create venues for our members to display and sell their work. 

During our first month, we were very busy! Besides our monthly meeting, Anuva led the Introduction to Photography workshop, we began the Photo Book Group, an outing to Ruthven Mansion, along with 1 model and 1 MUA. In return for the privilege, our members created images for Ruthven to use. We also went to Tiffany Falls.

The next month, we began our Display and Sell Group, our Photography Events planning group, our monthly meeting by Paul Iacoviello on Legalities in Photography. We had a 2 photo shoots at horse farms in Cayuga, and Bert Pierre opened his home studio for us for model shoots. 

And these were the early beginnings of a GREAT PHOTOGRAPHY CLUB!!