Croydon Camera Club History: 1890-2000
Preface Introduction The Club Foundation 1809 Soiree 1899 Movies Member Prestige Council Meetings 1903 Founding President Mees Years 1904-12 The Great War Between The Wars Recorded Years Riots! Police! 1931 Edridge Road, 1932 1932 Nudes Ladies and Exhibitions Club Room eviction The Studio: 1933 Cine! Ladies! 1934 Highs and Lows, 1936 A/V, Stag Party, 1937 Freemasonry 1938 Baird Television 1938 War! 1940: Bombed ! Annual Report 1940-41 Making Do 1941 War Ends 1942-5 A War Retrospective Ladies? 1946 Ladies Admitted 1947-8 35mm Slides arrive Struggling 1949 SLF Out! 1949-50 Troubled 1950 Outings 1951 Winter Season 1951 Celebrations Mees Visits Croydon 1955 1956 Nonexistence 1957 1958-1959 1960 More Success 1961 The Darkroom 1961 Frivolity 1962 All Change 1963 1965-1967 Exhibitions 1967 Photeurop 1968 Photeurop 1969 Years 1970-1972 Terra Nova Years 1973 Years 1974-1975 19 Selsdon Road Years 1977-1979 Changes 1980 Friends Meeting House Close the Club 1983 Progress? 1984 Turnaround? 1985 Years 1987-1988 Slow Revival 1989 About Club Outings The Helpers Postscript
At the AGM on 28th May 1952, the membership stood at 142 with President and Treasurer re-elected and A. J. Williams elected Secretary. A. Friese Greene was made an Honorary Member. All members would have to be responsible for making newcomers welcome as no one person stepped forward to act as "Host" which had been a recommendation from the floor.
This is a classic situation repeated many times in Club life — everyone agrees something should be done but no-one is prepared to do anything about it. That the suggestion of leaving a welcome to be provided by members was to become meaningless will be seen later as the matter is to be raised again and again.
On 25th June a celebration took place to mark the distinction of FRPS to H. G. Trodd (joined 26 April 1938), who was presented with an iced cake and in return pushed the "boat out". It became the custom henceforth for the last FRPS to present a cake to the next FRPS and this happened in rapid succession to Sam Allard in 1958 and Chris Corn in 1962.
A problem arose at the CA Annual Exhibition in 1952 when a print from Bedford Lemare, entered by D. J. Bayley, "Centre Feature of a Reredos" received a Certificate and had then been entered for the CA Exhibition for which the Club had obtained permission from Bedford Lemare. The print was however reproduced in the RPS Journal for August and Bedford Lemare was extremely annoyed as the Entry Forms were clearly marked that reproduction was forbidden. Croydon asked the CA to get the RPS to intervene with a diplomatic letter to assist the Club in restoring cordial relations with Bedford Lemare, but the CA replied it had no intention of doing so, but proposed to write to Bedford Lemare. Eventually the matter was resolved but the Club considered the handling of the matter by the CA secretary left much to be desired as to efficiency, courtesy and honesty.
Access to CA records of the time shows that on 19th September 1952 the complaint from Croydon was noted but there was no instruction to reply either to the Club or to write to the RPS as suggested. Instead the CA changed its Exhibition Rule to give them "the right to reproduce any photograph in the RPS Journal or any CA publication". No wonder the Club were cross with the CA.
The Club administration seemed to be on a more positive footing and the commencement of the Winter Session in September 1952 saw a large number of prints being entered in competitions supported by big attendances, so much so that the Secretary felt unable to handle the competition as part of his duties and a Competition Secretary was officially appointed. Further, the Secretary said the present system of having only a Preliminary Section and an Advance resulted in unfavourable comments being made on the standard of the Advanced workers. It was agreed that henceforth the three classes would be Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced, which latter section would be of ARPS standard or equivalent.
It was in this part of the year that Sam Allard joined (5 November 1952) and together with Chris Corn (22 April 1948) B. Fillayson Bullock (30 July 1952) and John Hutchinson (13 November 1952), were to form a powerful and active group to join our new FRPS H. G. Trodd in the Advanced section, whose consistent quality work was to be an inspiration to the Club for the next 10 years. They were instrumental in lifting the prestige of the Club's work to new heights, particularly in Portraiture.
In the Summer of 1952 members paid a visit to the past President John Keane, aged 86, and living in Cambridge. An unusual evening was 16th July when a Mrs Neale posed as a model for Portraiture and then sang some arias for members. Mr Spackman thereupon also sang "during which time members were again taking photographs of Mrs Neale". So much for "Spacky's" singing!
Minutes recording the Club weekly meetings now ceased.
Up until 21st April 1936 the Minutes of the previous meeting were read out the following week and signed by the Chair but ceased then for no given reason. However full records were still kept of every meeting and in the 1950s typed copies of the report were sent to the B. J. These ceased with the last on 25th June when the records reverted to hand script by the Secretary Aubrey Williams, whose last entry was for the Print Competition on 6th August. Whether anyone was aware that a record of the weekly meetings ceased is not known but after 62 years they came to an end.
What records were kept afterwards related now to Council meetings only as even the Minutes of Annual General Meetings have not been preserved.