Message to members. I hope that you are coping through these very difficult times. This really is a unique circumstance we are all dealing with, and our hope is that this health crisis will end sooner rather than later. To those working in essential services or with family doing so, you have our deepest respect and gratitude.

As we know, the keys to protecting ourselves from the virus are to stay at home and when we must go outside, to keep a physical distance of at least 2 meters. However, medical experts also emphasize that it is critical to maintain social ties with friends and family. To that end, there are some really helpful video conferencing tools that we can use to maintain these ties, and I encourage you to use them with your own family and friends.

As a club, we also see video conferencing as a powerful tool to continue delivering club activities. For example, we recently held our APC executive meeting via video-conferencing, using the Zoom app as the tool of choice. I was quite impressed with its features and we were able to meet for over 2 hours. The app allows video-conferencing for up to 100 people, allows for presentation packages to be profiled, and allows for conversation among all participants. There is also no charge for members to participate. Based on our success with Zoom, we agreed that we would use Zoom as our primary tool to continue to deliver the activities of the club until we are able to once again meet face to face.

We see strong opportunities for the Club activities with Zoom. It looks like we can hold engaging presentations as well as healthy dialog all online. So, we are going to press on to share and interact online.

To that end, we have planned a number of club activities to be delivered using the Zoom app., including the following:

• Our monthly members’ meetings to be held at our regularly scheduled times (next meeting is on Tuesday, April 28 at 7:00 PM).
• Regularly scheduled classes/tutorials, hosted by Michael Willems and Peter Gatt.
• Sharing February 2020 clinic results. You have already submitted your photos for the photo clinic and we will schedule a Zoom session for April 9 to highlight scoring and judges’ feedback on each image.
• Our Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Tuesday evening, June 23.
• Our annual Print competition will proceed as a Digital competition. More details will follow but we will be asking for your submission by May 3 and will disclose the entries and winners at our May 26 members’ meeting

Other club activities will also proceed as planned including:

• The annual O3C Open Challenge will proceed, with 37 clubs expected to participate. Your entries will be required by May 17.
• We also encourage everyone to keep visiting our Club member meet-up site and to continue participating in the weekly photo challenge. Given the difficulties for many to get out, we are inviting you to submit either new or archived photos in each weekly category.

We encourage you to take part in as many of these club activities as possible and I think you will enjoy using Zoom. We will follow up with additional details regarding Zoom and each of our sessions.

Regarding next year, it is difficult to say whether everything will be back to normal by September, but we are committed to continue with club activities regardless of the circumstances.

I am really looking forward to seeing you all again at our April monthly meeting, with more details to follow.

Regards John Stager APC Club President

Membership inquiries can be email to APCinquiries at gmail dot com