Stoke Poges Photographic Club meets on Thursdays in the Harding Room at Stoke Poges Village Centre, 7.45p.m. for an 8p.m. start.   Our membership is at present in the forties and covers a wide range of photographic skills from beginners to extremely good, and we usually have about 30 members at our meetings.    We try to achieve a good balance between competitions, lectures, practical evenings and social events during our season, which runs from September to the following May, and we always welcome any ideas for improvement.   We try hard to be “the friendly club”, so please don’t hesitate to ask if anything is unclear or if you have any concerns.  

Competitions can seem daunting at first to new members, but please don’t be put off.   Entries are divided into “Advanced” and “Intermediate” level, and the intermediate level welcomes entries from complete beginners as well as those with some experience.   Judges are impartial (they do not know who has entered which piece of work), and the aim is to provide constructive comments to help you and others to improve your technique and pictorial skills.   Committee members and other club members will also be only too pleased to be asked if they can help in any way.   We do not expect to see masterpieces from new members, so even if you think your images are not good enough for competitions, do put them in and see – you might be pleasantly surprised.   However, the final decision on whether or not to enter is entirely up to you.

At present in our club competitions we cater for print, slide and digital workers, though, in common with most photographic clubs, members are increasingly moving from slides to digital images.

In the wider photographic world, the club participates in external competitions with other photographic clubs in the area.   This is of great value in keeping us in touch with standards and trends outside the confines of our own club.   Members who attend the external competitions find that they learn a great deal from them and gain a lot of enjoyment.

We hope you too will enjoy becoming a regular club member.   Many members have been with us for some years, but new members are essential to help keep the club programmes fresh, and are an invaluable source of new ideas.   We also hope you will find a lot of pleasure from increasing your photographic skills through participating in our programmes, but just enjoying the work of others can be very rewarding too.

If you are interested in joining, and we very much hope you do, the fee is £50 for a single member, and £75 for joint membership (e.g. father and son, husband and wife).

We do hope this gives you the information you require and answers any questions you may have.