The History of the Wide Angle Photo Club, INC

The Wide Angle Photo Club informally began in 1988. A few interested Santa Rosa photographers — Rev. Curtis Joyner (Jay), Ray Worden (Bagdad), and Grady and Sharon Pitts (Milton) –met for the first time at Waffle House in Milton and decided to form a group in their area separate from another group of amateur photographers which met in Pensacola at that time.

The organization’s name, Wide Angle Photo Club, was selected by the founding members. Although there have been suggestions over the years to change the name of the club, the membership has kept the original title as an indication of their inclusiveness for all those who love photography.

The group began meeting on the second Monday night of each month in the community meeting room of the Milton Library on Alabama Street. Occasionally, the club met at the home of member Yvonne Carroll (who joined in 1992 and is still a member in 2009) on Avalon Boulevard in Milton during the mid- to late ‘90s if the library was unavailable. This sometimes happened if the key to the library room could not be signed out on Monday by a member before the library closed and returned the next day before the library re-opened, or if the meeting room was being used by another group.

The club became officially incorporated as a not-for-profit organization with the State of Florida as the Wide Angle Photo Club, Inc. in 1994. Articles of Incorporation were executed on February 24, 1994, and filed on March 3, 1994. The original member trustees for incorporation were Barbara H. Borders, Raymond O. Worden, Bruce E. Dolan, and Pamela Jil Jones.

Barbara Borders was the first president and registered agent of the incorporated Wide Angle Photo Club. Following her as presidents for varying numbers of one-year or partial year terms were Richard Pfeiffer, Suzanne Borges, and Jamie Amos (1995-2004); Walter Birks, Rusti Hobart, and George McMichael (2005-2006); Rafael Perez (2006-2008); and Cindy Schober (2009). The Bylaws were revised in 2006 to put more of the club’s business matters into the hands of a seven-member board of directors, leaving more time for the members attending the club’s monthly meetings to enjoy photographic activities.

At the suggestion of member Gwen Heller, the club changed its meeting place to the Pace Water System’s community room on Woodbine Road in Pace in 1998 to provide a more convenient and central location for its membership, which was about half from Santa Rosa and half from Escambia or Baldwin counties and growing. Membership around the year 2002 was about 40 people, with an average attendance of 15-25 per meeting including visitors. The club remained in Pace until the end of 2003. In October 2003, the water system asked outside groups to no longer use their facility at night, citing utility system safety concerns for Homeland Security in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the country’s northeast. The club’s last meeting at the Pace Water System was in November 2003.

For almost two years, 2004-2005, the club had no permanent meeting place. It tried meeting in a lecture hall at the Pensacola Junior College visual arts building for one semester, in Jamie Amos’ (the president’s) home south of Milton, and at the Village Inn Restaurant on Nine Mile Road, north of Pensacola. The restaurant location was the most difficult to use because of lack of a private room. Membership dropped to fewer than 20 members. Finally, member Hugh DeForest suggested borrowing a conference room in an office building at ARC Gateway on 10th Ave. in Pensacola in 2005. The club outgrew that room and moved into the Pollack Center at ARC Gateway in 2006 and meets there still.

The relationship the Wide Angle Photo Club has formed with ARC Gateway in Pensacola is tied to its annual photography contest. The club was a volunteer group working with the Santa Rosa County Fair Committee as coordinators of the fair’s photography contest for nine years, 1994-2002. Member Suzanne Borges acted as club liaison on the fair committee from 1996 until WAPC withdrew from the fair.

For its part in the fair contest, the club solicited all the award sponsors and handled all entries, set-up, judging, monitoring during fair hours, and contest details. In return, the fair provided the ribbons and a space within a large circus-type tent on the temporary fair grounds for the contest. However, in September 2002, Tropical Storm Isadore approached the East Milton area after the photo show was hung and forced the closure of the fair before opening day under stormy conditions. The Wide Angle Club decided it could no longer afford the disadvantages of operating its annual show in a tent in East Milton and withdrew from the fair to seek a new direction for its annual show. It donated its show racks, made of wooden 2x4s and chicken wire, to the fair for their use. These racks are still being used by the SRC Fair.

Finding a photo contest home and working dates proved to be a challenge. The club’s first photo contest under its own name was held in 2003. Wide Angle Photo Club’s 10th annual contest was held on Labor Day weekend in the center court of Cordova Mall in Pensacola. The club began experimenting that year with using PVC pipes and shade cloth for new rack designs and went to unframed photo entries with the 2003 contest. The next year’s contest was held in a meeting room of the Holiday Inn on Pensacola Beach and was the first-ever benefit show with entry fees charged per photo. Member Hugh DeForest suggested that the contest provide a charity donation to ARC Gateway and that local television news anchor Sue Straughn, an ARC supporter, be asked to serve as honorary chair of the 2004 contest. (Mrs. Straughn has remained honorary show chair through today.) ARC’s contact Angie Neumann set up a display at the 2004 contest explaining ARC services and has remained a friend and ARC contact for WAPC. Member Rusti Hobart also suggested that the event be re-named the “Power of Photography” (POP for short), a name that has remained with the event since 2004.

The 2005 POP show was held in a meeting room at the Pensacola Cultural Center, which proved to be too small a venue for the show’s growing popularity. It was decided after that show that the contest could no longer display and attempt to score every entry submitted. Therefore, the club’s 13th annual contest in 2006 was its first juried contest, and the first of the four (2006-2009) most recent POP shows held at the Wright Place in downtown Pensacola and including national vendor displays and free Saturday seminars. The most recent POP show (16th contest) in 2009 had well-over 1,000 visitors in three days. The scheduling of the POP show at that location with coordination with DADA’s mid-summer Gallery Night weekend for the last four years has proven to be beneficial for increasing show attendance.

The Wide Angle Photo Club, Inc. continues to seek ways it can work with the local community, businesses, other photography groups, schools, and colleges to promote the photographic arts and support charitable causes. Membership in WAPC has exceeded 100 members for the last two years and at least half of them are POP show participants. ARC Gateway has benefited from each POP show since 2004, with donations to ARC from WAPC now exceeding $15,000 in six years. Since WAPC began meeting at ARC Gateway for meetings, the club no longer meets for a Christmas dinner at a local restaurant but instead meets at ARC for a December party. Participating members are encouraged to bring wrapped gifts to that party for ARC clients, who range in age from toddlers to senior adults. The club also has provided photography services for ARC events as needed. WAPC does not charge visitors tuition for instructional programs included as part of its regular monthly meetings, and club meetings are advertised as welcoming to the public.

(Compiled and Submitted by Suzanne Borges, WAPC Vice President, August 2009)

We welcome everyone to come to a meeting and see if the Wide Angle Photo Club is for you. We would love to have you join our club. Our annual dues are $24 individual and $36 for a family membership.

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