RHCC has some extremely hard-working and dedicated members, without whom the club would not be the vibrant, active group it is.
To show these members our appreciation, starting in April 2012, the club instituted a Volunteer and Achievement Recognition Program. The awards were based on a system of points for service and photographic achievement, with the emphasis on service time rendered to the club and to the photographic community on behalf of the RHCC.
In January 2019 the executive officially changed the qualification requirements to be based strictly on volunteer recognition and removed the photographic achievement and participation requirements for service awards. A committee has been formed to administer and recommend future recipients for their volunteerism on behalf of the club.
In March 2021, the service awards committee met to review and update service recognition credits for our members and re-establish point thresholds for each service recognition level. A committee of Honorary Life Members met to recommend and approve future Platinum, life memberships.
Club members may request a status update on their own recognition award point standings by sending an email to
-
- At the annual closing awards banquet held on May 14, 2012, the initial Service Recognition Awards were presented to twenty-one club members.
- At the closing awards banquet on May 13, 2013, four members earned Bronze Awards, seven were recognized with Silver Awards and one new Gold Award was presented. At the 2014 banquet six bronze, two silver, one gold, and our first two Diamond awards were presented.
- At the 2015 closing awards banquet five bronze, three silver, and three gold service awards were awarded.
- At the 2016 banquet, two bronze, two silver, two gold, and two diamond service awards were presented.
- At the 2017 banquet, seven bronze, three silver, one gold, three diamond, and our first platinum service awards were presented.
- At the opening meeting in September 2017, our second platinum award was presented.
- At the 2018 banquet, five bronze, three silver, one diamond, and our third platinum awards were presented.
- At the opening meeting in September 2018, our fourth platinum award was presented.
- At the 2019 banquet, nineteen bronze, five silver, two gold, and one diamond award were presented.
- At the 2020 season closing (online) meeting, six bronze, two silver, and one gold awards were presented.
- At the 2021 season closing (online) meeting, eight bronze, sixteen silver, five gold, one diamond, and three platinum awards were presented.
- At the 2022 season closing (online) meeting, three bronze, three silver, eight gold, and one diamond award were presented.
- At the 2023 season closing awards banquet, two bronze, two silver, one gold, and one diamond award were presented.
- At the 2024 season closing awards banquet, one bronze, four silver, one gold and one platinum service awards were presented.
President’s Awards
Bronze Level Service Awards
Silver Level Service Awards
Gold Level Service Awards
Diamond Level Service Awards
Platinum Level Service Awards
President’s Award
Awarded for the most outstanding contribution to the club in the current season, irrespective of competitions. The recipient or recipients are determined by the President.
Winners
2013: Joe Leduc, Lance Gitter, Kathy Constantinou, B Dass, Larry Rezka, Mark Girard
2014: Judi Martin
2015: Ron Goodlin
2016: Lil Shneidman
2017: Mark Girard, Lance Gitter, Judi Martin, Josie Stauffer
2018: Fern Gitter, Lance Gitter
2019: George Cates, Ron Mantay
2020: Debbie Gottdenker, Isabel Kelly
2021: Atul Asthana, Ron Mantay, Ed Orendorff
2022: Philip Wong, Debbie Gottdenker
2023: Eric Drumm, Barry Green, Wendy Thurston
2024: Wendy Thurston, George Cates, Philip Wong, Judi Martin
Bronze Level Service Awards
2012 Bronze Service Award Recipients
Janet Balon
Janet co-chaired the club’s outings and field trips for 2 seasons, setting an exceptionally high standard to follow. She has already earned enough points for her Gold level and needs only a few more service points to achieve her silver award.
Eric Brown
Eric served on the club’s board as membership chair for 2 seasons and earned enough points for his bronze award.
B Dass
This past year Dass was co-chair of our club’s field trips, as well as helping over the past couple of seasons with some of the trophy updating and building and installing of storage cabinets in our storage room. He has earned enough photo points to qualify for his silver level as soon as his service points accumulate to that same level.
Ian Donaldson
Ian has taken on the role of chair of his evaluation group for the past several years and as chair of the club’s workshops. He is an outstanding photographer who has earned gold level photographic points with his fine work.
Robert Fowler
He has served as vice president on the board for a number of years and most recently is our resident educator with his regular “tips n tricks” session at most meetings. He helps out at most club functions, including community information sessions, public displays of our members’ works and in promoting the club. Photographically, he has achieved silver level and is close to achieving the silver service award.
Elizabeth Gallo
Liz is our current treasurer for her second term this upcoming season and chaired the fundraising event for her second time this year. She brings great energy and enthusiasm to her volunteer role and is in line to earn the silver award, perhaps as early as this upcoming club year.
Myrtle Herzog
She exudes enthusiasm and energy and her leadership and tireless work over two phenomenal years as co-chair of the field trips makes her one of our most popular members. She has enough photographic points to qualify for Gold, and with time and more service points could earn a higher recognition.
John Kot
Always willing to help whenever and wherever needed, whether at the club, the Henry’s show, library display setup, running errands, as well as a regular member of the competition’s team, John is a valuable member of our club. He has earned gold level photographic points as we have seen him photography improve immensely over the past couple years. He will undoubtedly earn higher awards.
Joseph Leduc
Perhaps the most knowledgeable and unselfish member of our club. Joe has forgotten more about photography than most of us have ever learned. He is a master of the craft and takes enormous pleasure out of teaching and sharing his knowledge with our members. He is perhaps one of our greatest resources. He has led a number of workshops and has taken on the role of chair of the workshop committee for the upcoming year. The only reason he only earned the bronze award is because he hasn’t been encouraged enough to enter more of his professional quality and very creative images in our club competitions. He is a member of the master’s division and with a little push we should see him easily earn his silver and/or gold recognition awards shortly.
Irina Popova
This is a lady who has become an outstanding professional photographer in a very short span of time. She only took up the craft a few years ago when she joined the club but has the desire, intelligence and perseverance required to learn to be the best. She has proven that the camera club environment is a great learning resource, especially when one can take advantage of the opportunity to learn from each other. Irina now gives back as one of our workshop presenters and has rocketed to the masters level in this short span of time, while achieving gold level photographic points.
Larry Rezka
Larry continually shows us his creativity in his photography and earns the admiration of the competition judges with his work. He is returning for a second year of organizing our club’s field trips and has been a workhorse in his organization of these outings, much to the benefit of our members. Winner of several Photographer of The Year awards over the past 3 seasons, he has achieved gold level photographic points.
Harvey Rogers
He has served on our board of directors in the past and currently our rep to the GTCCC (Greater Toronto Council of Camera Clubs). He chaired the GTCCC interclub competition this year and is slated to take on a significant role in the upcoming year, with very ambitious plans to revitalize the GTCCC’s role for the various clubs. He has earned gold level photographic points and we very well may see him earning his silver service award in the not too distant future.
Don Tod
Don served as our Membership Chaiperson this past year and seemed to always be available for whatever services were required. He is an outgoing, welcoming fellow and as such was asked to take on a role as Co-Chairperson of the new Members Committee for the upcoming season. He has achieved the silver level of photographic points.
Doug Wright
Doug readily accepted the role of Chairperson of evaluation groups a number of years ago when they were started at the RHCC. He had been a member of evaluation groups for many years at the “Toronto Guild” and when he returned to the camera club community after a number of years hiatus, we were fortunate enough that he joined the RHCC upon his return. Recently moving to the advanced division, he has garnered nearly enough photographic points for the gold level.
2013 Bronze Service Award Recipients
Grant Dale
Grant has been one of our leaders of one of the evaluation groups, one of the most valuable resources for our club members. He puts in time and efforts in several different ways to benefit the club and is a deserving recipient of the bronze service recognition award. Grant earned advancement to the advanced division through his excellent photographic work.
Judi Martin
Judi took on the role of membership chair for 2012-13, and continues for 2013-14, and has done an outstanding job of managing our membership lists, including handling our waiting list and new inquiries. Judi has shown an uncanny efficiency in this role. Her photography has improved tremendously over the years she has been a club member and has been promoted to the advanced division for 2013-14.
Rhonda Starr
Rhonda is our current chair of the evaluation groups and has been a great volunteer in other club activities as well. Her photographic work has earned her a promotion to the advanced division for 2013-14.
2014 Bronze Service Award Recipients
Harvey Ash
Harvey has served on the executive committee as our legal advisor for the past number of years. Our club has been fortunate to have a lawyer on our executive who has a keen interest in ensuring our club is governed according to a proper set of ethics. He continually volunteers his time and knowledge to the successful operation of the club.
Connie Ross
Connie has been looking after the refreshments for our meetings for many years and has been a member of the club longer than just about everyone else, close to 20 years! She is one of our social coordinators and has been a recipient of the “President’s Award” in previous years for her valuable contribution to the enjoyment of the club.
Glenn Springer
In spite of fact that Glenn now lives in the Haliburton area, he remains a valuable contributor to the club’s activities. He moderates the club’s internet discussion group, which he started over 5 years ago. He is an accredited judge, often being asked to adjudicate for other clubs and organizations. He started the Haliburton Highlands Camera Club in December 2013 and writes a regular photo blog which he shares with our members.
Guy St. Louis
Our volunteer coordinator and active volunteer himself, Guy is always helping out with many of the club activities, including field trips, workshops, organizing volunteers for various events, having looked after coordinating our members for the semi-annual Henry’s shows for several years.
Linda Zack
Linda served as the club’s recording secretary for a couple years before retiring from that position to spend more time photographing. She has been one the club could always call upon to help out with various jobs and activities.
2015 Bronze Service Award Recipients
Jennifer Camelford
Jen has volunteered on the banquet, social and fundraising committee for the past several years. She has helped our club raise significant funds through the auctions and raffles at our closing banquets, and coordinates that activity with her typical organization skills.
Dennis Phillips
This former accountant has volunteered his expertise, time and efforts as our club treasurer for the past couple years, making a valuable contribution to our executive committee.
Bruce Macaulay
Bruce has taken on the role of co-chair of our outings/field trips and has done an outstanding job in that position. He has also volunteered to chair and lead not one, but two monthly evaluation groups. This professional photographer has selflessly shared his experience and photographic knowledge with a multitude of our members. We are indeed fortunate to have him serving as a mentor to so many club members.
Sunchie Yang
Sunchie has served on the club’s competition team for the past couple years and is one of our technical go-to guys. He continually works to improve our competition workflow and be a wonderful resource person for the technical operations of the club. He has shown his prowess with time lapse photography and we look forward to witnessing more of his photographic expertise.
2016 Bronze Service Award Recipients
Chuck Rowe
Along with being a creative photographer, Chuck has assisted at the Membership table for the past 4 seasons, welcoming members as they enter, and directing new members to people who can assist them. He is also there at every meeting helping with set-up.
Andy Chong
Andy has managed the club equipment, tagging, storing, and keeping an up to date listing of where everything is. He has taken a major role on the competitions committee over the past couple seasons. He has found time to join the executive as a Member at large and still improve his photographic skills.
2017 Bronze Service Award Recipients
Roland Beaulieu
Roland has served on the competitions committee for several years, helping with most of the live judging sessions and is a great asset to the club.
Nancy Farr
Nancy has been a member of the club since 2008 and was the driving force behind many of the years of extremely successful fundraising efforts at our annual closing banquet. She has the uncanny ability to obtain donations from a multitude of community supporters for our club. She has been involved as one of our club’s volunteers on the GTCCC (Greater Toronto Council of Camera Clubs) committee and has stepped forward to take on the responsibility of our club representative on the GTCCC council starting with the 2017-2018 season.
David McLagan
David has been one of our key volunteers at the annual Richmond Hill Winter Carnival, handling the printing of the mascot Oopik’s photos with the public at this event. He has quietly stepped forward to help with setup and break down at most of our meetings and has agreed to take on the responsibility of our club’s equipment manager for the upcoming season.
Peter Pownall
Peter has been on our web team for the past several years and is one of the behind the scenes volunteers, posting most of our events, setting up the web posts for meetings, field trips and workshops. This is an unassuming task that only those involved with the web maintenance and chairs of these committees are aware of, but we are reliant on his technical ability to do this work on an efficient and timely basis.
Maggie Reid
Our workshops could not function so efficiently without Maggie’s organizational skills in looking after the teams of volunteers who set up, run and clean up before, during and after every workshop. This is a key volunteer position that runs smoothly due to Maggie’s efforts.
Lil Shneidman
Our incoming President has been involved in club activities from the day she joined the club in 2013, joining the new member’s committee, the social committee, then stepping up as Vice President in 2015-16 and did an outstanding job of planning the club program that season. She is now our new club President for the 2017-2018 season. We certainly look forward her leadership in the years ahead.
Wanda Squire
Wanda has been the facilitator for one of our most successful Special Interest Groups over the past year or more. We’ve had great feedback on her tireless work to make this concept grow and flourish and provide valuable training for the members. She has also often been ready, willing and able to help out, quietly and unassumingly; one of our behind the scenes most valued volunteers.
2018 Bronze Service Award Recipients
George Cates
George has joined our competition team, bringing a background of technical skill and knowledge to the management of our competitions. He produced all of the competition winning images shows in his first season on the team and put in many hours of work helping with the data management. He also took on the role of data manager for our interclub entries. We are looking forward to his continued involvement as co-chair of competitions in the coming year.
Bruce Carmody
Bruce did an outstanding job as chairperson of our field trips committee for the past two years. He also put together the digital shows for the 2017 banquet. Bruce has been involved on our club’s Boys & Girls Club of York Region organizing team, including going to the various schools to work with the leaders, teachers and students, which is a tremendous and rewarding community service project. He impressed the club members at the 2018 banquet with a video presentation he photographed with both still and video photography and produced to show us the interaction and impact this program is having on the kids in the B&GC. He is a leader at the Newmarket Photo Arts Club and actively involved in their programming and participation in external competitions including the interclub (GTCCC) and CAPA.
Mark Kingsley
Mark has been a member of RHCC since 2005 and was chair of field trips for a couple years. He has been a valuable member of host teams for the GTCCC interclub competitions on several occasions and always seems to make himself available to assist with various projects and activities whenever called upon.
Kala Lakhani
Kala has been a valuable member of our Special Interest Group programs over the past few years, overseeing the SIG the past 2 years and helping organize and lead some of those sessions.
Katie Mak
This busy lady stepped right in as a new club member in 2017 as the club treasurer but the workload has not prevented her from participating in every competition and many workshops and outings and creating outstanding images. She has brought her bookkeeping skills to the the forefront and has proven to be a valuable member of the club executive committee.
2019 Bronze Service Award Recipients
Atul Asthana
Atul has been an active member helping with the setup and take down of equipment at our club meetings and on the field trips, competition and workshop committees. He has also been one of the key mentors on the Boys & Girls Club of York Region photography program committee, and is always ready to step up and volunteer his time and expertise wherever needed and is joining the executive committee for the 2019-20 season.
Eric Azeez
Eric has been an active member of the Field Trips Committee for the past 3 seasons and has spent many hours researching and helping organize outings, including the “Big Trip” to Guyana last year.
Julie Brocca
Julie has been an active member of the Field Trips Committee and on the club’s CAPA selection team for 2 seasons.
Betty Chan
Betty has actively worked with the Competitions Committee for 3 seasons, assisting with the intake of prints and handling of prints at all of our print judging session. She joined the GTCCC/O3C team last season and now has taken over the responsibility as our club representative for the O3C.
Denise Chong
Denise has been active in both the Social and Banquet Committees for the past 3 seasons and was co-chair of the Social Committee in the 2018-19 club season.
Rosemarie Cseff
For the past 2 seasons, Rosemarie has worked on the Field Trip committee. For the 2018-19 season, she chaired the Workshop Committee.
Luz Elena Espinosa
Luz Elena has been in charge of the care and maintenance of our award trophies for the past 5 seasons. She and her husband Bruce Laidlaw, who helped with the trophies all those years have now moved to Prince Edward County so she will not be rejoining our club next season.
Emiliana Fleischmann
Emi has been an active member of the Social and Banquet Committees for the past 2 seasons.
Alison Germain
Alison has been an active member of the Social and Banquet Committees for the past 4 seasons and served as co-chair of the Social Committee for the 2018-19 club season.
Debbie Gottdenker
Debbie has been an active member of the club’s CAPA Committee this season and has made contributions to the Social Committee for the past several years. She is joining the executive committee for the 2019-20 club season.
Isabel Kelly
Isabel has been active in the Field Trips, New Members and CAPA Committees for several years. She has also been the club’s CAPA representative for the past 2 seasons.
Sheryl Kingstone
Sheryl has been an active member of the New Members committee for the past 2 seasons. She served on the Social Committee for the past 3 seasons and served the past two years as Secretary on the Executive Committee.
Rob Kline
Rob has served on the Competitions Committee for the past couple years, as part of the new members’ skill level placement committee. In addition, he has worked with the Website Committee for 2 seasons.
Margaret Krzepkowski
Margaret has assisted on the competitions committee as one of the vetters for images submitted to club competitions.
Ron Mantay
Ron led the Field Trips Committee this season and provided the members with many unique opportunities and locations. He was also a member of the New Members Committee. Ron is joining the executive committee for the 2019-20 club season as vice-president and has already taken over the responsibility and organization of the club program for the upcoming season.
Les Palenik
Les has been keeping our members informed of numerous activities with his very frequent posting of photographic events and topics of interest through our shared RHGoogle Group online forum.
Andrew Sokol
Andy has served in a vetting capacity with the Competitions Committee. He has also been assisting with the creation of our souvenir book.
Al Stauffer
Al has been helping to set up and take down our Audio/Visual equipment for more seasons than we can remember.
Glenn Steplock
Glenn has built and has served as the monitor for the club Facebook page for the past 3 seasons.
2020 Bronze Service Award Recipients
Jordan Cait
Jordan has been instrumental in setting up, testing, and distributing all of our club’s online surveys. He is quick to respond to any technical questions and seems to multitask with ease.
June D’Souza
June has been a member of the Competitions committee for many years. She has devoted many hours of her time to the continuing success of the club.
Paul Dibranou
Paul is one of the first people in the door during all of our meetings and is always lending a hand to set up the room. He has also gone above and beyond to help the group leaders to gain use of the Police Community room for events.
Ed Orendorff
Ed has served this season as the Secretary for our club Executive. He has done an outstanding job of keeping the records organized and has provided thoughtful input in regards to the club finances. He has also served on the field trips committee and helped to provide some great photographic opportunities for our members.
Ory Varzgar
Ory has been assisting the Social Committee since she joined the club. Her assistance to the Banquet committee has been invaluable.
2021 Bronze Service Award Recipients
Jenny Allen
Jenny has been active in the Social Committee for the past 5 seasons.
She has been awarded the Bronze Service Award for her contributions to our club operations.
Luba Citrin
Luba has been involved with the Workshop committee and has done extensive judging as a Representative of the club.
She has been awarded the Bronze Service Award for her contributions to our club operations.
Arne Lean
Arne has been of great technical help to the club for the past 2 seasons.
He has been awarded the Bronze Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
Paul Naish
Paul joined the Service Committee and has been dealing with the trophies for the past 2 seasons.
He has been awarded the Bronze Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
AnnaLena Seemann
AnnaLena has been involved with the Social Committee for the past 2 seasons and now Chair.
She has been awarded the Bronze Service Award for her contributions to our club operations.
Jim Spurgeon
Jim took over the Newmarket evaluation group last season.
He has been awarded the Bronze Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
Ilia Tyker
Ilia assisted with our Website for a number of years, including working with Josie Stauffer on a relational database.
He has been awarded the Bronze Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
Philip Wong
Philip has stepped in as a major support for the Competitions Committee and has been involved with the Field Trip committee.
He has been awarded the Bronze Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
2022 Bronze Service Award Recipients
Barry Green
Barry has been a member of the club since 2019 and has helped the field trip committee.
He has been awarded the Bronze Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
Elizabeth Lincoln
Elizabeth has been a Member at Large on the Executive and has assisted the CAPA committee.
She has been awarded the Bronze Service Award for her contributions to our club operations.
Roland Pfeiffer
Roland has been a member of the Competitions committee, taking on the role of presenter this season.
He has been awarded the Bronze Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
2023 Bronze Service Award Recipients
Eric Drumm
Eric has been a member of the club since 2019 and has helped the field trip committee as well as agreed to be our Vice President.
He has been awarded the Bronze Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
Ron Thiel
Ron has been a member of the club since 2019 and has been a valuable volunteer on the equipment committee.
He has been awarded the Bronze Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
2024 Bronze Service Award Recipient
Wendy Thurston
Wendy joined the R.H.C.C. in 2020 and has served as our Treasurer this season and has been instrumental in bringing our payment methods into this century.
Silver Level Service Awards
2012 Silver Service Award Recipients
William “Bud” Newton
Bud is one of our esteemed Past Presidents, having served in that role for three years. He has relationships with the Town of Richmond Hill, for whom he worked for many years, and remains our liaison to the town and one of our valuable resources. He has put us in good stead with our relationship with our community participation and has one of the loudest whistles in the entire club, if not the town! He served on the board for a number of years. He has a charming and outgoing personality, and always ready to help wherever needed.
Geoffrey Pierpoint
Geoff is one of the longest standing members of our club for over 15 years. He has served as President on more than one occasion, two years as co-Chairperson of the Competitions Committee and many more years on the board of directors. Geoff retired from judging last year after many years as one of the most respected competition judges in our community. He is an outstanding, refined and insightful photographer and past winner of several photographer of the year awards.
2013 Silver Service Award Recipients
B Dass
For the past two years Dass was co-chair of our club’s field trips, as well as helping over the past couple of seasons with some of the trophy updating and building and installing of storage cabinets in our storage room. He won the Trophy for Assigned Topics in the 2012-13 season. He is demonstrating that he is one of our top photographers (earned advancement to our masters division) and an extremely valuable volunteer member of our club.
Elizabeth Gallo
Liz chaired the fundraising event for the third year this season. She has been a valuable member of our club and earned enough service and photographic points to receive the silver award this year.
Harvey Rogers
As chair of the GTCCC (Greater Toronto Council of Camera Clubs), he also chaired the GTCCC interclub competition this year and revitalized that organization with new programming, not only in 2013, but with ambitious plans ahead for 2013-14. He earned this silver award this year and has enough photographic points for the gold level. He also served as a competition judge for several competitions at other clubs over the past couple years. Harvey is an outstanding volunteer who represents our club admirably in the photographic community.
John Kot
John has been a member of the competitions team for several years and this may be one of the reasons why his photography has improved significantly over that time. He was the intermediate division photographer of the year in 2012-13 in both categories (assigned and pictorial) and was promoted to the advanced division. He continues to assist in many volunteer aspects for the club and is a worthy recipient of the silver service recognition award.
Joseph Leduc
Last year we wrote this about Joe: “He is a member of the master’s division and with a little push we should see him easily earn his silver and/or gold recognition awards shortly.” (see bronze awards) and sure enough, Joe submitted enough to club competitions to qualify for the silver award. He remains one of our most valuable volunteers, having put in enormous energy and time in to running our workshops this past year.
Larry Rezka
Larry is one of our club’s top photographers, having won the pictorial images trophy and printmaker of the year award for 2012-13. He co-chaired our club’s field trips again this year and organized mid-week outings for those members who are available to meet up during the day. Winner of several Photographer of The Year awards over the past 4 seasons, he has achieved gold level photographic points.
2014 Silver Service Award Recipients
Ron Goodlin
After completing his term as President and then Past-President of the American Cosmetic Dental Association, Ron finally had the time to volunteer in the Richmond Hill Camera Club, and jumped right in as a key volunteer in all sorts of areas of participation. He has also shown his excellence as a photographer, earning enough service and photo points to be awarded both the bronze and silver awards this year.
Doug Wright
Doug has been the coordinating chairperson for our club’s evaluation groups, as well as chairing his own group for a number of years. He has earned enough photographic achievement points now to qualify for the silver service award.
2015 Silver Service Award Recipients
Judi Martin
Our membership chair has been an example of excellent organizational skills. She looks after all of our member data management and still finds time to raise her photographic skills to a level that has earned her the silver level recognition.
Rhonda Starr
Rhonda has taken on the responsibility of overall chair of the evaluation groups, as well as co-chairing her own group. An avid and productive “Blurb” photo book producer, she has been another valuable resource person for book making for other members, in addition to earning advancement to the Masters level in the club.
Marie Algieri-Goldgrub
Marie is a fast learner and has proven to be a great asset to the club. Not only has she improved her photography to an outstanding level, but has put forth so much in the way of time and effort as co-chair of outings/field trips. She has earned both bronze and silver awards in the same year and continues to be one of our most valuable volunteers.
2016 Silver Service Award Recipients
Grant Dale
Grant has been involved with heading an evaluation group for years in which he shares his time and wisdom to his fellow members. He is a regular contributor to competitions and has earned a well- deserved Silver award.
Bruce Macauley
This season Bruce was part of the amazing team that ran our field trips which has offered club members opportunities for new photographic experiences and fellowship. In addition he has headed two Evaluation groups sharing of his time and considerable photographic expertise.
2017 Silver Service Award Recipients
Harvey Ash
Harvey has been an active member of the club for over 10 years, serving on the executive committee as our legal advisor for many years. He took on the added responsibility as our CAPA (Canadian Association of Photographic Arts) at the start of the 2016-17 season. Under his watch, our club participated in many of the CAPA competitions, earning medals or HMs in most of them, showing the whole country that we have one of the most talented camera clubs in the nation.
Andy Chong
Andy has served as equipment manager, a key member of the competitions committee and a key technical guru for the club. He will take over as the competition chair for the 2017-2018 season under a revamped committee structure.
Connie Ross
Only one other member has been active in the club longer than Connie (member number 062) who joined in 1997. Connie continues to volunteer on our social committee, looking after our refreshment needs at all of the regular meetings, a job she has looked after for more than 10 years in a row. Whenever our members think of hot chocolate or cookies, Connie’s smiling face is what we think of.
2018 Silver Service Award Recipients
Chuck Rowe
In addition to Chuck’s membership assistance and greeting table location at every club meeting, he has been of enormous help with the SIG Novice Photoshop Group.
Lil Shneidman
Our club President in 2017-18 did a great job as our leader, a role that takes great commitment and effort. We are all very appreciative of her leadership and look forward to 2018-19’s repeat as President.
Don Tod
Don has led an evaluation group for a number of years as well as assisting with the workshop committee. His cheery personality and volunteer efforts continue to be appreciated.
2019 Silver Service Award Recipients
Roland Beaulieu
Roland has served and contributed to the Competitions Committee for the past 6 seasons, responsible for the intake and organization of prints and assisting at every print judging session.
Bruce Carmody
Bruce has served as liaison and mentor to the Boys and Girls Club of York Region photography program for the past 3 seasons. He served for 2 seasons as the leader of the Field Trips Committee and for the past 2 seasons, he has served on the Executive as a Member at Large. Bruce also headed 2 Special Interest Groups for Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Portfolio.
George Cates
George has served on the Competitions Committee for 3 seasons. This current season he was co-chair of the committee and took over as technical head of the competitions, including producing all of the winning images shows at the club presentations. He has also worked with the O3C judge’s chair to improve the judges analysis reports, so critical to the continuing improvement of the judges’ skills. He has also served as an assistant on the Website Committee.
David McLagan
David has served on the Boys and Girls Club of York Region photography program, the Equipment Committee, including the role of chair of the committee, and the Workshop Committee for the past several seasons. David has also been involved for many years with the photo booth at the Richmond Hill Winter Carnival, responsible for printing all of the “Photos with Oopiik” images at the Carnival.
Peter Pownall
Peter has been an integral member of the Website Committee for the past 5 seasons. He has been the contact person for all the committees running events, as well as posting of all of club calendar events.
Linda Zack
Linda has been running an evaluation group for the past 7 seasons. She has been instrumental in finding locations and contacting the ever-changing roster of members. Linda also served as Secretary on the Executive.
2020 Silver Service Award Recipients
Denise Chong
Denise has been involved as both a member and as Chair of the Social Committee. She devotes much of her time to providing creative ways to bring the club members together. Her work with the Banquet committee has made our annual dinner and silent auction a wonderful experience.
Ron Mantay
Ron joined the Executive this season as our Vice President and head of Programming. He has done an amazing job of bringing some exceptional speakers to our meetings and has been of outstanding assistance to the club President. He is also a member of the field trip committee and the New Members committee.
2021 Silver Service Award Recipients
Atul Asthana
Atul has been our club Treasurer for the past 2 seasons and has been active in field trips.
He has been awarded the Silver Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
Jordan Cait
Jordan has been helping our Website committee and was instrumental in implementing the member survey and sending out evaluation forms.
He has been awarded the Silver Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
Betty Chan
Betty has been assisting the Competitions for 4 seasons and has also served for several seasons as the club 03C rep.
She has been awarded the Silver Service Award for her contributions to our club operations.
June D’Souza
June has been assisting with the Competitions committee and the Boys and Girls clubs for several seasons each.
She has been awarded the Silver Service Award for her contributions to our club operations.
Nancy Farr
Nancy was instrumental in collecting prizes for our annual Banquet, resulting in substantial fundraising, for many seasons and was involved with both the Social committee and the O3C.
She has been awarded the Silver Service Award for her contributions to our club operations.
Bob Fowler
Bob has been providing members with the latest in photography related information through his Tips and Tricks for 12 seasons.
He has been awarded the Silver Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
Debbie Gottdenker
Debbie has been a Member at Large for 2 seasons along with being involved in the Competitions committee and Field Trips.
She has been awarded the Silver Service Award for her contributions to our club operations.
Isabel Kelly
Isabel has been a CAPA rep for our club for 4 seasons and has joined the Executive as a Member at Large.
She has been awarded the Silver Service Award for her contributions to our club operations.
Rob Kline
Rob has assisted with both the Competitions committee and the Website committee for several seasons each.
He has been awarded the Silver Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
Katie Mak
Katie served as club Treasurer for three seasons.
She has been awarded the Silver Service Award for her contributions to our club operations.
Ed Orendorff
Ed has served as our Secretary for 2 seasons and has joined various sub committees to assist the club. He has also been involved with Field Trips for 4 seasons.
He has been awarded the Silver Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
Maggie Reid
Maggie has been involved with the Workshop committee for 5 seasons and has helped collate the Evaluation form results.
She has been awarded the Silver Service Award for her contributions to our club operations.
Andy Sokol
Andy has been assisting the Competitions committee for five seasons and has helped with the Souvenir book.
He has been awarded the Silver Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
Jim Spurgeon
Jim took over an Evaluation group from an ailing member and continues to run his group year round.
He has been awarded the Silver Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
Wanda Squire
Wanda ran all-day Photoshop Special Interest Group sessions for five seasons.
She has been awarded the Silver Service Award for her contributions to our club operations.
Glenn Steplock
Glenn has been administrating our Facebook page for approximately 5 years.
He has been awarded the Silver Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
2022 Silver Service Award Recipients
Barry Green
Barry has taken on the leadership role in field trips this season, leading multiple excellent field trips this season. He has been awarded the Silver Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
Arne Lean
Arne has helped the club with his equipment and Zoom expertise. He has been awarded the Silver Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
Philip Wong
Philip has been a member of the Competitions Committee for 6 seasons and has also been part of the field trips committee. He has been awarded the Silver Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
2023 Silver Service Award Recipients
Kala Lakhani
Kala has been a member since 2013. This season she joined the Executive as a Member at Large and has also been a member of the Competitions committee, helping to read out the competition results.
She has been awarded the Silver Service Award for her contributions to our club operations.
Roland Pfeiffer
Roland has been a member since 2020. He is a member of the Competitions committee and has read out the competitions results. He has also been involved as a CAPA rep.
He has been awarded the Silver Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
2024 Silver Service Award Recipients
Eric Drumm
Eric joined the R.H.C.C. in 2019 and joined the Executive board in 2022 as our Vice President. In this position he helped bring in some wonderful speakers.
Paul Naish
Paul joined the club in 2019 and joined the Service Awards committee in 2020 to help distribute and collect photography trophies and has looked after this task ever since, It was a particularly challenging role during Covid.
Nick Shearman
Nick joined the club in 2018 and has been leading a collection of small field trips to some of his award winning photography spots.
Ron Thiel
Ron joined the club in 2019 and has been a member of the Competitions team and the Equipment team ever since.
Gold Level Service Awards
Gold Awards are for exceptional volunteer contribution to the operation of the club and are the result of a number of years of extraordinary efforts in time, energy and achievement.
2012 Gold Service Award Recipients
Jim Camelford
Past President, former Competition’s Chairperson for two years, the driving force behind the testing and development of the competition software that was developed for our club by Josie Stauffer. Many of the ideas and concepts were put forward by Jim over the couple years of development. Jim was a major builder of the structure of the current club, having been on the board throughout the huge increase of membership which saw the club increase in size between 4 and 5 times its size when he joined as a quiet back row observer. Photography has been a lifelong hobby and passion for Jim and through his involvement in the camera club and the photo club community. He has grown in his knowledge, and we have all benefited from his selfless mantra to teach and share. He is an expert on organization, teaching, computer systems, and has been one of the major reasons for the success and growth of our club.
Kathy Constantinou
Kathy first served on our Board on the Workshops Committee for 2 years and as Vice President for 1 yr. As VP she started the Fundraising program which included both the Banquet fundraising and Grant applications. She has served as our President for the past two years and led by example with her tireless workload for the benefit of the club. During her tenure she was involved in numerous projects which came to fruition. These included a constitution, club policies and acceptable standards for images, the service recognition awards program, our affiliation with Blurb photo books, an improved working relationship with the Town of Richmond Hill and our participation in the Glennie Nature Competition. She joined the competition team this past year and is a member of the fundraising committee. She has at times spent just about every waking hour immersed in the running of the club during this past year, including putting together the program for next season, even before this past season was finished. She has undertaken several roles for the coming season including acting as our CAPA and Blurb reps and continuing to work on the competitions committee and look after the club program. In spite of the countless hours she has spent on the administration of the club, Kathy has found a way to learn the craft of photography to the point of rapidly advancing from a novice to intermediate to advanced photographer in only a few short seasons. She prides herself on the quality of her work and has developed a real passion for nature photography and the results are evident in the exceptional quality of her images.
Mark Girard
Completing his second season as Chairperson of Competitions, two years ago Mark served as both Competitions Chairperson and our Treasurer. He has done a commendable job with the competitions, having served on the committee for only one year before being able to take on the lead role. Through the relationships and friendships he has nurtured, and from the knowledge he has gained working on competitions, he has raised the level of his photography to a very advanced level. Mark has been an integral member of the board of directors over the past several years, helping in all capacities whenever and wherever needed and is a deserving recipient of the gold service award.
Lance Gitter
Lance has been a member of the club for the past 13 years and has been involved in the day to day operation since joining the competition team in his second season. He has chaired competitions for 5 of those years and has helped in the development and testing of the software being used for submissions, judging and presentations of the competitions. During the early days of digital photography, Lance spearheaded the integration of digital images in to competitions, providing his own digital projector for use by the club for two years as we made the transition from slides. He has researched and procured the digital projectors we use today. He has been a board member for close to 10 years and has served as President for 3 of those years, as well as doing the programming for a number of years. He has been a respected competition judge for the past 8 years and chaired the GTCCC interclub competition for two years. He has won the Photographer of the Year award on several occasions and is known for his creativity and varied photographic styles. He entertains us at our closing banquets annually with a selection of digital slide show presentations to highlight our members’ work. He created the first club website a number of years ago and continues to work with Josie Stauffer, who did the majority of the design and creation of the current website. He has now committed to take over as Webmaster for the upcoming year. He gives lectures and presentations at our club and at many others, including the Toronto Digital Photo Club, for which he continues to serve as Competitions Chair and on the Program Committee; roles which he has been involved in for many years, at the same time, and with the same amount of commitment as with the RHCC.
Josie Stauffer
Josie’s major contributions to our club have been the development of the competition upload, judging and presentation software, which is now being used by numerous other clubs and the GTCCC for their annual competition. This has been developed over the past 5 years, a couple of which while she served as a member of the competitions team, and has required Josie’s unending dedication to it. She has called upon all of the different competition teams, not only at our club, but also at the others, to test and request and fine tune the software so it can be used to better administer our competitions. Her other major contribution has been the design and creation of the current website, which followed a previous design and creation of our previous website. Josie has spent hours each and every day over the past couple of years on these two major projects. Truly a labour of love from which we all benefit daily. She is an outstanding photographer, with a truly creative streak in her post processing routine from which she constantly produces great images for our enjoyment.
2013 Gold Service Award Recipient
Fern Gitter
Fern has been a member of the club for over 10 years and in 2012-13 took on the role of President. Her photographic skills have improved significantly over the past several years as she has been promoted from novice to intermediate to advanced divisions. She did an outstanding job in her presidential role this season and was re-elected for a second year in the April elections. She has put in an enormous amount of work, as do most of executive committee members, but her forte is encouraging other members to get involved as volunteers in the organization. Fern earned all three awards, bronze, silver and gold due to her outstanding commitment of time and energy for the club in her leadership role this past season.
2014 Gold Service Award Recipients
Joe Leduc
Without any doubt, there isn’t a member of the club who doesn’t think that Joe Leduc is one of our most valuable contributing members. He tirelessly continues to chair our workshops and his photographic work is creative, professional and outstanding. This is a well deserved service recognition award. Thank you from all of us.
2015 Gold Service Award Recipients
Harvey Rogers
Harvey has rejoined the executive committee after a hiatus of several years, even though he continues to remain involved in helping with equipment at our club meetings. He is chair of the GTCCC interclub and in that role has revitalized the competitions, organized two very successful education days and brought group insurance back as one of the benefits of GTCCC member clubs. He is also an accredited judge who often is called upon to adjudicate at other clubs and organizations.
Ron Goodlin
As current vice president of the club, Ron has taken on the responsibility of programming for the club seasons. He is past co-chair of field trips and continues to volunteer his time in all aspects of the club operation. He is one of our top photographers, an accredited competition judge and lecturer for other clubs and organizations.
Larry Rezka
Larry is a past chair of outings/field trips and continues to organize and lead mid week outings for club members. He is a key assistant with our workshops and still finds time to produce outstanding, creative, excellent images rendering him as one of the top photographers in the club.
2016 Gold Service Award Recipients
Judi Martin
For the past 4 seasons Judi has chaired the Membership committee and assisted as one of the members for the executive board. She has maintained the Membership welcome table at every meeting and has assisted the club by maintaining all member data as well as welcoming new members. In her spare time she does some photography (so she wrote); in reality, she had advanced to the masters division through continuous improvement in her photographic skill, creativity and achievements.
Marie Algieri-Goldgrub
Marie has been one of the field trip leaders for the past two seasons and, through tireless research, has been able to offer club members some very unique opportunities for photography. She has shared her skill, knowledge, and creativity with fellow members as well as improving her own photographic skills to the level of Master.
2017 Gold Service Award Recipient
Rhonda Starr
Our evaluation group chairperson and one of our Blurb book experts, Rhonda’s photography has soared in quality through the years. She would be one to herald the evaluation group process as one of the key reasons which is why we all value her role as the chair of this club activity. Rhonda has been an active member of the club since she joined in 2008 and a key volunteer who is deserving of this recognition.
2019 Gold Service Award Recipients
Harvey Ash
Harvey has been a member of the camera club since 2007 and has been volunteering for nearly as long. When the executive decided that we could use some legal guidance, Harvey stepped up.
He brings to all tasks not only his extensive legal expertise, but humour and common sense. Whenever a committee is needed to help guide club policy decisions, Harvey always volunteered. His thoughtful input and ability to find just the right way to phrase a point, have proven to be invaluable to the club.
Harvey has also served as our club representation for CAPA for three years and remained on the committee during the transition to a new CAPA rep. In that capacity, he has encouraged everyone to enter into the Canada wide competitions as either an independent or as a club entry. Under his guidance, direction, and regular pestering for photos, our club has had some very substantial victories.
Lil Shneidman
Lil joined our club in 2013 and almost immediately started volunteering. She started out being generally helpful but in a year’s time had started taking over critical roles in running the club.
For 2 years she served as club secretary on the executive committee. In addition, she worked with the New Members Committee and the Social Committee. The following year she took over the job of Vice President along with still being involved with the other committees.
For the past 2 years, Lil has done an awesome job as President of our club. In her time as President, Lil has been instrumental in bringing policies to the club which better reflect the times we live in. Like all good leaders, she knows how to delegate to the right people while managing to stay involved in every branch of the club’s operation. Whenever and wherever there is a need in this club for extra help, Lil will probably volunteer.
2020 Gold Service Award Recipients
George Cates
George has served Competitions for four years as a member of the team, co-Chair and Chair of Committee. When he felt that the boundaries for competition images were not clear enough, he headed a committee whose aim was to draft clearer policies more in keeping with the current social climate.
George has also been deeply involved with the operation of our website as a technical expert.
His sensible input, cheerful disposition, and endless patience in all the Committees he is involved with have helped to make us a better club.
2021 Gold Service Award Recipients
Andy Chong
Andy has been involved with the Competitions committee for 7 years. During that time he was Chair of the Committee for a year and Co-Chair for another. He served on the Executive committee for 4 years as both Competitions representative and as a Member at Large.
In addition, Andy has helped with the Audio/Video set up at club meetings for the past 8 years and helped to catalogue and tag all of the club equipment.
He has been awarded the Gold Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
Grant Dale
Grant has co-lead and evaluation group for the past 9 seasons. His efforts have helped to advance the photographic skills of our club members. Grant has co-hosted many special photography sessions at his house on weekends.
He has been awarded the Gold Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
Ron Mantay
Ron has served as Vice President and Program Director of the club for the past 2 seasons. This season he was instrumental in facilitating a multi session S.I.G. on Final Cut Pro with our members. Ron has also been involved in the Field Trip committee as both its leader and as a member of the committee. In addition, he has been involved with the New Members committee and involved himself in various sub-committees to the betterment of our club. He is now leading the charge for Online Marketing.
He has been awarded the Gold Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
Chuck Rowe
Chuck has co-hosted an evaluation group for the past 4 seasons which has helped to improve the skills of our members. He has also assisted with the Novice Photoshop S.I.G. for 2 seasons and is always at club first thing helping to set up for our meetings. Chuck has also been assisting with the Membership Committee for the past 9 seasons.
He has been awarded the Gold Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
Don Tod
Don has been co-chair of his evaluation group for 6 seasons helping to improve the skills of our members. He has also served on the Executive committee for a season and the New Members committee for 2 seasons. Don has also assisted with Workshop setup.
He has been awarded the Gold Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
2022 Gold Service Award Recipients
Atul Asthana
Atul has served as the club Treasurer for 3 seasons and has also assisted the Field trip and Equipment committees. He has been awarded the Gold Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
Jordan Cait
Jordan helped set up and enact the Evaluation forms along with the large survey. He also posts events on our club site and Eventbrite.
He has been awarded the Gold Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
Betty Chan
Betty has served on the Competitions Committee for 5 seasons and has been a representative for the O3C. She has been awarded the Gold Service Award for her contributions to our club operations.
Isabel DaSilva
Isabel has served on the CAPA committee for 5 seasons and has led several well-received SIGs and workshops. She has been awarded the Gold Service Award for her contributions to our club operations.
Debbie Gottdenker
Debbie served as a Member at Large for 2 seasons and as Vice President and Program director this season. She has also co-led a SIG and has now taken on Marketing and runs an Evaluation group.
She has been awarded the Gold Service Award for her contributions to our club operations.
Ed Orendorff
Ed has served as our club Secretary for 3 seasons and well as being involved in Field trips. Ed has also been instrumental in organizing a club manual.
He has been awarded the Gold Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
Jim Spurgeon
Jim served as a Member at Large this season and has co-led an Evaluation group for the past 3 seasons. He has been awarded the Gold Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
Philip Wong
Philip served as a Member at Large for one season and has led the Competitions committee this past season. He has also assisted the Field trip committee for 3 seasons.
He has been awarded the Gold Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
2023 Gold Service Award Recipients
Barry Green
Barry has been a member of the club since 2019 and jumped in to help with a variety of volunteer opportunities. He has led the field trip committee for 2 years, joined the Executive as a member at large, and helped out with equipment.
He has been awarded the Gold Service Award for his contributions to our club operations.
2024 Gold Service Award Recipient
Eric Drumm
Along with serving as Vice President of the club in 2022, Eric stepped into the role as club President this season and has done an excellent job as our leader.
Diamond Level Service Awards
2014 Diamond Service Award Recipients
Kathy Constantinou
The highest recognition award the club has presented went to Kathy Constantinou, who continues to be a tireless volunteer for club activities. Most of her “credentials” were written up in the 2012 Gold Service Awards section. She has not slowed down at all, and added to her workload as co-chair of competitions. She has been the creator of the club’s annual souvenir book, which she started in 2013, a huge undertaking in itself. She has become one of the club’s top photographers and earned enough points to move to the Masters level, advancing very rapidly through the ranks. Congratulations to one of the club’s most valuable volunteers who, combined with her photographic achievements, has earned this prestigious award.
Lance Gitter
In 2014 the club awarded its first Diamond Service Awards and nobody deserves it more than Lance, who has been continuously involved in the daily operation of the club for more than 15 years. He holds the position of competition co-chair, assistant webmaster, and continues to help with programming, the banquet presentations and just about any other area that requires his assistance to ensure the smooth operation of the club. For more of his past history of contributions to the club and the photo community in general, please see the 2012 Gold Service Awards write-up. Congratulations to one very creative, special member of the club on receiving this recognition.
2016 Diamond Service Award Recipients
Mark Girard
Serving as club President for 2 seasons, Mark has done an amazing job of helming the executive board and giving the club direction. He has emphasized creativity and has done everything possible to make the experiences of the club members a positive and educational experience. Having experience in many of the club’s key positions, his guidance, and willingness to share his knowledge with others has been inspiring. Somehow he has found the time during all this hard work to create amazing photographs and compete in all areas of competition.
Josie Stauffer
Along with creating some of our most beautiful and award winning photographic works, Josie manages to not only maintains our amazing website but also is constantly working to improve it. Award winning photos from competitions appear within hours after the awards are announced. She is incredibly knowledgeable in all aspects of technology and has a teacher’s talent for explaining to the less technologically savvy. This season she worked tirelessly to create the system that allows our club to use online judging for competitions. This is only her latest innovation that has revolutionized the way our club operates. Josie was honoured by the GTCCC with their first technical achievement service recognition award at the annual GTCCC 2016 awards night.
2017 Diamond Service Award Recipients
Jim Camelford
1000 hours……that’s an estimate of the amount of time Jim has put in to the administration of our parent GTCCC organization in the past year alone. Jim is a past president of our club and has been the data manager of the annual GTCCC interclub competition since 2008-2009. He is our technical resource on our executive committee. He was awarded the GTCCC’s technical achievement award at the annual GTCCC Awards night in April 2017.
Joseph Leduc
Our workshop workhorse and organizer for many years, Joe is one of our most deserving service recognition recipients. He is our go to event photographer for our annual banquet, other club and community events and one of the most selfless, knowledgeable photographers in our club. He continues to teach and train our members with his seemingly unending knowledge of the craft of photography. Rumour has it that he may be moving away from our area but is hoping to remain a member of our club. He has been such an integral part of the club’s amazing success and would be sorely missed if he wasn’t able to be a regular attendance. Cheers to you, Joe, from the entire club.
Harvey Rogers
Harvey joined the club in 2005 and has been involved in club activities for more than a dozen years. He has been a member of the equipment committee and has served on the executive committee for many years. His primary volunteer role has been as our club rep on the GTCCC board and the driving force behind the revitalization and success of the GTCCC under his 3 year presidency, which has just concluded in April of 2017. He now claims to have more time to serve on our executive and has been recently elected as vice president, which will include involvement with the programming for our club, bringing with him his success in programming much of the GTCCC’s activities over the past several years. He is also one of the GTCCC’s instructors in the judges’ training course and still finds time for globe trotting to various exotic locations worldwide while elevating his photographic abilities to the Master’s level in our club.
2018 Diamond Service Award Recipient
Fern Gitter
Fern has always used her time with the club to make others feel welcome, encouraged, and appreciated for their help.
As an integral part of the Social committee (chair for the past few years), she and her team are always coming up with new games and events so that all members get to know each other, share a laugh, and feel included. This is increasingly important as our club grows in size.
In 2012 Fern took over the job of President and ran this club for 2 years, has served as Program Director, and now sits as a Member At Large on the Executive.
Year after year we enjoy the benefits of the many hours that Fern has spent setting up our year end banquet. From overseeing and assisting with all the details that go into an event like this, to cajoling member donations for the auctions, she has been instrumental in creating a memorable season farewell for us.
It was Fern’s inspired idea to donate cameras to the Boys and Girls Clubs of York Region with the proceeds from our charity auctions. From fundraising, to arranging purchases and setting up the mentorship program, Fern can be held responsible for another generation growing up and overspending on camera equipment.
2019 Diamond Service Award Recipient
Judi Martin
Judi has run or taught the Novice Special Interest group for the past 3 seasons. She has worked on the Service awards committee for the past two seasons.
For the past 8 seasons, she has served on the Membership Committee and has headed it for the past 7 seasons “because no one else wants to be as obsessive about the job.” (her words)
In this role, she has maintained club membership databases and has organized the renewal process for membership in a most efficient manner, and takes on the responsibility for the reminders for membership renewal and new member invitations from the wait list that she maintains. She does not hesitate to volunteer for any task related to the club that needs doing. She produces the most amazing quilts every year for our fundraising efforts at our annual banquet. She is the smiling, friendly welcoming greeter at just about every club meeting. The club has grown to be the friendly, inviting club because of her dedication and constant devotion to our success.
2021 Diamond Service Award Recipients
Rhonda Starr
Rhonda has been the chair of the Evaluations Committee for the past 9 seasons along with co-leading her own evaluation group. As the main contact person she has tried to make sure that all interested parties have a chance to participate and has co-hosted many special photographic seminars at her house. Rhonda also served a term on the Executive as a Member at Large and instituted the donation of members’ prints to Retirement homes in York Region.
She has been awarded the Diamond Service Award for her contributions to our club operations.
2022 Diamond Service Award Recipient
George Cates
George co-chaired the Competitions committee for one season and led the committee for three seasons. He has also been instrumental in helping to maintain our website for 4 years making sure the content matches our club policies and fixing the problems that arise which are too frequent for his liking. He has officially taken over as the club’s webmaster.
He continues to produce all of the presentation videos for competition result presentations and for the AGM and award nights.
He has been awarded the Diamond Service Award for his outstanding and continuing contributions to our club operations.
2023 Diamond Service Award Recipients
Ron Mantay
Ron has been a club member since 2017. He has served as vice president for 2 years and has been an outstanding president for the past 2 years. Ron has been involved in just about every meeting to do with running the club, ensuring that our executive had direction and inspiration. In addition, Ron took the initiative to contact other clubs regarding their approach to Covid issues and incorporation status to find the best approach and future for our club. He has been SO involved in the day-to-day matters of club operation that you would think we were paying him.
It’s been a real pleasure working with you Ron and we are pleased to award you with the Diamond Service Award for all of your contributions to the club.
Platinum Level Service Awards
2016 Platinum Service Award Recipient
Lance Gitter
Lance eats, breathes and sleeps our club, spending countless hours both in the public view and behind the scenes with the inner workings and administration of the club activities. His endless dedication to the successful operation of the club has earned him the highest honour and first Platinum Service Recognition award. He has completed his term as competition chair and has worked with our in house software guru (Josie Stauffer) to set up more efficient pre and post processing of competition data to the competition team carrying on for the future. He has been on the technical team for the GTCCC interclub competition, helping to manage the online judging for the 2017 competition consisting of more than 3000 images in 12 categories by various teams of vetting committee members and judges. He has worked with CAPA over the past several months to set up CAPA’s new website with the EntryWizard online submission and judging software and expects to continue helping both those organizations with the implementation or running of those competitions. As the outgoing President, Ron Goodlin, stated in his presentation of this service award, “Does anyone think this club could run without him?”. Ask Lance and he’ll tell you it’s a labour of love.
2017 Platinum Service Award Recipient
Josie Stauffer
The club was proud to award Josie with the Platinum Service Award at the opening meeting of the 2017-18 club season. She continues to pour her heart and soul in to the creation of software that is the backbone of the club’s operation. She has designed EntryWizard (upload software), EntryWizard Ratings (online judging software), CCMS ( Camera Club Management software), flexishow (presentation software) as well as designing and maintaining the club’s website. Without Josie’s dedication and creations we would not be the club we are. Along with the Platinum Service Award comes honourary life membership in the club; nobody is more deserving of this award.
2018 Platinum Service Award Recipient
Kathy Constantinou
Kathy has always given fully of her time. It takes a lot to run a club effectively and she has volunteered consistently throughout her years with us.
Kathy was our representative for both CAPA and BLURB books for many years.
In 2010 she took on the job of president of this club and led us for 2 years.
“As if THAT wasn’t enough to keep her busy, she decided that we needed a more permanent record for our photos and so she began creating the now yearly souvenir books. Through her hours of hard work and skills, she has created beautiful books full of lasting memories and inspiration for our members.
She has been program director, co-chair of competitions, and has been of endless assistance as a member of the competitions committee. An award winning nature photographer in her own right, she is the person who vets all the nature photographs for both our club and the now Ontario Council of Camera Clubs and has assisted with their judging for the Open Challenge.
Joseph Leduc
Joe was presented with the club’s highest service recognition honour award, the Platinum Service Award at the opening meeting in September, 2018. Joe’s service to the club has been one of the most important contributions for many years as the organizer and leader of our hands on workshops where he would routinely arrive four or five hours prior to the workshop to lug his van full of equipment, including lights, backdrops, remote triggers, cameras, stands and a containers full of props for whatever subjects he would show us how to shoot. These included model cars, tree branches, mirrors, bottles, fog makers, oil, coloured paper, costumes, paper, reflectors, difusers, flowers, still life objects, and the list goes on and on. He taught us how to pose models (and arranged for models, both professional and willing volunteers), the proper use of lighting for everything from people to animals (and arranged multiple sessions for us with wild animals under the control and supervision of those animal trainers). Joe has moved 1.5 hours east of Richmond Hill but with the Platinum Award he is now a life-time honourary member of the RHCC so we still have the benefit of him being a proud member of our club for the rest of his life.
2021 Platinum Service Award Recipients
Jim Camelford
Jim served as President of the Club for the 2009-2010 season, as Past President for 2 seasons and as our Technical Resource person for 5 seasons. He continues to offer his technical perspective, in astounding detail, for club members, as well as other O3C member clubs. He has presented several times at our club on the joys of Lightroom, and printing and was involved in facilitating a Lightroom Special Interest Group series of meetings during the summer of 2020. Jim also ran his own evaluation group for a season using Lightroom, of course. For several years Jim assisted the Website committee to keep our site up and running smoothly. He has also spent many years as the Data Manager for the annual InterClub (GTCCC/OCCC) Competition, as a representative of our club. He is a former competition judge as a representative of our club.
The volunteer service that Jim continues to provide has earned him the highest honour our club awards, life membership and the Platinum Service Award.
Judi Martin
Judi has served as the Membership Chair for the past 9 seasons and as an assistant to Membership for a season as well as serving on executive sub committees for the betterment of the club. She has co-chaired an Evaluation group for 4 seasons and provided useful tips to the group for improving their photos. Judi has also led the S.I.G. committee for 2 seasons along with teaching her own classes in Photoshop for 3 seasons. For 5 seasons Judi has been part of the Service Awards committee, helping to make sure our volunteers are recognized for their efforts.
When Covid hit our area Judi set up a club Zoom account and started booking in meetings and evaluation groups. As a representative of the club she has trained outside club leaders in the use of Zoom and continues to operate practice sessions for our speakers.
Judi’s ongoing contributions, as one of the club’s key volunteers, has earned her the highest honour our club can award, life membership, and the Platinum Service Award.
Harvey Rogers
Harvey has served as President of the club for 2 seasons, as Vice President for 2 seasons and as a Member of the Executive Committee for 3 previous seasons. During that time, he has served on multiple sub committees for the betterment of the club. Harvey has served as our club representative for GTCCC/O3C for 10 seasons, presenting news and special offers at our club meetings. Harvey has also served for 4 seasons on the Boys and Girls club committee and has helped with the Audio/Video set up at club meetings for 6 seasons. He has been a member of the Service Awards committee for 2 seasons and has done extensive judging outside the club as a representative. This season Harvey has reinstituted the Mentorship program for Novice members.
Harvey has proudly and openly represented our club as the leading force behind the enormous success of the Ontario Council Of Camera Clubs and is a deserving recipient of honourary life membership in our club, represented by the Platinum Service Award.
2024 Platinum Service Award Recipient
George Cates
George joined the club in 2014 and by 2016 he had joined the Competitions committee. In 2018 he Co-chaired Competitions for a year then led the committee as Chair for 2 years. While remaining on the Competitions team, George joined the Website committee in 2019, then transitioned to Webmaster in 2022. As Webmaster, George has guided the confused, repaired the site when problems occur, helped to set up events, and brought to reality whatever the Executive thought was a Great idea.
As if that wasn’t enough work, George has researched and been a voice of reason for anything that involves club equipment or operations. In addition, he has stepped up to fill-in when other leaders were unavailable to do their jobs. Every competition he creates the videos we all enjoy so much and when he isn’t doing all these tasks, George is mentoring Novices. Somehow, in spite of all the invaluable tasks he does for the club, George still manages to turn out amazing photographs.
It is with great pleasure that we award George with the Platinum Award and lifetime honorary membership.