We have all been inundated with information around the escalating COVID-19 virus, and today the Premier of Victoria declared a state of emergency.
Today’s statement accompanying the state of emergency declaration included words to the effect that “clubs” should avoid “non-essential” gatherings. And while the context of that sentence refers to “bans” outlined in the previous paragraph (gatherings of 500+ people), it is also clear that our governments intend to take further action.
The WCC Committee is focused on putting the health and safety of our members first. We note that a reasonable proportion of our membership is in the older “at risk” age group. It is clear that conducting meetings (of any sort) would be taking on unnecessary risk with our member’s health. Finally, we note that VAPS have cancelled meetings and have discontinued handling prints.
For all these reasons the WCC Committee has decided that the club will suspend ALL meetings, workshops, outings and any other gatherings until further notice.
Also note the following:
- The InFocus Exhibition will continue until it’s scheduled finish date (March 22). This is held in a very large space and we only have a couple visitors at any time. If you are scheduled to be a monitor at the gallery, we ask you to please attend. If you have concerns for your health in attending, please contact either Vicki Moritz or myself.
- In an effort to stagger picking up prints from the InFocus Exhibition, please arrive any time after 12 noon – we would like to avoid everyone arriving at 3pm.
- The April 7 Competition Night will NOT proceed. We will announce winners electronically. We will work through print collection at a later time.
- We intend to continue to accept EDI images for monthly competitions and have them judged (our print section, in all groups, is suspended from next month onwards)
- For April and subsequent months, we will work with judges to see if we can distribute judge’s comments.
- We understand there are a couple of “special” workshops and events scheduled, some of which we have accepted payment for. We will work through that shortly. The fate of these may be decided at the next committee meeting.
- Please take advantage of social media and networking in these uncertain times. Join the club’s Facebook group and/or the WhatsApp community. This is a great way to stay connected.
- The committee is looking at other measures to improve our ability to stay connected and mentor each other.
As regrettable and painful as this decision is, we hope that this decision makes sense to our members. Hopefully we can all get through this health event with limited additional disruption. We will continue to update members via our website and the weekly Watson emails. We will also provide additional updates (such as this one) as required. In the meantime, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me or another Committee member
Take care and stay healthy.
Kind regards, Russell