A Brief History of the Camera Club

     As The Villages celebrated a start in 1967, the Camera Club's start was close behind in 1969. The original name, The Villages Camera and Explorer's Club, was intended to emphasize the founders' inclination toward group outings and individual travel. Club records do not show the charter group, but Lloyd West, a consistent local and regional winner, was the instigating force, His wife, Florence, had a big role in starting the Villages Library.  Early meetings showed slides and 16mm movies taken by members.  The first outside speaker, on November 17, 1969, was John Barnes, Past President of several Bay-area camera clubs and Associate of PSA.  He spoke on camera handling.

The critique of slides and prints was started in April of 1970.  The first officers elected, on May 25, 1970, were: Rouen Faith, President; Jack Wilson, Vice President; and Birdie Corber, Secretary/Treasurer.  In October 1970, Jack gave a course on “The Fundamentals of Camera Operation”.  In that same month, The Villages Camera and Explorers Club was admitted to membership in PSA.  The continual display of prints was begun in January 1971.

In the early 70's The Villages members had many winners in the Central Coast Counties Camera Club Council (6C's). In addition, the club placed well in point rankings of some categories for the entire year. Stored records show certificates of point total wins in the 80's signed by Art Stein, 6C President and a member of the Santa Clara Camera Club. He was a popular judge of Village competitions and is now a member of our club.

Henry (Hank) Greenhood came to The Villages in 1972. He was on the Executive Committee of PSA International for twenty years and also served as PSA president. He is credited with having guided the acceptance of the Photojournalism and Travel categories into PSA competition.  He and his wife, Barbara, had FPSA honors in the national organization and brought great leadership to the Villages Camera Club.

The first Villages Camera Club Newsletter was published on August 4, 1975.  Until then, information about the club was provided by a regular column in The Villager, entitled “Camera Club News Column”.  The first issue of the newsletter with the title The Viewfinder was published in September 1978.  The Editor was Gertrude Brondi; the Club President at that time was Herb Hiker.

Although the Club was often informally referred to as The Villages Camera Club in articles, rather than The Villages Camera and Explorers Club, the first official use of the shorter title in The Viewfinder masthead was in August 1982.  At that time the Editor was Pat Reeves and the President was Juliet Warneke.  The Viewfinder  started as a 4 ¼” x 5 ½” four page edition, and was later enlarged by Bill Adler to 8 ½ " x 11".  Bill also added the colored insertion page of competition winners in October of 2002.