Our history
Our timeline
The club year by year, from the minutes, the club magazines and the memories our members have sent in. Click a year to read what happened.
A notice on the radio called a photographic meeting in a hall in Birchleigh. The club started again there and later took the name F-Stop Fotografiese Vereniging.
The club affiliated to the Photographic Society of South Africa. Derek Pearman became its key contact with the Society, and he and Norma Pearman were central to club life for years.
The constitution was unanimously accepted at the AGM at the Kempton Park Civic Centre. It set out nine committee posts, including a Grading Secretary and a Print, Slide and E-Photography Coordinator.
Andre de Kock emigrated but stayed a member of the club for some years afterwards.
The committee was reduced to at least five members, the AGM moved to January, and the club year was set from February to January.
At the year end Marthinus Odendaal was Best Print Worker and Rickus Barnard Best E-Photo Worker.
A new committee was elected. Stefan Jacobs and Mike McLaughlin stood down and Janet Hartley took over the magazine.
The club ran the salon with the Springs and Benoni clubs. More than 3,500 images were entered and F-Stop members took 80 acceptances.
Twenty-eight paid-up members, with an average attendance of twenty-three. Ron Cox became the magazine editor.
Thirty-one members went, and Arnold Bester, then a junior member, was Photographer of the Year.
The first AGM at the NG Kerk hall in Highveld Road. Marthinus Odendaal stepped down after three years in the chair.
The weekend included the club's first mini photo rally.
Chairman Rickus Barnard welcomed the clubs and PSSA National Director Anne d'Oliviera opened the congress.
Introduced at the weekend away at Tussen 'n Bome. The club had twenty-four paid-up members that year.
Rickus Barnard moved to vice chairman and meeting host.
Meetings moved online and judges joined from all over South Africa. There was no CERPS that year, and the weekend away went ahead at Weaver's Roost in September.
The new owners let the club carry on meeting there while it looked for a new home.
The club moved to the NG Kerk at 32 Malpensa Avenue, meeting on the second Wednesday of the month, where it still meets today.
Accepted at an AGM at the Bonaero Park church.
Deidre Schnetler started the club's online meetings in August 2023, so that members who could not get to the hall could still take part in a club evening.
Told by Deidre Schnetler
The weekend away was at Rebellie farm, with astrophotography led by Ivan Sonnekus. F-Stop came second at CERPS, behind Edenvale.
Thirty-three paid-up members that year, with an average attendance of twenty in the hall and two online.
The 1st F-Stop Fotografiese Vereniging National Digital Salon, on Human Portraits, with Arnold Bester as salon director.
A hundred and twenty people from eighteen clubs came to Shed and Silo in Benoni, organised by a team led by Maureen Fourie.
The club took the CERPS trophy at the congress hosted by Boksburg Camera Club. A new logo, a new website and member-hosted Zoom workshops followed the same year.
A new name for the club's monthly magazine.
After six years in the chair and many more on the committee, both announced their retirement from those posts.
Arnold Bester and Rickus Barnard received PSSA Meritorious Awards for long service to the club. Fraser Bryce took Best Image of the Year.
Agreed at the AGM, along with a workshop by Martin Barber for eleven members.