We hope you are keeping well and, that those of you who are not working or involved with home-schooling, are managing to keep busy and motivated!

Those of us lucky enough to be able to get out for "daily permitted exercise" enjoyed brilliant weather in April. This Wisteria was tumbling over a garden wall in Putney last week and I post it here, not for its photographic merit, but for its colour!  But, back to the London Region Update for May!

Image (c) Judy HIcks LRPS

We enjoyed four meetings by video in April, some great photographs and likewise virtual journeys:

• a trip off the beaten track in Scotland with Quentin Ball ARPS
• a journey round Central American with Elif Yigit, and
• a journey to ARPS with Kathryn Alkins, who shared her successful Fine Art panel and answered numerous questions.  ​
• Fred Sansom introduced the work of Edith Tudor-Hart, a politically motivated photographer of the 1930s, 40s and 50s in a fascinating talk to the Bookworms Group.​

In addition, Julian continued his successful online mentoring group with Cafe Art and Roger has kicked off the new Flickr Challenge - more about that below.

Thank you to all the presenters above, to those who participated and brought pictures to share and to others who are working to keep us busy and engaged at this time.

We are learning and trying to improve how we present our online events, but are sufficiently encouraged to bring further meetings to you in May.   Details below.

The following meetings are scheduled:

• 2nd Monday: 11th May - the usual date for the meeting in North London.  Tonight Andy Norman LRPS will be the keynote presenter:  Link
• 2nd Tuesday: 12th May - the usual date for the meeting in SW London.  Tonight Vince Harris ARPS will be bringing a talk "The People of Burma"  Link
• 3rd Wednesday: 20th May.  Meirion Harris is going to discuss the work of American Civil War photographer, Alexander Gardner at the Bookworm Club.  Here's the LInk and
• 4th Tuesday: 26th May - the usual date for the meeting in SE London: Fred Barrington ARPS will be sharing some pictures from Antarctica. Link

If you would like to attend any (or all!) of these meetings, sign up on the appropriate web page by following the links above.

If you have pictures to share for the second part of the general group meetings, please post them to the Dropbox links which will be posted to the relevant event page on the website in due course.

We look forward to seeing many of you online and, of course, geography is no barrier!

We are now on our fourth Challenge:  "Shapes".  Previous challenges were Colours of the Rainbow (Joint Winners Susi Luard and Judy Hicks), the View from my Window (Winner Fred Barrington), Stuffed (as in stuffed toys) (Winner Dawn Clifford).  Follow the link here to join. 

We expect to continue our four regular meetings in June but, in addition, we will be running two Distinctions Advisory Days by Video-Conference: 

• June 13th will be for "L"
• June 20th for "A"  

We are offering just six places at each event, plus a maximum of six observers. 

Initially places will be offered to those who originally signed up to the now cancelled event but if all places are not taken up, they will of course be opened up to others.

If you had a confirmed place at the previously advertised June event, you should expect to hear from Brian (for the 'L') and Mike (for the 'A')):  they will send you details of how they expect the day to run, what you need to send them and by when.  If you do not hear from them, send them an enquiry by e-mail:  Brian LondonDist1@rps.org and Mike LondonDist2@rps.org

Observers may sign up on the website on a "first come, first served" basis but please remember there will be just six places.

This is experimental for us but if it is successful we will run more.

Please let us know of other ways you would like to keep in touch during this time, or if there is anything we can do to help.

All ideas are welcome - just contact us and let us know.

We hope to see many of you online soon, or on Social Media! Most importantly, stay well and stay safe - and keep in touch.

Very best wishes

David and Judy

Contact:  london@rps.org or londonro2@rps.org

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Facebook (most used sites, there are others)

• London Region:  Link
• London Urban:  Link
• London Naturally:  Link

Flickr

• MId-Week Exporers:  Link
• London Street:  Link
• RPS London Urban: Link
• London, SW:  Link
• London Challenge Link 

Instagram

• RPS London: Link  (Posting via e-mail to londoninsta@rps.org)
• RPS London Urban:  Link  (Postings via email to Londonurban@rps.org

Twitter

• @The_RPSLondon.  Link here. (Not well used since no longer linked to the website events page)

The new RPS Website has now been live since late Novemer!  If you have time to provide feedback, please use this online form and send it through to HQ so that your thoughts and ideas can be incorporated in the next stages of development.

Here are some short-cuts to London Region's pages, which may help:

• London Events:  link
• London Region 'About' page:  link

​For Special Interest Groups (Groups), International and other Regions (called UK RPS), go to this page and scroll down until you come to them.

You should have received the following guidance notes and contact details in an e-mail from Bristol but here it is again for your ease of reference. "For further information on the new site, with guidance on how to update your portfolio, please follow this link.   If you are having problems specifically with logging in, you can call 0117 315 4489 or email: websitelaunch@rps.org."

All of the Region's events are open to all:  RPS Members and Non-Members from London Region and elsewhere are welcome.  There are of course benefits of becoming a member: details here.  Regular Meetings and Events are generally free or at minimal cost and most of them are volunteer led.  There are charges for Distinctions Advisory Days and for special events, where we have to recover costs such as speaker fees and room hire:  we try to keep these charges to a minimum.

In addition to the events listed above, the Special Interest Groups (SIGs) are active in the area and sometimes hold events in London.   

If you have any questions at all at any time, please ask!  Each event has a link on the web page to the organiser of that event, so that you can contact them directly.

For general enquiries, e-mail londonro2@rps.org

For Distinctions advice or enquiries in general there is information on the website:  if you have further questions about Distinctions, you can contact either Bath HQ on distinctions@rps.org or for London specific questions contact Brian on LondonDist1@rps.org or Mike on LondonDist2@rps.org