IFWP 2017 - BOARD REPORT

A NEW STAGE FOR IFWP.

After 36 years of IFWP existence, as had been announced in 2015 offering support to any new coming team, the board resigned in October 2016 and decided to terminate the Federation in november 2016. One of the problems of the Federation was clearly that the news didn´t reach the end members or individual members of association belonging to IFWP. So, a small team with common thoughts about what the Federation should be, knew about the decission and, a bit late, decided to try a new stage. It was november and the exit president, Mrs. Laurence Didion received our new board proposal and, as she was the only legal representative until liquidation, wrote to the members for a General Assembly. The members voted and approved the new council and Laurence reported to the Police Administration in France, where the IFWP is registered, the new board election.
And here is when our work starts, lots of confusion at the begining, few information flow, lots of things coming and going. We thank Laurence and Ernst Lopez their help is this surpass although is hasn´t been easy and the information sometimes didn´t reach one or another side.
The fact is that our treasurer, Svend Erik Westh Hansen still cannot operate and manage our bank account after 10 months and still depends on Ernst López, which kindly operates, but is an irregular situation.
We have had problems with our website and had to make strong cleaning of hidden parts and permissions. Now is fully operative.
Our compromise was crearly announced and now you have from us this general purposes:

• We will keep all the IFWP regular activities.
• We will promote our members interchange of information and knowledge of activities in the associations.
• We will effort in conservation and solidar activities.
• We will do whatever the majority of our memebers consider that is good for IFWP.

FIRST PRIORITY

Members knowledge and interchange of information. This is a main thing to promote, our associations members want to know from one to each other, activities, competitions, meetings... It is VERY IMPORTANT that the delegates effort in achieving that IFWP information reaches the individual members. Website, newsletters, mails... each association has to make the flow of the information to and from IFWP. This is our main purpose for 2018. The information has to flow. We will welcome any news coming from our associations members and will upload to our website and Facebook pages. In some associations there is a person in charge of sending us a brief about their activities and we strongly reccommend to effort in this.

BOARD MEETING

We were only three members of the board, our secretary Anita Campbell, our vicepresident Pål Hermansen and our president José B. Ruiz, but the meeting was highly effective in terms of frinendship, present and future plans, balance of the first months representing our fedration... Several days in FVLC Foundation from hides for conservation in which there was time for everything, working and photographing. This report reflects many of our ideas and soon we´ll call for voting some of them to all members. It had no cost for the federation.

WEBSITE

It has taken a huge effort from our small website team and manager, all volunteers, to clean and update the IFWP website. It has been a slow process, but nobody is in a hurry for the moment. Now we have a clean operative website updated frequntly with news and more information. This is a MAIN TOOL for us, so that everyone can find information there.
www.ifwp-photo.org

FACEBOOK

Everobody seems to have a facebook page but the Federation at the beginning of this stage. There was an active one for some members raised by the BVNF member Dirk Cleiren from Belgium. Thanks to his colaboration we have now three facebook pages.
This is the one linked to the website, its purpose is to spread the news uploaded and to make easy following and sharing.

IFWP Fanpage

There is one more participative for members sharing and pictures uploading.

IFWP Meeting Group
And one for the conservation group and their present and future projects and achievements.
IFWP Conservation Fanpage

MEMBERS

In this stage we are very unhappy to have missed our Austrian association VTNÖ, it is always sad to say goodbye to companions. Then the Polish association ZPFP came back with Dorota Kycia as delegate and so did the French association ASCPF with Sandrine Testaz as delegate. A new club from Spain AFEP enjoyed us and now ASAFONA, also from Spain in is the process. Even with all those friends in the Federation our feeling is still sad for the lost one.
We expect some clubs to come, specially for our conservation and teaching activities, maybe then we can face a participative european conservation project with our photographs.
One of the new council activity, specially our president, is to meet the members, and it has been very useful those invitations from the Corwall Wildlife Trust Photo Club members, with a great convivence and total
friendship experience, also meetings in Finland with the president and vice of the associations memebers, and soon in Poland in the Festival Visions of Nature 2017. In those activities our board members cannot receive any fee or payment, even if they are involved in presentations or workshops. Another important meetings were at Glazlichter festival, were IFWP was presented and many german photographers were interested and also in Denmark at the Fotofestival in Aqua center Silkeborg were Sandra Bartocha, German GDT vicepresident was highly interested in our activities that were presented also in the festival presentation. We are closer to be atractive to both German and Italian main associations, which is always interesting.

COMPETITION

We thank José Pesquero and his platform for competitions online Pixall for the great help holding our IFWP 2017 Wildlife Photograph of the Year. We had two volunteers to manage the competition, Maruchi and Vicente who have done a GREAT JOB. Without their assistance it couldn´t have been done. We all should thank them for this.
We had the highest prizes ever this year, 3.000 euro for the absolute winner and 500 for the Young edition winner. Finally thanks to PHOTOPILLS APP that has sponsored, it will be cash for the adult winner and books for the young winner. The exhibition will be shown in the congress and we have produced an audiovisual to be hold in Youtube, Vimeo and shared.

CONGRESS

We had no offer for our 37th IFWP Congress and there has been a reason, which is this new stage, the starting confusion and a late call. Finally AEFONA was requested to do and accepted. Thanks to this association we have in Bocairent, Valencia, Spain a congress with not many participants but plenty of activities, hides, nocturnal workshop, macro facilities, old town visit, models for portraits... and many of them for free as the town council has been extremely generous. We thank ASCPF for sending a nice presentation that approaches our french friends to the congress participants.

PHOTO EXHIBITION

From our IFWP 2017 Wildlife Photograph of the Year competition we have produced an exhibition and an audiovisual. We will soon spread and share them.

CONSERVATION

One of the first issues was to develop a conservation team, with two AEFONA members in charge. Their first job has been the IFWP Ethics review. No rules, but reccommendations and examples to our members. Then came the idea of Hides for conservation project to help Foundations to manage and buy more land for conservation. It has started very promisingly with two offers from Spanish conservation initiatives.

TEACHING

It was part of our starting proposal. It is ready, lots of lessons translated to english to share about techniques and composition in wildlife photography. In days will be available in our website an facebook pages.

VOLUNTEERS

We always welcome volunteers specially for website proofing, conservation... 2018 congress organization request will be opened soon, please keep in mind for offering hosting.

TO BE IMPROVED

We want 2018 to be the year that we are fully operative as a board and as a Federation. We expect to accomplish the members better knowledge of the others, better organized activities, some sponsors and even some photo meetings in different countries. We expect to have some new council members and to strengthten the relationships. Soon we will make a General Assembly online and make voting proposals for our memebers in order to decide about present and future plans. It can be a good idea to promote a delegates meeting in one of our Foundation reserves and IFWP to cover a part of the expenses as
they are key for the increase of contact and info flow.

ECONOMY

We are doing well, with very few expenses and good incomes from clubs and sponsor. Next year it will be even better and we will be able to spend some money to help the congress hosting, to organize another conservation campaign about waste and some new things. We have now more than 5.000 euro and still have some income to arrive.

37th  IFWP  CONGRESS, 2017.
HOSTED BY AEFONA, IN BOCAIRENT, VALENCIA, SPAIN

DATES:  21 – 24 September, 2017.
 
The congress took place in a great companionship ambiance, due to a low participation was a low cost, optimum activities one.
 
We had 24 participants, as foreign visitors 6 members of Cornwall Wildlife Trust Photographic Group, UK, and 2 from Zwiazek Polskich Fotografow Przyrody, Poland. The rest were AEFONA members and volunteers.
 
All times it was possible we had lunches and dinners together and, after the first day, moved to the reserve of the Foundation Victoria Laporta for the hides photo opportunities.

 
THURSDAY 21-IX-2017  Congress room.
Welcoming to the participants from the Authorities of Bocairent, the Major of Bocairent, Mr. Vicente Ferre and the councillor of the environment, Mr. José M. Beneyto. They made our visit very special, with the free street session of the models, the free visits to the town and caves, free congress room, coffee and snacks... we are very gratefull to them.
Welcoming from the organizers, AEFONA and IFWP.
Our president, José B. Ruiz opens the Assembly informing that NO votation is going to be due to the lack of presence and representation from the members.
 

Updating information to members.
 
Our president started informing about the begining of the new council, some bureaucratic delays, problems with the website...
 
Board report.
 
The report was presented to our members, showing our priority for 2017-2018, the board meeting in Spain some months ago, the works in our website and future improvements, our succeding facebook fanpages, the loss and increase of members, important meetings with GDT board member, the presentation of IFWP at Glanzlichter festival...
We also saw the competition Exhibition, the main prizes and runner up, we had the exhibition printed in good quality and nice size, 40 cm in longer side. Also we have a show with them for our next youtube channel, soon available. We had the highest prizes ever this year, 3.000 euro for the absolute winner and 500 for the Young edition winner. Finally thanks to PHOTOPILLS APP that has sponsored, it will be cash for the adult winner and books for the young winner.
About the congress we thank ASCPF for sending a high class presentation. 
We discussed about the succes of the campaign hides for conservation and next december meeting at Salamanca for the vultures and raptors hides.
About teaching, is a matter of hours that we start in our website and communication tools, thanks to our webmaster Almudena who was in the congress as well as our competition managers Maruchi and Vicente.
To be improved was one of the last subjects we talk about, specially the online Assembly, the increase of consultation to our association members, to shedule activities with more time… Soon you´ll receive the invitation to host our next 38th congress.
The last subject was Economy. We are doing well, we have now more than 5.000 euro and still have some income to arrive.

Report 37th Congress pdf
 
Portraits.
 
It was very exciting on thursday afternoon, after having luch alltogether, to have 2 girls models and 1 dancer dressing typical from Bocairent.

 
Hides and activities.
 
Hides were the main attraction, plenty of photographers took pictures of the crossbills, the crested tits, the golden eagle, mouflons... We spent full days at the reserve having fun.
Also the nocturnal picture was fun, even the night was not the best one we could learn some techniques.

Audiovisuals.
 
It was Saturday afternoon that we all met at the congress room for the presentations show. We saw our friends from ASCPF with their stunning selection, AEFONA dynamic nature, and several individual photographers audiovisuals.
After this we went to have diner together to a nice restaurant and we could chat and laugh together.

 
Some of our guests extended their stay for some days and we did our best to attend them.

From Poland our colleagues present us a highly recommended competition: "Visions of Nature 2017":

"We strongly encourage all nature photographers to participate in this year's open competition "Vision of Nature 2017".

Each year, the most important and exciting event of the International Nature Photography Festival Nature Visions is an open competition for multimedia presentations (diaporam). The aim of the competition is to present the widest range of photographic looks to the wonders of nature. By combining the image with the music, the authors have a unique opportunity to show their own vision of the beauty of nature on a large screen in an original and exciting way, which will fall into the memory of the audience gathered for a long time.

Deadline for submissions is October 16, 2017.

Applications entitled "Visions of Nature 2017" can be sent by:

• Mail or courier services to: Jerzy Łapiński ul. Lebiodowa 17z 04-674 Warsaw (on CD / DVD).
• E-mail to the Organizer's address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (the addressee confirms receipt the application).
• Virtual disks such as: Google Drive, Dropbox, SkyDrive, Wetransfer with a link to the Organizer's address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (Addressee confirms receipt of the application.

The winner of the Grand Prix will receive the main prize - the CANON EOS 7D Mark II. The sponsor of this award is CANON Poland.
In total, the value of material prizes in this year's competition will amount to about 15 thousands zł.

For more information: ZPFP "Visions of Nature" 2017

We invite you to participate in the contest!