Bob Law and Danielle Labonte'
A well-functioning Club requires more than a large membership. A thriving club depends on its members taking active roles and stepping up to lead different activities and to help in many ways.
The President’s Award was created some years ago by Ed Moniz to recognize Club members who contribute to the club beyond their photographic prowess. Ed recognized several people, and the tradition was continued for a while under Garry Schaefer.
Today it is my privilege to revive the President’s Award tradition by bestowing the Award on one of our members who has consistently gone beyond the call of duty in serving the Club: Bob Law.
Bob Law joined the VCC in 2016 and has been an active participant in Club activities since then.
You will no doubt know Bob as our Treasurer—one of the busiest and most crucial of executive positions, and one requiring expertise—and you may well have met him on field trips or Tuesday outings. Bob has been a key contributor to the Club, helping to keep it a viable entity for many years.
This year, however, what has really distinguished Bob’s service was his leadership of the Club’s participation in the 55+ Games. The Games are a huge, annual, province-wide event and last year Victoria was the venue. With Bob leading the way, Victoria Camera Club became the official photographer for the games.
Bob started by writing to the members to ask if anyone was interested in volunteering—he needed a good number of volunteers if the Club was to take on the job. 41 members stepped up. Bob then worked behind the scenes to align the 22 sports, 21 venues, and 103 events with members’ preferred sports to photograph, and with members’ schedules. There were changes along the way to the venues and the scheduling that required constant and last-minute changes to Bob’s spreadsheet—changes which of course had to be communicated back to everyone involved.
Bob handled the 55+ Games project with his usual professional calm, organizational skill, and persistence. Over 1,500 photos were uploaded to various galleries and shared with the Games Board who were thrilled with our Club’s talent and professionalism. This was a wonderful way to showcase our Club and to serve the Community—and it would not have happened without Bob’s leadership. By all accounts, an enormous amount of work was done, and everyone had a great time!
I want particularly to emphasize that Bob’s work for the 55+ Games was on top of his role as Treasurer, a job which is already a large volunteer contribution to the Club. The role of treasurer requires certain talents and is a monthly time commitment year-round. As Treasurer, Bob is a member of the Executive which is also an ongoing year-round commitment. And in recent years, Bob has become the corporate memory and has been invaluable to onboarding new Board members including a few presidents and secretaries. For that, I thank you for the wisdom you shared with me on many occasions this past year.