Totally agree that camera clubs ought to be in a position to benefit greatly form even modest engagement in current Social sharing activities, surprising that they are so poorly represented on the web. Even more so by the fact that photographers are, by their nature, usually gadget freaks too.

I’ve no doubt there are wonderful photographers in some of the local clubs, just found it hard to find ‘em. I did think the ‘meta’ photo organisations would have had some sort of online database of member clubs, but again not easy to find any useful resources.

Oddly though, I have had more ‘real-world’ contact with photographers from the past few Flickr meets than in the last few years from any offline activities! So Flickr is really working for me - and across the whole of Ireland. I would never have had the pleasure of meeting the Dublin photographers if not for Flickr.
I would even consider expanding my physical contacts on Flickr across UK too, it’s not that expensive to get there, if so inclined.
Saw a Flickr London meet organised by some folks who took the train from St. Pancreas station to Paris for a special night-time photography shoot - dusk til dawn style. I like that idea. I would really love to get to Cork too, the cheap flight idea that Phil is musing over sounds great. I spent a lot of time travelling around Ireland and I still think it’s one of the most beautiful places to take photographs, there’s a lot of places I still want to visit.

I have not ruled out contacting my local camera clubs, but there’s the rub - in our ‘time-poor’ society those not visible on the web make it harder, and less likely, to find them. Ya can’t Google offline organisations!

Cheers.

Anyway, I fear that many of the members of camera clubs around the country are probably not very aware of the online world. When I gave a presentation of “educational sites” a few weeks ago, not many people had actually heard of Flickr! Clubs struggle to come up with original material when it’s already done for them online but they don’t know it! It baffled me when someone repeatedly asked for more tutorials and learning sessions. All this stuff was online on Flickr and blogs!
A great thing about clubs is the social aspect of meeting a group of people every week or fortnight. All the photos on Flickr might be inspiring but when you see the amazing images taken by a guy sitting next to you in a cold hall it’s really motivating.

Of course, Flickr is full of those who are familiar with the online world and that includes everyone who reads this. You live and breath this stuff every day. You twitter and blog and organise meets but there’s a disadvantaged offline world that don’t know about all this stuff. It’s an exclusive club I’m afraid, and missing out on a huge wealth of photographic talent.

As I started to ramble there a bit, here’s a summary - camera clubs and Flickr are separate entities. Don’t make the mistake of living in one without at least experiencing the other.

*phew*

Cheers.

Am I missing something here???