Thursday 13th August 2026 – Club Meeting – Speaker our own member, Roy Conchie with a presentation entitled ‘Science to Selling’.
Roy started out by pointing to the title being an ‘Alliteration’ which has always been a favourite of Advertising copywriters as well as newspaper editors. In referencing the ‘Science’ element, He mentioned the talk he gave 3 years ago about his 2 years work with NASA’s programme, based in southern France, to bring greater accuracy to all the measurements of the moon’s topography in readiness for the Apollo navigation system.
At the end of this venture towards December 1965, it was vital to get a new job and Roy focussed his attention towards the Advertising Industry in Manchester. Initially working directly for an Ad. Agency, an opportunity arose to rent the studio from the same agency and so Roy joined the army of creative freelancers working in advertising, film and television.
Roy detailed some of the changes which brought great benefits such as the change to electronic flash lighting in stills studios from the old incandescent tungsten filament bulbs previously in use.
Roy worked through many examples of work and pointed out the many vagaries in technique utilising the Schlieren effect used in photographing liquids and glassware and Scheimflug’s Rule as part of focus control. A brief series of images showed the film and larger studio facilities required for such an enterprise and then he showed how interactions between himself, Art Directors and other freelancers came together in producing the final images. Examples included a vast amount of work with fishing tackle companies, Clothing manufacturers, Kitchen companies and Domestic appliance manufacturers. Roy showed some images for Exhibition Stands often used at Trade shows, Sales conferences etc., where arrangements featured multiple products arranged in eye-catching situations.
To bring us into the current Century, Roy detailed his work in Digital Imaging and all the opportunities that presented with new techniques such as ‘Stitching’, ‘Sampling’ and ‘Layering’ for clients such as Nissan UK, B&Q and BP. At the end, Roy invited members for a Q&A session.
Wednesday 12th August 2026 – Bowls – Knutsford Probus v Macclesfield 2/Alderley Edge Probus
On what was one of the hottest August days ever recorded the bowlers of Knutsford entertained their friends from Macc/Alderley Edge Probus to the Knutsford Bowling Club green. With wilting vegetation and grass looking rather brown to say the conditions were challenging could be seen as an under statement. However, the guys gave it a go, but at the half time tea break, with Knutsford leading by 42 points to 34, it was decided with consideration to health that the match should finish. Nobody complained!
Thursday 6th August 2026 – Walk – Thelwall
The Walking Group started at Thelwall and commented how delightful they found the village, wedged between the M6 viaduct and Warrington, it had a really nice feel especially with the Pickering Arms Pub dating back to the 17th century.
It was unfortunate that some group members had to pull out of the walk so it ended up that just 3 members took part and the walk started with a unique experience for the group, a short trip on a ferry! This ferry runs ‘in perpetuity’ across The Manchester Ship Canal and the 3 members took the ferry over to the River Mersey flood plain where they observed a weir which nowadays was retaining water to help drive 3 Archimedes Screw type generators putting out half a megawatt of electricity. The walk returned for another crossing back over the Ship Canal via Latchford Locks and then back to The Pickering Arms for a nice lunch.