About Us
Bacup Camera Club is a charity (HMRC Ref: XT33069). Its aims are to expand photographic knowledge and skills of the local community through a mixture of lectures, competitions, tuition and other activities within a social environment and by outreach working with other local charities and schools.
From September to May we have a programme of Wednesday evening meetings. These take the form of internal and external competitions, lectures on photographic techniques, travelogues and portfolios of images circulated by regional organisations. During the summer months we meet for informal outings or workshops.
Where we meet
From September to May we meet every Wednesday at 7.30 p.m. at the ABD Community Centre, Burnley Road, Bacup, OL13 8AB, where we have modern facilities for our lectures, competitions and a small studio setup. Access is via the side door on Harcourt Street, the narrow lane between ABD and the Post Office. Please leave parking here for disabled people, speakers and unloading of equipment. There is ample parking on Burnley Road, Fern Street and elsewhere in Bacup.
Our History
Until January 2012 the club was part of the Bacup Natural History Society (NAT) and met in the Natural History Museum. The NAT was founded in 1878 and, whilst there have been suggestions that an informal camera club began soon afterwards, the NAT records suggest that a photographic interest group formed around 1903. An article on the formal establishment of the club appears in the 2nd March 1920 edition of the Bacup Times. Because of the increase in interest in photography, probably due to the immediacy of digital technology, the club needed to expand and to find premises more suitable to the display and storage of photographs and equipment. Consequently it separated from the NAT in January 2012 and received recognition of its independent charitable status from HMRC from 14 March 2012. Donald Entwistle, pictured below, (1931 to 2016), was club secretary for a continuous period of 50 years, from 1959 to 2009.
