Hello Denizens of the Night,

I'd like to ask your forgiveness.  In the recent Chinatown Event(s), I made a comment about dropping people from the event because the Chinatown Event was oversubscribed. We never intended to actually drop people on short notice or without a clear policy - so please accept my apologies for provoking any ill will. Indeed we are constantly learning how to best manage our incredible success as a very large group of Night Photography enthusiasts with all volunteer staff.  One way, of course, is to grow our leadership team. We're delighted that Enrico has joined us and recently lead a well received overnight photography trip in Yosemite.  We also are grateful that Chetan stepped up and agreed to help with a second China Town event on the following evening.

Before we had more leaders on board, we talked privately about increasing the RSVP limit on the Chinatown event. We decided not to. We are very eager that all of our events allow people to connect with, learn from and feel safe with others. Keeping groups down to a comfortable size is how we've best been able to meet those goals. In fact, Eric dropped some of his plans and attended both nights because he wanted folks to feel the love. (Skipping out on my 23rd wedding anniversary, didn't seem like a good idea or I'd have been there, too.)

In view of the large size of the Bay Area Night Photography group, please help us be effective and fun by:

1. Reading the About us and especially the MUST READ THIS page and then updating your profile.
2. Consider adding your last or middle initial to your name. We have 3 Aarons, 3 Adams, 7 Alans, 6 Alex's...
3. Putting a photo of your face on your profile. If not your featured image, then something in your Photos tab. Otherwise we may not recognize you and mark you as "absent".
4. Carefully reading any event descriptions before commenting, or sending email. About 70% of the questions asked are already answered in the descriptions - and those descriptions may have been recently updated.  And usually the question is something others are wondering about, so ask in a comment or a Discussion group so all can benefit from the answer(s).

If you have questions, ideas and what not that may be of interest to others, please start or update a Discussion on the topic. And please answer our polls. If you want instruction or a chance to "redo" a past event... let us know with your vote.

If you are looking for hands on intensive training, we can make many recommendations from local workshops for beginners to intensive workshops like the StarCircleAcademy.com workshop(s). And we have some shorter term hands on instruction in the works, too! 

Again, thank you for your interest in Bay Area Night Photography.  We look forward to seeing you at an event soon!

-- Steven Christenson on behalf of the Leadership team of the
Bay Area Night Photography Group.

PS I'm off for the Sunrise hike on Clouds Rest and then teaching a workshop on White Mountain. It will be a week (or more) before I will be able to respond.

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