Last February 18th to 21^st, 2000, the Rome edition of the PhotoShow took place. For the first time ever, we had our AOHC official desk at Pentax booth. Protege set up a nice corner for our club: a professional looking desk with club logo and motto on the wall behind us and a nice display case filled with historical Pentax cameras at our right characterized our space very well. A heartfelt thanks to Protege for that.

I drove to Rome on Thursday before the show opened, and remained there running the club desk all the time. Here I want to thank both Roberto Romano and Paolo Boccalini for their invaluable support during the show. They were also kind and friendly enough to let me enjoy Rome by night, also from the gastronomic point of view.

Pentax had their new digital cameras on display. I could even handle them and I can assure they aren’t prototypes, they are complete pre-production or first-batch samples (they also had serial numbers). Hence I’m confident we’ll see them on sale very soon.

Two models gained great attention from all over the show, as any lens from next booths was directed toward them. Their almost naked bodies with only some paintings as their own dress could be quite responsible for that.

I was very happy to see that the very most of our members in the Rome area attended the show and came visiting us. I had the chance to know personally some members who previously only spoke to me at the phone, and even some that I knew only by their name and address. We had some really nice talks there. I even didn’t have to ask them about membership renewal, since they were ready and asking to do that. Veeery good!

We’ve been able to start running our Rome club branch. Anybody interested please ring Roberto Romano (06-41731423), which has been appointed local organizer. At the moment, Roberto will gladly keep everybody informed about photo activities in Rome area and manage some AOHC presence at those events. These will be some occasions to let members meet and strike up friendship. More local branches are expected to set up in different areas. Ermanno Barchiesi is at work about that and we are already seeing some results. Then, hopefully local branches could also manage some events according to their will and resources.