Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1953)

153 ACL ANNUAL MEETING A report to our members on the 27th Annual Meeting of the Amateur Cinema League THE election of four ACL directors, two of them new to the board, and the naming of one ex-director as an Honorary Life Member of the League, were the highlights of the 27th Annual Meeting last month of members of the Amateur Cinema League and of the directors' meeting which followed. League President Joseph J. Harley, FACL, called the members' meeting to order at 10:15 a.m. on Saturday, May 9, 1953, at ACL headquarters. In attendance, either in person or represented by proxies, were 1153 members of the League, and it was by their ballot that four of their fellow members were elected to ACL's board of ten directors. It was by the unanimous vote of that board, at a later meeting, that Stephen F. Voorhees, FACL, a League director for twenty six years, was named an Honorary Life Member of ACL, upon his resignation from the League's governing body. The four directors elected at the ACL members' meeting are Fred Evans, FACL, of Sherman Oaks, Calif. ; Roy C. Wilcox, ACL, of Meriden, Conn. ; Harry Groedel, ACL, of New York City, and Harrison F. Houghton, ACL, of Hyattsville, Md. Of them, the first two were re-elected to positions on the board of directors, while the last two are new to that panel. Biographies of the League's two new directors will be found later in this report to our ACL membership. The annual meeting of the League's board of directors was called to order at 1:00 o'clock Saturday afternoon, also by President Harley. Mr. Harley's first act after opening the meeting was to announce the resignation from that board of Mr. Voorhees, and to present in a formal resolution the board mem bers' keen regrets upon accepting that resignation. This resolution, in part, follows : Be it resolved that the Board of Directors hereby expresses its profound appreciation of the generous guidance, reasoned counsel and firm • leadership contributed by Stephen Francis Voorhees, FACL, during his quarter century as a League director and officer. Be it further resolved that the Board of Directors is acutely aware of the important services rendered by Mr. Voorhees, while a senior executive of the New York World's Fair — 1939 and 1940, in assuring the freedom of all amateur filmers at this great international exposition. Be it further resolved that the Board of Directors, in warm gratitude for these memorable services to the Amateur Cinema League, hereby names Stephen Francis Voorhees an Honorary Life Member of the Amateur Cinema League, as authorized by Paragraph 2, Article II of the By-Laws of the Corporation. This honor, shared by only one other member of the League, was ure-eminently deserved by Mr. Voorhees. An able and imaginative architect, he had joined ACL in 1926 during the first half-year of our existence. He was named to the League's board of directors on January 5, 1927, and served on that body for twenty-six years until his recent resignation. During that time he was the League's vicepresident (under Founder President Hiram Percy Maxim, FACL) from January 21, 1927 to February 17, 1936. Following Mr. Maxim's death, Mr. Voorhees was named to the League's presidency on February 18, 1936, and he served in that office for The New York Timeb HARRY GROEDEL, ACL HARRISON F. HOUGHTON, ACL STEPHEN F. VOORHEES, FACL eleven years until his resignation on May 14, 1947. It was during this term as ACL president that Mr. Voorhees, chairman of the Board of Design of the New York World's Fair, feught for and won in that exposition's councils complete freedom for the amateur filmer. Earlier, at the general members' meeting, Mr. Harley in his report as ACL president had cited a total enrollment of new members during 1952 of 1,944, for an increase over the 1951 figure of 339. Renewal memberships, at 2,714, showed an increase of 620 over the 1951 total. The net gain in ACL members for the year, Mr. Harley summarized, stood at 564, for a total membership on December 31, 1952, of 4,506. James W. Moore, ACL, League managing director, in reporting on technical and equipment advances made during the year, hailed 1952 as "the year which truly opened the era of magnetic sound on film!" Enlarging on this theme in his report, Mr. Moore wrote: "A few months earlier — September, 1951. to be exact — the door to this promised land had been swung ajar with the announcement by the RCA Victor Corporation of their RCA-400 16mm. magnetic sound projector, and the simultaneous announcement by the Reeves Soundcraft Corporation of their magnetic striping service — Magna-Stripe. The RCA projector was priced at $850 list; the Magna-Stripe service at 3% cents per 16mm. film foot. "But the RCA projector — both because of its price level and because of several omissions in its technical capacities— was not taken up to any great degree by amateur movie makers. Thus it remained for the Bell & Howell Company to swing wide the door into the magnetic era with the announcement in February. 1952, of their Filmosound [Continued on page 162]