Dale Potter

Chester A. Massey Distinguished Service Award

January 28, 2025

Dale Potter’s work for SANP over the last five years has met and surpassed the criteria for the Chester A. Massey Distinguished Service Award.

Quote from the December 2019 newsletter: “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.” That’s just what the SANP Board said when Dale Potter stepped up and volunteered to be the chairperson of the 2020 Salon.

From that day until the present, Dale Potter has been a dynamo of energy, continuously contributing a great number of outstanding activities for the benefit of our members. The following is a summary of Dale’s contributions from late 2019 until the present.

• In his role as Salon Manager, Dale has coordinated six salon competition events. Two of those required extra care and planning because of the COVID pandemic in 2021 and 2022. The other four salons required coordination with event venues to arrange for the associated banquets. All the salons were outstanding successes.

• In his role as Field Event Manager, he has coordinated approximately 75 outdoor photo shooting events for our members. He has personally been the leader on about ninety percent of those events. The 100% increase in club membership over the past five years is due in large part to his expansion of field event opportunities and his leadership in this role.

• On three occasions, Dale has coordinated workshops on preparing prints and mats for entry in the salon competitions. The success of his efforts is evident in the quality of the print entries at the salons.

• Dale, along with Jerry Whaley, successfully negotiated the return of our club meetings back to the Pellissippi State Goins Auditorium, which is much more conducive to better programs and higher attendance than the meeting venues we had used for the previous seven years.

• He initiated the upgrade of the SANP liability insurance policy to include protection for the board of directors.

• He wrote the liability waiver now required of everyone who attends an SANP event.

Dale has exhibited his fundraising ability that has resulted in considerable monetary benefit for the club.

• Organized six field workshops during the last year:

• Initiated and implemented the design and sale of a collection of hats and caps featuring our club logo for our club members.

• Initiated SANP enrollment in the Kroger Community Rewards program

The combined profits from the workshops and hat sales totaled more than $4,600. The Kroger Community Rewards enrollment is yielding about $60 every three months.