The Bournemouth Video Club was started in 1992 by a famous harmonica player John Butler-Walton. 42 people turned up for the first meeting and they gave the Club the name of The Wessex League of Videographers.

In October 1993 the Club changed its name to the Bournemouth Video Club and at the same time changed its location to a rather smart hotel in Bournemouth called the Durley Hall Hotel. The Club met twice a month, one meeting was devoted to training, the other to competitions and presentations.

In 1994 the Club started to meet every Monday. The extra two meetings a month were to have a chat and drinks at the bar. At this stage, we had 62 members. In November 1995 and 1996 we held the Bournemouth Video Show, which was very well attended by both the industry and people interested from all over the south of England. Unfortunately, no more were held due to lack of support within the Club.

By this time, Derek Smith was our Chairman and he changed the direction the Club was going in, in that we were much more involved in outdoor activities making documentaries for local businesses and promotional videos for Bournemouth Council.

In 1998 the Club began to take a down turn. The hotel changed management and significantly increased its rates. This coincided with the Club losing many members. We were in trouble and had to move. By now Derek Smith had resigned as Chairman and our President was not well. We relocated to a local pub, which was a disaster. It was difficult to find, and the room we had was terrible so more members left.

We were now down to 10 members and searching for new premises. Fortunately, our then Chairman, George Berger and Secretary, Brian Lacey, located a room in the Kinson Community Centre and together started to rebuild the Club assisted by the remaining members.

In 2002, our President, John Butler-Walton sadly passed away. At the following AGM, Brian Lacey was elected Chairman. The club grew to 40 members meeting every Wednesday evening throughout the year. He led the club through a very active programme of competitions, social evenings, presentations from industry, show reels from other video clubs and technical evenings on chromakey, sound, lighting and camera work. During this time the club received commendations from external competitions and won both The Penny Cup at Weymouth club and The Teign Cup at Teignmouth.

In December 2008, Brian Lacey retired as Chairman and became our President and life member, continuing to support and represent the club at various events throughout the region.

Kathleen Hodges was then elected Chairperson. At this time the committee decided to take a break from meetings during August. Our varied programme continued with outings to local places of interest and exchange visits to other clubs being included. These visits enabled members to show their work and to see films made by other video clubs.

Kathleen was a keen fundraiser and helped to boost the funds by selling items at car boots sales. For this and all the work done for the club, The Peacock Award was presented to her in 2009 at the annual awards evening.

In 2012 she led the team from BVC that went to the British International Amateur Film Festival (BIAFF) in Weymouth to show films for the Institute of Amateur Cinematographers (IAC). This was also the year when we celebrated 20 years of video making. In July a party was held to commemorate this, and all 45 members were given a specially engraved badge to mark the event.

In October Kathleen resigned from the club and at the A.G.M. Carole Beavan was elected to be the new Chairperson, and wishes to take the club forward with its aim of promoting the art of video making in Bournemouth and surrounding areas.