Job Descriptions

The President

President
Past President
Hon Treasurer
Hon Secretary
Programme Secretary
Competition Secretary
Exhibition Secretary
Publicity Secretary
Webmaster
Membership Secretary

The Council

Click the individual role, or scroll down to peruse them all

President

Main responsibilities

To lead and chair council meetings in order to maintain and develop an interesting photographic club.

When required to provide support to council members outside the meetings.

Act as the clubs front person when approaching or dealing with outside bodies and sponsors.

To assume main responsibility for welcoming speakers and new members.

To make final decisions when needed.

Council Meetings

Council meetings are crucial in determining the path BPS should be on for the year. Council meetings work on behalf of the members

-major decisions, like formalising council members needs to be ratified at the AGM.

The purpose of the meetings are to ensure the club runs smoothly by discussing and ironing out issues which need addressing in order to ensure

the council members work as a cohesive group.

The council also agree such items like the Treasurers forecasts and changes to the club rules.

Past President

The role is primarily advisory, supportive, and ambassadorial, ensuring continuity and stability within the organisation.

The responsibilities typically include:

Provide Strategic Continuity – Offer historical perspective and institutional knowledge to support long-term planning and decision-making.

Advise the Council – Act as a sounding board for the current President and committee members on governance, policy, and procedural matters.

Mentor Incoming Leaders – Support and guide the current President and emerging committee members to ensure leadership continuity.

Support Governance and Compliance – Assist in upholding the Society’s constitution, policies, and best practices.

Chair or Participate in Special Projects – Lead or contribute to strategic initiatives, sub-committees, or review panels as requested.

Chair society meetings in absence of the President.

Represent the Society – Serve as an ambassador at events, competitions, inter-club meetings, or community engagements when appropriate.

Promote Organisational Stability – Help maintain unity, continuity, and positive culture within the Society.

Assist with Succession Planning – Identify and encourage future leaders within the membership.

Provide Impartial Perspective – Offer balanced, experience-based guidance during complex or sensitive matters.

Preserve Institutional Memory – Ensure important precedents, traditions, and lessons learned are retained and applied appropriately.

Treasurer

The Treasurer Summary Manages the Society’s finances by collecting subscriptions and other income, paying debts, preparing estimates and accounting to Council and the Society; all as detailed in the Society’s Constitution and Rules. These duties include managing the Society’s banking and insurance and interaction with members, our meeting room provider, judges and lecturers, the auditor, the trust and others as required.

The How

1. Shall receive all subscriptions and keep accounts of all money received and expended on account of the Society during the normal running and operating of the Society business. (This activity shall be separate from the operation of the Trust (see Rule No. 10 below) except that the Treasurer shall include inthe operating accounts of the Society a record of any monies paid to or received from the Trustees during the course of the year).

2. Shall present an account at every Council meeting of the money due to or owing by the Society.

3. Shall during the last quarter of each financial year present to the Council provisional estimates of income and expenditure for the Society for the following year and, as soon as possible after each Annual General Meeting and in any event before the end of the second quarter of each financial year, present to the Council estimates of income and expenditure for the Society for the current financial year.

4. Shall present at the Annual General Meeting an account showing the financial position of the Society (excluding the capital held in Trust) at the close of the previous year, such account to be certified by an Auditor duly appointed by the Society in general meeting.

5. Shall, at the end of each financial year, transfer to the Trustees anycapital in excess of a level to be approved by the Council, for investment and management by the Trustees.

Hon Secretary

1. Shall endeavour to attend all meetings, record Council Minutes and follow the instructions of the Council.

2. Shall, in case of need, have power, in agreement with the President, to take decisions, which they consider to be to the advantage of the Society, such decisions to be brought before the Council within two months for approval.

3. Shall cause an Extraordinary General Meeting to be convened at any time on receiving a written request signed by not less than 5 Members or The President.

Programme Secretary

The Programme Secretary organises the programme of activities for the Tuesday meetings. The Programme Secretary is not responsible for running the Tuesday evening events, but may choose to do so. The Programme Secretary may also choose to organise additional events not on Tuesdays, but that is not a requirement and entirely at their discretion.

The annual programme includes society events, exhibitions and competitions nights which are more or less fixed, so the work involves finding typically 8 guest speakers, 8 club speakers and dreaming up suitable activities for 10 further club nights, which may include photo shares, practicals, demonstrations or critiques.

The programme generally needs to be prepared at least six months in advance, in order to secure dates for events and for popular guest speakers. Once the season starts, the main work is liaising with the guest speakers over arrangements, communicating these to the rest of the team and writing notes about upcoming meetings for publicity.

Info for organising the programme

The programme runs from the first Tuesday of September to the last Tuesday of June with two weeks break over Christmas.

Budget

Annual budget £800 to cover guest speakers. Bristol Salon Show and any expenses for club nights/ practicals Judges’ expenses are NOT part of the programme budget so don't worry about them - the Competition Secretary does!Good speakers often want fees in addition to travel expenses. The budget typically requires a couple of speakers by zoom or locals who only charge PAGB expense rates.A few nights out in the City in addition to Exhibition and Summer Social helps with the cost of booking St Stephen’s.

Annual Events

President's Evening - first meeting of September unless otherwise agreed.WCPF Travelling Exhibition - mid september to WCPF Rota - agree by

e mail: travellingexhibition.wcpf@gmail.com

AGM - early November - agree date with council.

Christmas Social - last meeting before Christmas break.

Bristol Salon Show - Traditionally in spring, but could be flexible - email to chairman@bristolsalon.co.uk charge £75

Annual Exhibition - April - Exhibition Secretary to book St Michael's and confirm date.

Summer Social - last Tuesday in June.

Competitions

Competitions approx every 4th week - proposed dates to be agreed with Competition Secretary. Seven rounds of League competitions, one special competition, Picture of the Year.Print competitions require an event in St Stephen’s two weeks before as the deadline for hand in.

Guest Speakers

Good speakers can be found from reviews by other clubs (on Facebook groups or their websites)Always worth checking out websites of interesting photographers to see if they offer talks, or contact them Ask WCPF or PAGB both have registers of speakers.Invite back good speakers from previous yearsSpeakers travelling from adjacent PAGB regions (Wales and South) are generally affordable, further afield - zoomBest to start early with the guest speakers and offer a range of dates to make sure you can find something that suits.

Club Speakers

There are usually sufficient volunteers to fill the club speaker slots. Make requests in the newsletter or meeting announcements.Arrange the club speakers after the dates for guest speakers have been sorted, and again if possible offer a range.

Club nights / Practicals

Fill in the remaining slots when all the important speakers and dates are fixed.Visits from/ to other clubs are a good option.Fun events like Battle of

BA1 vs BA2 are appreciated - but often require some effort to organise.Encourage members to suggest ideas and then suggest that they volunteer to organise.

Copies of the finished programme need to be issued to the Treasurer to forward to WCPF and Webmaster for publication.

Resources

email: programme@bathphotographicsociety.org.uk

Server: mail@bathphotographicsociety.org.uk

Username: programme@bathphotographicsociety.org.uk

Password: BPSprogramme

WCPF www/thewcpf.com. -need to set up personal log in and register as Officer of the club

PAGB. pagbhost.co.uk use CMS login - need to set up personal login and register as Officer of the club

Competition Secretary

Main responsibilities

●To manage the League and non League competitions for the Society.

●To liaise with and support Council Members to facilitate such activities that they may need collection or collation of images from Members.

●To arrange and coordinate with Judges (external or internal) for all the competitions

●To manage the PhotoEntry software package to collect and identify images and to maintain the results from Competitions to provide a running total and end of year points total.

●To manage the winner’s trophies for League and other competitions.

●To provide results updates to the Newsletter Secretary and Webmaster in a timely manner.

Specific Details See Competition Secretary Duties

Competitions

●Identify dates and book judges for all competitions through the year.

●Communicate with judges and be responsible for delivering submitted entries to the judges in reasonable time.

●Upkeep of Competition Rules.

PhotoEntry

●Set-up of competitions, including opening and closing dates.

●Generation of image files to deliver to Judges and subsequent creation of projection files.

●Managing Members' access to PhotoEntry.

Trophies

●Maintaining results of all competitions and identifying winners.

●Collection of trophies, engraving and making ready for presentation at AGM.

Timings

May

Receive provisional dates for competitions from Programme Sec.

May

Clone competitions from current year and correct dates in cloned copy for following year - add any other Comps as necessary. Do not forget non-league Comps

June

Identify possible judges and check availability for competition dates.

June/July

Agree set-subject with council and publish in newsletter and amend set - subject competition titles.

Competitions

1 month before each comp.

Confirm judges availability, get estimated expenses if possible, remind them of docs in 4. Above.

At least 2 weeks before judging Night

Open comp on PhotoEntry
Announce at Meetings and in Newsletter
If Print competition put out boxes at meetings

With Images for judging

Send score sheets and links to DPIs and PhotoEntry viewing scoring link. For Prints sort images into PSN order and print a score sheet. Remind judge of importance of sort order, and of any special issues eg. Panel of 3 - set subject etc.)

Confirm expenses if not yet done.

Before Judging Night

Receive placings from judge
Enter placings into PE & verify
Change status of competition to judged
Switch competition to ACTIVE - NO.
Output all images in PSN order using pre-set zip format.

On Judging Night

Take files compiled in 10 to AV team fro projection
Greet judge

After judging Night

Run zip output programme for Web/Newsletter to generate images with water marks and sent to Webmaster.
Produce a pdf table of current league standings as appropriate and pass to webmaster

Repeat for next comp from 6

May

Receive provisional dates for competitions from Programme Secretary

Clone competitions from current year and correct dates in cloned copy for following year - add any other comps as necessary. Do not forget non-league comps.

June

Identify possible judges and check availability for competition dates

After final comp

Finalise league standings - check as deemed sensible
Recover trophies from previous session.
Check awardees details and arrange engraving as appropriate.
Take pics at award meeting and make available to Webmaster etc.

Exhibition Secretary

1.To set up and manage the Annual Exhibition.

2.To liaise with external stakeholders (including venues and exhibitors).

3.To be the point of contact for any standing exhibitions in and around the local Bath area. At the time of writing, this was limited to two standing exhibitions in the RUH hospital. These displays need to be refreshed at least annually.

4.To attend council meetings when required.

Additional notes on the processes involved

•Make contact with the venue (currently St Michael's Without) to confirm dates and agree the space for the exhibition.

•Currently preparations start mid-February when the Exhibition Sec contacts the Mayor's office and invites the Mayor to open the event.

•At the same time contact our sponsor - the London Camera Exchange - to confirm their continued support.

•Send out emails in February, and encourage members to submit images for exhibition.

•Organise the images to be displayed by using Photo Entry.

•Choose and arrange the c100 images for display.

•Immediately before the Annual Exhibition make arrangements to move display panels from St Stephen's to the venue and on Monday of the Exhibition week, work with volunteer members to set up the displays.

•Organise a stewarding rota for the five working days.

•Make arrangements for everything to be dismantled at the end of the week.

•Set up the exhibition in the venue.

•Arrange the dates for next year with the venue.

Role of the stewards

•The stewards work in pairs .

•Primary role is security of equipment and the initial switching on of the TV and DPI display.

•To also put out the People’s Choice box and papers.

•To welcome visitors to the exhibition and answer any questions

.•To count the footfall.

Publicity Secretary

This responsibility is shared with the Newsletter secretary and Webmaster but this role is primarily responsible for updating and populating the club's Instagram and Facebook pages.

Instagram handle is @bath_photographic_society

Facebook is divided between members' pages and public pages.

The main task is to keep the Instagram and Facebook up to date with events, speakers and general content - ideally using members photographs. The idea being to advertise the club and our activities, and maintain an active online presence for people to follow to stay in line with the times.

Webmaster

The website is built on the Wix platform. Wix is a popular cloud-based, drag and drop website builder that allows users to create professional, functional websites without needing coding or technical skills.

· Anyone new to website building will find many YouTube videos, with ground up tutorials, on how to create the content they need. There is also a wealth of instructional information on the help section of Wix.

· Bath Photographic Society website has been developed to be a functional website which should appeal to anyone interested in photography clubs.

· In preparation for the new autumn season, the individual templates for each competition need to be created. Easily done by copying the current ones, deleting the images and changing the header dates and judges names. These are then ready for the new season.

· The major job through the club year is to populate the site with images that get awards in the competitions. The images are supplied by the Competition secretary through a link in an email. The images are already divided up into mono and colour images, and just need downloading, sorting into order of award and given a title of First, Second etc.

· As things change, the website needs to be updated with documents, and changes of personnel in roles mention on the site.

· If there are problems with the function of the site, the webmaster needs to investigate and if necessary contact Wix support for advice.

· Be aware of the expiry of the current webhosting plan and pay the subscription.

· The webmaster must respond to developments agreed by the council to further the needs of the society.

Membership Secretary

Responsible for keeping the database of new and old members and ensuring compliance with Data Protection.

Welcoming new visitors to the club

Ensuring new members receive the welcome letter and are paired up with a buddy.

Ensure the appropriate Council members are informed of the new member detail - email etc (Treasurer, President and Newsletter)

Ensure all Council members are informed of new member (without the detail)