Notes About Joining
We are proud of our extensive range of activities for members.
Our regular Tuesday night Programme is a mix of talks and presentations by inspirational speakers from all areas of the photographic world along with internal and inter-club print and projected image competitions, and practical guidance/assessment sessions. Many meetings also include member-run advice sessions, either before the meeting starts or in the break.
We also run workshops and tutorials normally on a Wednesday night, held at the meeting rooms at Williams Garage in Otterbourne, just outside Winchester or sometimes at the Littleton Millennium Memorial Hall.
Also on Wednesdays at the same venues we have a number of special interest group meetings, including our very popular Projects Group.
This season’s full programme can be viewed here.
The Society also holds a number of social activities throughout the season and during the summer recess; photowalks, summer barbecue, Christmas social, and so on.
See the Membership section for more detailed information about the benefits of membership of the Society
If you’re thinking about becoming a member, why not
- Come along to a Tuesday evening meeting as a visitor. The visitor fee (currently £5) will be refunded if you join.
- Browse this website to see the kind of things we get up to, including meetings, workshops, photowalks and special Interest groups.
- Check out the Membership FAQ which may help answer some questions you hadn’t thought of asking.
Thank you for your interest in joining the Winchester Photographic Society.
We try to keep the process of joining very simple. Please just fill in this short form and someone will get back to you as soon as possible.
Privacy
We need your contact details so that we can reply to your query. We will not use them for any other purpose.
If you become a member, we will use your contact details to keep in touch about the society’s activities and to manage your membership.
To help new members feel at home and involved, we have several special initiatives:
Newcomers’ Welcome Point at Tuesday meetings: We have a welcome desk just inside the entrance to the Arc, open before the meeting and during the refreshments break. Here you will be greeted by friendly faces, have a chance to get to know other new members as well as established ones, and ask any questions you may have about the Society.
Mentoring Programme: You can choose to have an experienced member as your mentor, to help you understand the choice of activities and to help with any photographic queries or issues. Ask one of the Member Reps.
Groups and Workshops: We normally run a Welcome workshop for new members early in the season, though this had to be suspended during lockdown.
There is also a Beginners Group, usually on the first Wednesday of each month.
New members are always welcome.
We’ve put together these notes for new members to explain what happens after you’ve joined.
- You’ve decided to join and sorted out payment of your subscription with the Membership Secretary.
- You should get a welcome email with details of your userid on the WebCollect membership system. You’ll use WebCollect to pay subscriptions and book on events which have limited capacity and/or are chargeable.
- This should trigger another welcome email, this time from the webmaster giving you your id to use on this, the main WPS website. Most of the WPS website is publicly accessible, but you’ll need your id to access members-only content.
- You should also be added to the mailing list for our weekly email newsletter. Watch out for this email on Sunday evenings with reminders about events in the coming week, early notice of future activities and lots of useful snippets of information. Essential reading for active members.
- If you think you’ll enter any of our internal competitions (and we hope you do), you’ll need to use the PhotoEntry system to upload your entries.
- The league competitions are organised into different classes, so that you compete against members of a similar standard.
- If you’re fairly new to photography, you should probably join the Beginners’ Class. Or, if appropriate, you may wish to join one of the classes for more experienced photographers.
- The Competition Secretary will contact you to discuss which Class would suit you best. Then the Digital Secretary will set you up with an id for PhotoEntry.
- The process of entering competitions can seem daunting, but once you’ve attended a few competition evenings you’ll get a feel for how they work. You could consider joining the Beginners’ Special Interest Group.
- Have a look at the Glossary on page 48 of the Handbook which explains some of the acronyms that may be new to you (SCPF, PAGB, PDI etc).
- Contact one of the Member Reps, by email or by meeting them at the refreshment break on a Tuesday evening. It’s their role to make you feel at home and find out how they can help.
- If you’re a Facebook user, consider joining our members’ Facebook Group to exchange ideas and images with other members. There’s even an informal competition for the most liked member’s image of the month.
- Since lockdown, for members who caught Covid, or were otherwise unable to make a Tuesday meeting, we have been live-streaming most meetings. The members’ newsletter gives detail of how to connect. This service depends on the continued availability of volunteers to run it.
