EXACTLY three years ago today I was told I was over reacting! I was told I was scaremongering, I was told I was helping to ruin the nations economy and worse, much worse, I was told I was being very unprofessional by numerous people within the photographic industry. People, I had, once, held in high regard.

Three years ago, I made the decision to put all our Welshot events on hold until further notice – well before the enforced national lockdown.

It turns out that it was exactly the right thing to do!

I’d been worrying for a fair few weeks before I made this decision – My before Welshot working life, had helped me to read between the lines of the Government communications machine, and along with my need to always be prepared, organised and in control as much as I can be, helped me to cross those bridges well before I got to them.

Before the decision I talked to people, all the people. Welshot Members, our insurance company, Doctors and medical experts, my business coach and mentor and our accountant. And I listened. I listened to the news, I listened to what was happening in other counties and I listened to people I was talking to. I was also watching, very carefully, to what was happening within the travel industry – especially as our Welshot Travel Agent was hugely affected, which, in turn, would affect us.

Then I made the decision.

I emailed all our Welshot Members telling them of our plans.

I emailed delegates who’d booked events and told them what would be happening and how we would make sure they were not impacted financially.

Every. Single. Member was in agreement, and said we were doing the right thing and praised us for making and taking this decision and putting people before profits.

I phoned all our venues and told them what I was doing – there was only one venue that was supportive and understood my reasons and happily said they would cancel all our bookings without any charge whatsoever – the rest, well, let’s just say we don’t go to those places anymore!

And, something that we had rarely done before in the history of Welshot, which had been to book/hire experts in specific genres of photography who were not part of Team Welshot to lead events, resulted in those infamous words – “You are so unprofessional Lee and this is not how you should be working with (and treating) professional photographers” – Let’s just say, they are now, never likely, to be asked to work for us again, let alone become part of Team Welshot.

I remember talking to my good friend Debbie and the most pressing thing on my mind was about our Members and keeping them safe, their money safe, and what we could do to keep Welshot going, albeit differently. Debbie had to point out to me, the fact, that not once had I considered our own personal health and safety, let alone our livelihood. So, selfish and unprofessional, was not so much my issue as it was of those who were accusing me of scaremongering and over reacting.

Three years ago today, all I thought I was doing was postponing our Welshot events for a few weeks, six weekends at the most – I had every intention of coming into the office on a daily basis to work as normal – six weeks was going to be brilliant – I could get on and do all those little, and big, jobs that I never had time to get around to doing, I could plot, I could plan, I could organise, I could sort, I could add events to the website, I could create more events and then, after six weekends were over we could welcome back our members, reschedule events and get back to normal.

As it turned out, that wasn’t quite the case… But that’s a whole other story!

Muchly love

lee xx