So, what have you been up to?

So, what have you been up to?

That's one question everyone gets asked in job interviews when you are in the "between opportunities" zone. To answer that I have been busy networking, sending off resumes and staying current with industry blogs however it is my involvement with the Oakville Camera Club that has kept my PR skills honed during this recession.

I co-founded the OCC back in 2006 with my friend Kieley Hickey as there was a gap in the Oakville arts scene for a general interest photography club catering to all ages. Three years later we have an organization 86 members strong and meeting twice a month at the Oakville Public Library. I serve on the board as membership coordinator, PR director and "other duties as assigned."

Put simply I do the following:
1) Maintain the membership database, act as first point of contact for new members and send out renewal notices for lapsed memberships.
2) Work with rest of the board to organize the Capture Oakville Photo competition and related gala at Oakville Town Hall annually.
3) Pitch local community media stories related to the OCC and Capture Oakville, this includes the Oakville Beaver and TV Cogeco.
4) Maintain the social media presence on Flickr with the OCC forum and photo pool. I write about future meetings and monitor feedback.
5) I am the main contact with the Oakville Arts Council and I write the application each year successfuly optaining operating grant money for the club.
6) I also sit on the advisory board for the proposed Community Arts Centre as a representative of the OCC.

I should explain #6 a little further, The town of Oakville never had a general purpose arts centre like other municipalities in the GTA. Most arts groups be it visual or musical (OCC included)have scramble to find meeting and rehearsal space. My neighbour Britta Miles spearheads a group called Commmunity Arts Space, lobbying Town Hall and fundraising to create an arts centre for Oakville. The Town purchased the QE Park Secondary School property three years ago and it is currently vacant. The idea proposed was to renovate the school and half goes to a community centre and the other half becomes the arts centre Oakville desperately needs.

The OCC is running out of space at its current meeting location and the proposed arts centre could solve several problems at once: a meeting space for at least 100 people, a mac lab with photo printers and negative scanners and access to studio space for workshops. Hence my involvement on the Community Arts Space advisory board to represent my clubs interests. At some point the arts centre will transition from grassroots organization to appendage of Oakville Parks Recreation and Culture, Government Relations might be in my future as well.

Yes I do find time to go out and take pictures and get in the darkroom and make some prints. I keep my writing skills warm, practice some media relations, plan events and practice a fair bit of community relations with my club involvement. What is frustrating I can't cram this all under my volunteering section on my resume.