Terrie Jones – Special Guest – Podcast Episode 8

Joe Lenton

Welcome to the Focused Professional podcast. This is episode eight and I’m Joe Lenton. Welcome to the Focused Professional podcast. And today we’ve got a special guest, Terrie Jones from the societies of photographers. Hello, Terrie.

Terrie Jones

Hello, how are you?

Joe Lenton

I’m good, thank you very much. Terrie is the personal development manager and the head of judging and competitions at the Society of Photographers. And many of you will come across her when you’re interacting on the Facebook group for the Society’s members and when we have our annual print competition and qualifications. Yep, she’s the face of so many aspects of what the Societies do. So thank you very much for coming on the podcast with us today.

Terrie Jones

It’s an absolute pleasure.

Joe Lenton

Now, last episode I interviewed Steffi Blochwitz and she was very definitely a cat lady, a mad cat lady, even as by her own admission. Are you more of a cat or dog person then?

Terrie Jones

I am definitely a dog person, but we have four cats and a dog. So I’ve been forced to be a cat person by my daughter who has purchased each and every one of our cats herself and brought them home, which is why we have four of them. So yes, they curl up on my lap and I kind of, I put up with them, but I’m – yeah, I’m all for my dog, really. The dog is mine. The cats are hers.

Joe Lenton

Okay. Yeah. My wife keeps threatening to get like sort of reins for the cat and take the cat out for a walk. I’m not quite sure how I feel about that…

Terrie Jones

My daughter wants to do the same actually! But I don’t – cats that we’ve got, the two youngest ones we rescued from a farm and they don’t even like being stroked, never mind a harness being put on them. So I don’t think they’d put up with that.

Joe Lenton

No. Probably get shredded hands if you attempted that, I should think.

Terrie Jones

Definitely. Definitely. They say ginger tomcats are supposed to be really friendly, but yeah, they mainly roam around outside and they’re freeloaders really, because we just feed them and that’s it really. We don’t get much back from them.

Joe Lenton

That’s cats pretty much, I think, unfortunately. What about the dog? Do you take your dog for walks?

Terrie Jones

Yes. To be honest, that’s the reason why we got the dog or the reason why I wanted to get the dog was because I wanted to get outside more. We live right on the beach here in north Wales and to be honest, the beach is a place that we never really visited, ever, really. My husband Colin, he’s been a part of Rhyl life boat crew for a long time. So he spent a lot of time down the beach, but it wasn’t really a place that I went often. So we got the dog and now I’m down the beach every day.

Joe Lenton

You choose one with short legs then, did you?

Terrie Jones

He’s a cocker spaniel, so he loves to be wet and muddy. He loves digging in the beach. On the beach. He loves jumping into the sea. So it’s quite a chore, actually, because, you know, every single time you go out to walk him, you have to bath him when you get back because he just attracts mud and sand and everything else. So, yes, he’s a lot of work and his legs are white as well, which doesn’t help.

Joe Lenton

Oh, dear, oh, dear. So, yeah, the relaxation is counterbalanced by having to try and get him clean afterwards.

Terrie Jones

Yeah, we actually bought a Mud Daddy. I don’t know whether you’ve heard of them. They’re advertised on Facebook. It’s like a portable shower. You fill it up with warm water and it keeps warm so you can put it in, like, the boot of your car. And then when he gets back to the car, it has like a little brush head on it and the water jets out from the head and you can kind of wash down his feet and things. So he has to have a bath before he gets in the car. But it’s very handy. It wasn’t expensive, but we use it every day.

Joe Lenton

I can imagine having to try and keep the car clean and then get them to the right room in the house would be a little bit more challenging, I should think.

Terrie Jones

Yeah, absolutely. Luckily we have – he has his own room in the back of our house, which is, you know, where he spends quite a bit of his time. And luckily that floor is easily moppable. So we put him in there until he dries off a bit. But he’s usually exhausted after his walk anyway, so he just goes straight and lies down and then he’ll come and join us again when he’s dry and had a bit of a nap, so. But he’s wonderful. He’s ten months old and he’s, yeah, it’s been life changing, really, over the last year to have him and kind of to have that reason to go out and get out of the house a bit more. So, yeah, it’s amazing. I love my dog. Yeah.

Joe Lenton

I don’t know about you, but I find pets are very good for your mental health, really. They ground you in reality and take you away from some of the other worries and things. It’s quite a good way of relaxing.

Terrie Jones

Yeah, absolutely. And that was another reason why I wanted to get a dog. Colin’s not really, well, he’s not really a pet person, which saying he’s got five pets, he’s been forced into it really. But he was quite adamant that he didn’t want a dog because he didn’t feel like our lifestyle afforded having a dog with us being so busy and working a lot. And I kind of said to him, that’s the reason why we should get a dog, because it’s going to force us almost to self care whilst caring for the dog. So, like, I’ll get up in the morning and instead of kind of hitting the ground running with either opening my laptop or checking my work emails on my phone, instead I put the dog’s lead on and we go down the beach for 45 minutes and it’s that fresh air and you, you know, that little bit of space. I mean, we were talking just before we came on air, but I love podcasts in general, so I’ll put my Airpods in, I’ll put a podcast on and I’ll go down the beach with the dog and I come back in a much better mood and I think the whole family benefits from that. So, yeah.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, that reminds me of the interview with Scott where he said, you know, as long as he gets a chance to hit somebody, he feels a little bit better and he’s a nice person for it. Well, I paraphrase, I paraphrase slightly there maybe, but I think we all need something, don’t we? Even when you really enjoy your job and sometimes actually that’s more of a danger. When you’re passionate about what you do, you don’t realise. Yeah, you don’t realise how much you’re overworking. It’s that you’re not having that sort of time to yourself to relax. So do you find then that this has helped you to relax a lot more than you would have done previously?

Terrie Jones

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And also, so our dog, although he’s still a puppy, he has like a cat-like personality where he does like to curl up with you and kind of fall asleep and give you big cuddles. He’s not mental like puppies usually are. He doesn’t have an abundance of energy, so he will cuddle up to you and also kind of force you to just sit and chill out. And, you know, I suffer with a chronic illness as well. And on days where I’m not feeling good, it’s nice to have, you know, the dog to kind of cuddle up with and, you know, it does make you feel better and it definitely helps with the mental health 100%.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, I think caring for the animal like that is – it gets you out of yourself and just them sitting with you gives you that little bit of company and, yeah, seems a very small thing, but actually it can make a big difference, especially when you’re really worn out and everybody else is out and busy. You’re stuck on the sofa. Having the cat sitting with me is really nice when they can be bothered to. Of course, they often just take themselves off wherever they feel like, but, yeah, it’s lovely having their company.

Terrie Jones

Yeah, you should get a dog then, because the dog will love you unconditionally. I said that to Colin. I was like, because he always, he always tried to get the cats to, like, sit on him and have a fuss. And they’re more for my daughter because, like I said, they’re my daughter’s cats. She looks after them. So they would never really kind of settle on Colin. And I said, don’t worry, when we get a dog, you know, the dog will want to sit with you. And the dog does sit with him. But you are right, Colin travels a lot with work, you know, with road shows and seminars up and down the country. So quite often I’m here by myself. The kids are teenagers now. They’re 15 and 17, and they don’t, you know, they’ve got their own lives. They’re out often in the evenings. So now it’s good to have the dog, to kind of, again, have that sort of company and purpose to get out and do something. You know, Colin travels a lot and, you know, sometimes I can be in the house for days at a time without going anywhere or, you know, because I have a laptop and I can work from wherever having the dog is like, okay, I need to get up, I need to get dressed. I need to have, you know, if I’m feeding the dog, I’ll feed myself and I’ll cook dinner for the kids. It’s just that routine of – and it forces you to have a different routine than what you would if you didn’t have a dog. And that’s what I was craving. I was craving for there to be something more than just sitting on my laptop and making dinner for the kids. And the dog was really for me. I wanted the dog. And I do the 99% of the looking after with the dog, like feeding him and stuff like that. But he has brought joy to the whole family. Colin absolutely loves him from saying that he didn’t want a dog. Now, in our house, it goes, the dog, then the kids and then me somewhere down the bottom.

Joe Lenton

That sounds familiar. Yeah. So the cat’s looking up at me going, you’re in my seat, or my wife going, let the cat sit there, yeah.

Terrie Jones

So, often, I walk in and Ollie, our dog, is sat on the couch and I’m like, that’s my space. And he looks at me as if to say, I know.

Joe Lenton

And I’m sure they do, really, that’s the thing.

Terrie Jones

His favourite game, actually, is when you walk in the lounge, he will sit next to you on the floor and once you decide where you’re going to sit, he will jump into that space just as you’re about to sit down. The amount of times that I’ve kind of done like a false move to try and, like, I’m going to sit one place but then sit in another place just to get a seat, basically.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, absolutely. Yep. I can sympathise with that. Yeah. So, I mean, with your work with the Societies – I mean, you know, we were saying that you’re passionate about it. You dedicate an awful lot of your time to it. What is it that makes you happy doing that? What is it that makes you passionate about your job?

Terrie Jones

Oh, gosh, I absolutely – I mean, you know, I love my job. It’s not just a job for me, it’s like a vocation in life. It’s truly, truly what I think I was born to do. And my favourite thing is to watch people invest in themselves and to take that time to develop themselves and to really realise that they are worthy of self-investment. And the amount of times I’ve seen that click, from speaking to mums with young kids who are going in for mentoring, or we have members who look after their parents and yet they’re creating work for competitions and going on seminars and workshops and learning new things. It’s a very, very special thing to watch somebody put themselves first. It’s that, that I really love. You know, being the personal development manager for the Societies, obviously I work with members to develop themselves. That’s my job. And luckily for me, as a part of that job, I watch people take steps forward and create a life for themselves that they love and in turn, how that benefits their family and their loved ones and their friends because they’re happier, it impacts their lives in a more general sense. And that really is what keeps me going. It’s what drives me forward.

Joe Lenton

You do get to impact quite a few people that way, don’t you? Because I mean, we’ve got quite a lot of members in the Societies now.

Terrie Jones

Yeah, we have a huge, huge number of members and we know we have different kinds of members as well. You know, we have members who are very confident and capable and run their businesses and take photographs with great confidence. But then we also have members who need support. They need one to one. You know, we have lots of members, you know, like say with ADHD and things like that. That for them to do something new is very overwhelming and to access a lot of our benefits can seem impossible. And my job really is to be that bridge between the members and the benefits. If I can help somebody take advantage of the benefits, things like the mentoring and the qualifications, giving that one to one support, that’s what I’m there to do and I’m very privileged to be able to do that. So when I get a member saying, oh, I’d love to enter the competition, but, you know, I’ve gone on and I’ve looked at the website and to be honest, I’m just, I can’t do it. It’s, you know, to be able to sit with them and actually help them achieve that is, it’s, it’s incredible. It’s such a privilege to be able to do it. So that’s, I spend the majority of my time doing that. That’s my main kind of day to day.

Joe Lenton

Yeah. It’s quite fulfilling being able to help people to achieve and to open up their creativity. It’s one of the things that I love the most from whatever I’ve done as a career. You know, I used to be a musician and I’ve been a photographer now for a number of years. And it’s one of the things I really enjoy, helping other people to experience the joy of learning something for the first time and, you know, stepping outside their comfort zone. Just so often they just need someone to say it’s going to be okay to actually make just that little step and then suddenly they realise that a whole new world is opening up for them.

Terrie Jones

Yes, yes. And I’ve seen people go from, by the day they’ve bought their first camera to earning their fellowships.

Joe Lenton

Yeah.

Terrie Jones

And I’ve been through that entire journey and I always say to people, I will forever be your biggest cheerleader. I am right by your side. I’m not going anywhere. If you need me, I’ll be here. And every step of the way, every scary thing that they do and scary things can range from putting in for a fellowship right the way down to putting an image into the monthly competition for the first time. You know, there’s such a wide range of, or even attending an in-person seminar for the first time can actually be really daunting for some people. And to be there and to watch people change and their confidence grow, it’s almost like raising children. Do you know what I mean? It’s like being there from the infancy right the way through. And actually, a lot of those people now part of our judging team who we’ve trained over the years and watched develop, and you’ve been a part of that as well. And you’ve changed and grown over the last three or four years as you’ve come into the team and taken part in what we’re doing and been a part of that group of people who are upholding the standards in the industry, and it’s been a pleasure supporting you through that. And, yeah, it’s really motivational for me, actually, to get up in the morning and think, right, I’ve got a Zoom call with so and so today. I’ve got an email to send to so and so. Yeah, it’s going to be great. It’s going to be a good day. So, yeah.

Joe Lenton

Yeah. What – you can feel that what you’re doing is making a difference. I mean, yeah. For, for me, um, I had thought at one point maybe I might consider going to judging training or something that I had on the horizon or something I was interested in. And, uh, yeah, I remember you gave me a gentle nudge just to say there’s a space there. Book it. I thought, well, I’m not quite sure whether I’m ready yet. Yeah, you are. Book it!

Terrie Jones

They call me the nagger!

Joe Lenton

You know, here I am having judged at sort of a couple of conventions, having judged other people’s fellowships, just, just, you know, what doesn’t feel like very long afterwards and you think, wow, gosh, if I hadn’t had that extra little nudge just to do it then rather than just wait until everything seems perfect or whatever. Yeah, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now, really. So it does make a difference, each of those little nudges. Just helping someone to take the next step for their career.

Terrie Jones

Thanks for not saying that you hate me for pushing you into it. You’re being very polite.

Joe Lenton

No, I definitely don’t, no. I’m somebody who loves learning for a start. You know, I’m, in a way, addicted to learning. I’m forever buying books and studying stuff and trying to expand my horizon. So it was interesting just from that point of view. But then to discover the passion for judging, because I taught beginners for a few years, I’d been doing that for a while, but to get that sort of passion for judging and for thinking, actually, I might now be able to play a role in giving back to the industry and helping to maintain the standard. So that was – the old imposter syndrome kicked in, obviously, there was me thinking, “me? Hang on, look round the room at who these judges are. What am I doing in here?”

Terrie Jones

Do you know what? I often suffer with imposter syndrome as well. When I’m in a situation where I’m judging and I’m 20 years into this and I still sit in the seat and think, am I the right person to be sitting here? Am I going to be productive in this session in helping people? So that imposter syndrome doesn’t really go away. And I think that the minute it does go away, if it ever does, it’s not a good thing, because then you – then it becomes self-centred. I think you’re always going to be nervous and you’re always going to care if your focus is on helping other people instead of yourself. And I think as soon as you, as soon as that first image comes up, your worries about yourself soon melt away when you’re concentrating on the images and the authors and the education that you’re going to give them. So, yeah, I’m glad that you’ve still got that little bit of impostor syndrome because it means that you care enough to have it.

Joe Lenton

Yes, it’s like that kind of good level of stress, if you like, that you need to know that you’re taking it seriously. I mean, what you’re doing for all these other people now, is that something that someone has done for you at some stage in your career, or is it something that perhaps you felt was missing and therefore you want to make sure others get something that you weren’t fortunate enough to have?

Terrie Jones

Um, I think when I – in my childhood, I wasn’t very well supported by the adults in my life and I had to figure out a lot by myself and I was told by the adults in my life that I would never amount to anything. Um, I left school at 15 with very few qualifications after missing a lot of school due to a difficult home life. I couldn’t go to college because I couldn’t afford to go to college because I had to get a full time job to support myself. At the age of 16, there was no way I could have gone to college. I wasn’t privileged enough to have two years out of my life where I couldn’t be working full time to invest in myself. And I view that as a huge loss in my life, really, of not going to college and pursuing the things that I wanted to. And I think that if I hadn’t have fallen into a job at the societies when I was 16, I hadn’t been out of school all that long when I started working for the Society. And I often wonder what my life would be like if I hadn’t have had that opportunity to go into a stable job that I ended up absolutely loving.

Terrie Jones

And, you know, and then I had kids really young. Me and Colin had Rhys and Ffion before we turned 21. So we were 21, married and had two kids. And there really wasn’t a lot of time in our early adulthood either for investing in ourselves because we had two small children. And, you know, when you do have two small children 18 months apart, you know, you don’t live for yourself, you live for them. You live for putting a roof over their heads. You live for making sure that they go to school warm and fed and well-clothed and they have a roof over their heads and they have a nice bedroom and everything that they want, and you really focus on everybody else but yourself. And as the kids have grown up and I’ve, you know, we’ve – I just realised that people need people to support them. And although I did have that, you know, like Phil and Juliet, the owners of the Societies, and Colin, great support for me. Absolutely fantastic. But it’s only kind of recently that I’ve invested in myself. Like the dog, for example. We got Ollie because I wanted to invest in myself and invest in my mental health.

Terrie Jones

So, yeah, but I’ve always been one to help other people. I’ve always been one to not want to be in the spotlight myself. I want other people to do well. I remember when I was little, my dad used to say that I had like a servant heart where I just wanted to help people. So that’s always been in my personality, to encourage others and to let, you know, to let others do well. So I think it’s a whole sort of amalgamation of that, to want to see people succeed, you know, it’s just who I am and I don’t think that will ever go away. So, yeah, I’m really lucky that my job is essentially doing what I’m passionate about, which is helping people. Does that make sense?

Joe Lenton

Fantastic.

Terrie Jones

That was a very long winded answer. I apologise.

Joe Lenton

No, no, no, that’s a good answer! Yeah, I understand that. Yeah. Do you think then that having sort of discovered the positives of investing in yourself, that there are things that you think actually in future you’d like to do to further your understanding, further your career, any kind of personal development that you’re aspiring to do?

Terrie Jones

Yes, to be honest, my personal development is focused a lot about how we can provide better things for our members and how we can make a better impact on the photography industry. I think when I think about personal development, I kind of split it into two. So I’ve got my personal development, so that’s like my, my stuff away from work. So, you know, I read a lot, I listen to a lot of podcasts. I do have a longing to go back to education at some point. I have a feeling though, that will be sort of when the kids are gone, you know, we’re kind of older. I’d love – but then again, I get a lot of education from podcasts. So I am investing in my education from the podcasts that I listen to. So as far as like personal self-development, I think I am investing in myself. But when I think about long term within the photography industry, I think I want to keep learning. And the way that I actually do that is I surround myself with the likes of you and the other judges and I learn things all the time from sitting in on judging sessions, from teaching judges and listening to people, you guys on the judging team and those on the junior judges training programme. I learn so much from you guys all the time. It’s wonderful. So, yeah, I think I’m constantly developing my knowledge in that area and I’ll keep doing so. I don’t want to stand still with it at all.

Joe Lenton

Well, that’s wonderful. I mean, I don’t think that even the short time that I’ve been a judge, it hasn’t stood still. We’ve seen changes already. Like for example, recently the scoring system was updated for the competition, the print competition, the 20 x 16, you know, and clearly sometimes for these sort of things that can be almost holy ground for some people, changing something that’s so fundamental to a competition. So whatever possessed you to do that?

Terrie Jones

Right, you know me, Joe, and I hold myself to such a high standard with everything that I do, and I am so transparent and honest and ethical in the way that we run the judging and the competitions. And essentially, I was doing one of my favourite pastimes, which is stat-finding for the competitions and making spreadsheets on all of the stats from the last five years worth of print competition. Because I like to have that information on hand for if anybody asks me a question, you know, how many, how many male winners have you had? How many female winners have you had? How many overseas winners have you had? How many Gold awards did you give in the pet category in 2003? I have that information because I’m kind of like a stat geek. When I noticed when I was putting the stats together for the 20 x 16 competition that there was a huge drop off in the scoring when it came to 89 and 90. So the score range 85 to 89 had quite a healthy number of awards given over the last five years. But then 90 to 100 had very few, very, very few awards given.

Terrie Jones

And so then I was like, right, what is stopping our judges from scoring above 90? What is it? Why are they – is it the images or is there something fundamentally wrong with the way that I am teaching? Because that was my initial, initial question was, is it me? Is what I am teaching giving the judges the wrong impression that they can’t score above 90? Like, is it something in the words that I’m using, which is making people cautious? And then I actually looked at the scoring system and it stated that to score above 90, all elements, so all of the ten elements which we score by, need to be way, way, way above average, every single element. So if an image fell short on just one element, so the score 90 to 94 is outstanding and the score below that is excellent. So if there was just one element in that image that the judges found to be excellent instead of outstanding, they couldn’t score it above 90. And once I realised that, I was really angry at myself because I had worded that when I created the scoring system, I did that and I put that in a box and made it unfair, really. When I look back at it, I think it was very restrictive because, I mean, really, when you think about all elements, really, you’re looking more towards the 100.

Joe Lenton

Yeah.

Terrie Jones

So I changed it. I changed it to say “most elements” instead of “all elements.” And then I got very scared about telling the judges that I’d changed it.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, I mean, it does take some – it takes bravery to re-examine something that you’ve been doing for a period of time and to think, actually, could this be improved? A lot of people will just think, oh, well, it is what it is and we’ll keep it going. So the fact that you look back at it and found something that you felt could be improved, that can only be a positive, really, because then going forwards, it’s going to be better than it was.

Terrie Jones

Yeah. And then we also separated the 100 and made that its own score category because it used to be in 95 to 100 used to be one score range. But essentially, when you score an image 100, you feel that there’s no room for improvement, whereas scoring something 97 obviously means that there is improvement. So the 100 can’t be in the same score category as the 97. So we also separated that at the same time. And I made myself feel better by ordering nice, new, shiny red rosettes, because everybody likes a new rosette. But I was very lucky that when I presented my – because, I mean, I didn’t make this decision on my own. I approached my chairpersons and my fellow judges and I said, I really think we should change the scoring system. What do you think? And they said, well, why are you asking us? And I said, well, I’m not pig-headed enough to think that I know everything. You know, I want your opinions. You know, you guys are going to be the ones that are using the scoring system. So I want to, you know, and in fact, Joe, I asked you for some words to describe the 100. You came up with an amazing – in fact, it is the definition that I ended up using on the actual scoring system was your words. And it’s good that it’s a collaboration instead of me just kind of whipping the rug out from underneath everybody’s feet and changing it. I’d rather seek advice, which I did. And we ended up changing.

Joe Lenton

Well, and bringing in change – if the team own the change themselves, it’s so much easier than if it’s just something that’s being imposed. And I think the team as a whole felt that this was worth doing and that this was only going to be beneficial. So, yeah, worth changing, definitely. I mean, you also keep developing your judging training programme, don’t you? I mean, that’s not stayed static over the years, either. That seems to be evolving as you go forward.

Terrie Jones

Yeah, it evolves every year. No two judging schools have ever been the same. Hang on, let me explain what the judging school is in case there’s anyone listening in here that doesn’t know who we are and what we do. To be a member of our judging team, you must first attend the judging school. And that’s a two day intensive course and it’s followed by two years worth of training. So quite often, before anyone even sits on a panel to judge an actual image in a competition, they’ve put in two years worth of work before that time and also achieved a fellowship. And the school we developed the school in 2015 was the first school that we ran, and it was something that I was really, really passionate about. And it was initially an idea that I had seen an association in America do to run the course, except – so I actually went on that course. I’m not sure if you knew that I went on that course in maybe 2013, and no one knew who I was on the course, so no one knew that I was already head of judges for the Societies and I’d already been doing that for almost ten years.

Terrie Jones

No one knew my name, no one knew anything. And the best way I can describe the course was hostile. When on the first day. I’m digressing now, so I apologise, I’ll be really quick. On the first day, everybody was introducing themselves and I stood up and I said, my name’s Terrie, I’m not a photographer. And instantly, everybody on the course was like, we don’t like you, we’re gonna exclude you.

Joe Lenton

Charming.

Terrie Jones

Yeah, I know. But the reason why I initially wanted to start the school in the UK was to (a) be nothing like that judging course that I went to in America, and (b) to open a gateway for people to join the team, because before that, it was very much an invitation-only club that you could only be a part of if you knew someone on the team or if you’d won awards and you were kind of personally invited to be on the team. But I wanted the education to be available to anybody who wanted to take that journey, whether you were just starting out in photography or whether you’d been shooting for a very long time, whether you’d got a fellowship or not, whether you’re a member or not. You don’t even have to be a member to be part of our judging school. You don’t have to have any qualifications, you don’t have to have any experience. The judging school itself, the two days, is open to everybody, and that was very, very important for me, for it to be open to everybody, for everybody to access the information. Then the two years of training after, obviously you need to gain your fellowship, you need to have that knowledge there.

Terrie Jones

So lots of people come on judging school who don’t want to be a judge. They just come on judging school because they want to know how the system works. And then the people who really want to be a judge, they then take part in the two years of education that comes afterwards. And the main goal of that is to get you on the team. So in order to do that, you have to gain your fellowship within those two years, if you haven’t done so already. But the school itself, going back to your original question that you asked five minutes ago, has developed every year. It looks very different now to when we first started, because the main reason for that is every year I have a co-host or two co hosts. So we’ve had lots of people over the last nearly ten years. Wow, nearly ten years. Co-hosting the school with me every year. And almost every year I ask a different person to do it. Angela Adams has ran it with me twice. Scott Johnson’s ran it with me twice. I’ve also had Sarah Edmonds and Dario. They hosted it with me last year.

Terrie Jones

I’ve had Damian McGillicuddy, Peter Ellis. So lots and lots of people over the ten years have been involved with the judging school. And the main meeting that we have when we’re planning the judging school, I say to them, what would you like to see at the judging school? And they’re like, oh, no, we’ll just run it the way that you usually run it. And I’m like, no, what ideas do you have to bring to the table to improve? Because they’re all people who’ve been through the judging school, right? So they’ve had their school, and so what we’ve done, essentially, is, as those suggestions have been made, we’ve added it into the programme. I mean, really, it’s getting to the point now where it might have to end up being a three day programme, because there’s so many good ideas from all of the co-hosts that we actually have trouble fitting everything in. But Angela Adams, the first year that I ran it with her, she used to be a teacher. So, like, you know, this is, you know, what she does. And she came with so many ideas that that was the year, really, that the course changed a lot and the way that we do and then the two years worth of training.

Terrie Jones

When I first started doing the two years worth of training, I’ll be honest, right, I was flying by the seat of my pants. Every training session that we did was a new idea because I’d never done it before and I had to note down very carefully what worked and what didn’t work. And eventually I worked out progression modules. But even now, the training is tailored to those taking up the training. So the judging school and the online training looks very different for everybody. Some people need to go slower, some people pick up things very quickly. Other people, we need to concentrate on maybe the vocabulary. Other people, we need to concentrate on scoring appropriately. It’s just so individual that it will continue. There’s no way it can stand still. But the one thing that we have changed the most is that the amount of online sessions, we used to do a minimum of three a year, now we do them every month. So the judges in the junior school get the opportunity every month to have a one to one session with me every month.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, I mean, that’s a great opportunity, being able to do that, you know, one to one and getting their development tailored to the, to the individual because, yeah, we all come from different genres and have different strengths and weaknesses. So that way you helped to develop a very rounded team, I think.

Terrie Jones

Yeah. And we had a lot of positive feedback this year from the junior judges who were doing their practical assessment for their 20 x 16 training. So this year we had a number of junior judges who were on the team at the convention judging and they were junior judges and they were ticking off their module for their live part of their training. And I had a lot of judges come up to me afterwards and say, “oh, you wouldn’t know they’re juniors.” They’re already to the point where they’re very confident and they have that knowledge and, yeah, that is definitely a testament to the hard work that they’ve put in throughout the year. Not only them, our regular team members, they also take part in one to one training throughout the year. We have a number of judges who’ve been judging for a long time who have one to ones and Zooms to keep up their knowledge and to practise. We also have introduced our annual judges team building day. We’ve done that for the last three years, which is always good fun. So, yeah, I worked out that we invested over 400 hours into training last year.

Joe Lenton

That’s quite something, isn’t it? Yeah. I mean, so when you think about judges, when you’re thinking about a team, so, like, putting together a panel of five judges to judge prints or to judge a qualification, you know, not only have you got that sort of confidence that they’re all well trained and so on, you know, that they’re all sort of singing off the same hymn sheet, as it were. But what then are you also looking for? I mean, when you think about putting a team together, you know, they’ve all been trained, you know, they’ve all passed through judging school. What other kind of qualities are you then looking for to create a team?

Terrie Jones

I often say that it’s like putting together a panel of judges for X Factor. You need a Simon Cowell and you need a Louis Spence and you need a bit of Cheryl Cole as well.

Joe Lenton

I’m not going to ask which one I am, though. Don’t answer that.

Terrie Jones

I’ll answer it off air. Yeah. You have to have personalities that can work together. Not necessarily personalities that are similar, just ones that can work together. And you also need a wide variety of judging styles. So there will be some judges who will naturally gravitate towards technical elements, and there are some judges who will naturally gravitate towards emotional elements. So the technical elements, for example, will be technical excellence, lighting, composition and things like that. And then the emotional elements will be storytelling, centre of interest, impact, and things like that. So if you had a whole panel of judges who all valued impact the most, or storytelling, then the images which lack that but are very good technically, may not score appropriately. So you have to have on a panel a wide variety of people knowing that they could be put on the panel together in any combination at any one time.

Joe Lenton

Yeah. That’s where your statistics come in handy, I guess, is it?

Terrie Jones

Yes, very much so. But also that they have the expertise in the categories which they’re judging. Very, very important. You will have some judges who are stronger in certain categories and some judges that are stronger in other categories. And that’s where the chairperson plays a very, very important role, because they will make sure that there’s always somebody on the panel that has that knowledge for that particular subject. Newborn is a category which we pay particular notice to when it comes to having photographers on the panel who actually shoot newborns, because the safety guidelines and the posing for newborns is extremely technical. And most importantly, we have to make sure that the image is being done in a safe way. So it’s something that, you know, obviously, we take a lot of time over. We’re very lucky that we have a very diverse panel of judges. Everybody always says, oh, you know, you’ve got such a wide variety of judges. And we’re very lucky, but we’re lucky because they have gravitated towards us. So, because the judging school is open for everybody to attend, it has attracted a wide variety of people.

Terrie Jones

And that’s something that I’m so grateful for. And our team is quite diverse, but it’s not diverse to a point where we’re ticking boxes. So, for example, no one person is on the team because, oh, well, that person’s on the team, so we can tick that diversity box and that makes us look good. It’s not about that. We have lots of people who’ve never made the team who would tick a lot of diversity boxes, you know, who haven’t made it onto the team for one reason or another. But we are just very lucky that we attract those people. So a lot of care and attention goes into the team. I mean, you don’t even know how many hours goes into and how many draught versions there are of each team before they actually get published.

Joe Lenton

I can imagine it’s going to be an intense sort of process. And it’s interesting that the ethos that you have and that is attracting this kind of mix of people in, it’s not that you’re deliberately going out there thinking, oh, we need more women, we need more younger people, older people, we need more neurodiverse people in there, or whatever. It’s that it’s kind of happening naturally that they’re coming because they see what you do and they want to be a part of it.

Terrie Jones

Yes. And I think that the reason for that, the reason we are attracting people, is because we all respect each other and we’re quite a friendly bunch of people. I’d like to think we’re all quite humble. I mean, you know me, I have a zero tolerance policy on anybody with an ego or an attitude being part of the team. If any of the judges display that type of behaviour, then we will work with them to try and get them back on track with the values which we need them to demonstrate. And if they are unable to do that for any reason, then they’re no longer on the team. And I think once we started actioning that, it kind of made everybody realise that we do have a zero tolerance policy on it, because we’re not just saying it, we’re acting on it. And we’ve worked hard to build a culture that is positive and I think that’s what draws people to us, you know? And in actual fact, when people see gaps in diversity on our team, their first thought is, I could fill that, you know, I could be a woman on the team.

Terrie Jones

Am I allowed to? Yeah, of course. Come and join in the training, you know, and I think at one point, not last year, but the year before bookings were coming in for the judging school. And I said to Colin, I think we’re going to end up with an all female judging school because so many people were joining up with their friends, you know, so, like, their friends were joining and it was the year that me and Angela Adams were teaching it together. And I thought this is crazy, but, like, not on purpose. This is just how it’s naturally formed and I’m super proud and I can’t wait to see where the team goes because the team isn’t standing still. You know, when I look at the team picture from this year to the team picture from 15 years ago, (a) it’s much bigger now but (b) it’s much more diverse and that’s something that I’m very, very proud of but something that I’m not taking full responsibility for.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, it’s been great to see it continue to grow like that. And obviously the competitions have been very, very popular. The 20 by 16 has had sort of increased numbers coming in. How does the sort of mentoring and qualifications compare with that? Is that on a sort of an equal footing in terms of growth?

Terrie Jones

The biggest year that we ever had with mentoring was COVID because everybody was at home.

Joe Lenton

Yes. Suppose it’s not really surprising, is it? Yeah. They wanted something you do – let’s pull some images together and send it off.

Terrie Jones

Yeah, absolutely. That year we had nearly 500 mentoring submissions in one year. So that was crazy. Absolutely crazy. But we were very lucky that all our mentors were also at home not doing much and back then it was – the year of COVID we had a quicker turnaround as well. So instead of members waiting four weeks for their reports, they were only waiting two again because nobody really had that much to do so. Yeah, but I would say the numbers are consistent between three and 400 members a year take part in the mentoring programme out of 5000. So about say eight to 10% of our members taking advantage of that. I would love for that to be more. I really would. It’s a service that we offer that’s included in the membership. It doesn’t cost anything but it’s definitely busy enough to keep us busy, if that makes sense. We have a number of judges who are part of our mentoring team. Not all our judges are part of our mentoring team. You know the vast majority that create reports for us and it is a very successful programme at helping people achieve their qualifications.

Joe Lenton

I wonder what it is that could be done to encourage more people? I mean, there’s a good number of people, obviously, and the judges still do have other things that they need to do in their jobs and so on. But you think there’s a lot of members that for some reason don’t, don’t do it. Do you think they’re worried about comments or something?

Terrie Jones

Yes, yes. 100%. 100%. And I think that, okay, you’ll have two groups of people. You’ll have one group of people who don’t feel like they need it because their businesses are very successful, their clients are happy with their images, they, you know, they have enough money, they’re too busy to invest in something which they don’t feel would help them. It’s absolutely fine. That’s absolutely fine. If you don’t feel like, if you think your photography is good enough and you’re winning awards and you’re producing quality work which your clients love and you don’t feel like you need mentoring, that’s fine. That’s absolutely fine. That’s good. And that’s good. I’m so, so happy for those people, like, genuinely love it. But there are also people who I don’t think have the confidence to submit their images because they think they’re going to get bad feedback. And also, I think so speaking from a personal point of view, I find it very hard to do new things, especially if I’m doing it by myself. And I’m not very good at, at reading words on websites. So for me to go on to even our website and read through the information like, it can feel very overwhelming.

Terrie Jones

Which is why we try to advertise that I’m available to help because, like I said, I like to be that bridge between the members and the benefits. And I do help a lot of people. You know, there are a lot of people who submit to our online competition, our monthly one, who do not upload their own entries. I upload them for them. They send me the images, they tell me which categories they want them entered into and I rename them and I upload them on their behalf because they just feel like they can’t do it. And that’s fine.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, it’s great to be able to involve them. I mean, I suppose, you know, for people who are perhaps fearful of comments, I mean, as a judge, you know, we’re not there to whack people down. It’s like one of the, one of the worst feelings when you see someone stand up in front of you for a panel, for qualification is knowing that unfortunately, it doesn’t meet the standards. You don’t enjoy that. That’s not a nice moment, you know, so whatever a judge writes like that is, it’s never vindictive. It’s never supposed to be taken in that kind of a spirit. We all want people to improve. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? And I’m sure, actually, that some judges do also use the mentoring service themselves.

Terrie Jones

They do. They absolutely do, yes. And yeah, I think it’s a common misconception that judges are up on a pedestal looking down on everybody thinking, “oh, we’re so much better than you.” It wouldn’t be more polar opposite. It really couldn’t. The judging team is made up of the most genuine, humble, helpful, respectful, emotional, supportive people that I am so privileged to know. Not a single one of you would relish in telling somebody that their photography is below standard. Nobody is rude, nobody is unhelpful, nobody. You know, it would just break your heart, wouldn’t it, if you knew that a report made somebody feel small or insignificant? It just doesn’t happen. So, you know, to explain the process a little bit, members upload their images for comments. I send the images, I assign them a mentor. Then I send the images to the mentor, and then the mentor will create a report, and they will send that report to me. I then copy edit that report. So I read through every single sentence and I make sure that it’s appropriately worded and that it’s super helpful and educational and explains fully what the mentor is thinking.

Terrie Jones

And then I send it to the member. So if there is ever anything in that report which I am unhappy with, I will remove it or edit it, and then I will go to the judge, to the mentor, and I will explain why I’ve removed that sentence and why it wasn’t appropriate. I do that. I do that with every single report that – I mean, okay, I’m not going to contact the mentor if they’ve put three dot, dot dots after every single sentence, I’ll just copy edit that out and I’ll swear at them in my head while I’m doing it. Our mentors can’t spell. I’ll just say that. But, yeah, for the 99.9% of the time, I’m only looking for grammatical errors. And then I send the reports on. Very, very rarely do I get a report through that I have to change wording on and things. But that’s just a safety net. That’s a safety net between the mentors and the members that I make sure that I’m completely, 100% happy with what’s going out. And you’ll never get a report, you know, that’s nasty in any way.

Joe Lenton

No, I think the judges could have a bad day and not word something in the best way. But knowing that there’s that safety net in there means that people know that the feedback that they’re receiving is all given in the best intent and that you’re there for their education, so you’re passing it on with that very best of intent for them and for a lot of them, of course, it’s also part of working towards qualifications. And I noticed that again the qualifications for the convention have disappeared – sold out very, very quickly. It seems to be very, very popular. Why do you think people are so interested in gaining qualifications at the moment?

Terrie Jones

I think we are building a culture of self-development. I think that’s essentially the baseline of it. We as an association, as you know, as part of our membership, we encourage you to invest in yourself. And so to join the association is to be part of a community that supports you in doing that. And I think that’s why these slots sell out so quickly, because people see other people doing it and they want to do it and that’s the culture that we’ve created. Genuinely. I think that’s why, because I think when you think about qualifications and how they impact business beyond posting on social media that you’ve gained a qualification and beyond telling your clients that you are qualified, many of which probably won’t care or won’t understand the main reason for submitting for qualification is self improvement. You know, the social media promotion side of it is very short lived.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, I know. The other interesting thing, sort of hearing from photographers who’ve been to the awards night is that with qualifications and with awards it’s actually some people might just think, oh, everyone’s very competitive, everyone wants to win and they’re all going to be in a huff of something if they don’t get theirs. But actually it builds the community that everybody is very supportive of each other. You know, people are thrilled for each other when they get qualified and win an award.

Terrie Jones

Yes, we are, our membership is very supportive. You know, I always say you can come to the convention not knowing anybody and you can walk away with friends for life. And I just think it’s, that is, that’s true, absolutely true. And even better, like if you put an image into the competition, you can watch the judges judge your image live and then 3 hours later you can catch them in the bar and have a drink with them. It’s great, it’s so inviting and welcoming. And again, as I said before, we are attracting people who are like-minded within the photography community and I think that’s what makes us so special. So when you see somebody gain qualification and you think, oh, I want to do that, oh well they’ve got the mentoring programme. Oh, they’ve got Terrie offering one to one support, oh, I can speak to the judges, oh, I’m friends with the one that are judges on Facebook. Maybe I’ll pop them a message. Oh, they work really closely with the labs. Oh, right, okay. Well, the labs really know what they’re doing when they’re printing qualifications. They’ve done it loads of times.

Terrie Jones

Oh, I’m in good hands here. And, yeah, bit by bit, those stepping stones appear in front of them to enable them to take that next step. We provide all of the support from start to finish, and I think that’s what makes people want to do it, because they know it’s achievable, because they watch other people go through the process and achieve it.

Joe Lenton

So given how well all of this has been going with the monthly competitions, the 20 x 16, the mentoring and the training that everybody’s been receiving, do you still have goals in mind that things that you’re aiming to do, things you’re aiming to achieve?

Terrie Jones

Yes, I always have goals. I have a five year plan that basically renews every five years of what I want to do, much of which I can’t talk about right now. Those things are not quite in place. But one of the goals I wanted to do for 2024 is to take a version of the judging school on the road and take it around the UK, which we’re doing next month. So really, really, really pleased to be doing that. And they’re nearly sold out, actually, so very, very happy to be doing that. It’s a shorter – it’s called “introduction to judging.” So it’s not as intensive as judging school, and it’ll be catered at all of the levels of the attendees on the day, so you don’t need any experience or anything to book on. I’m shamelessly plugging myself now, by the way, and so that was one thing I really wanted to do and, oh, there’s. Oh, shall I talk about it? Shall I not talk about it? No, I don’t think I can. Oh, sorry. If you really annoyed at me, let’s just say we have plans to take judges training worldwide. Let’s just say that we’ll leave it there.

Joe Lenton

Watch this space, people.

Terrie Jones

If you’re listening to this in five years and that hasn’t happened, just know I’m really, really annoyed!

Joe Lenton

Brilliant. I think, you know, it’s always important to sort of have those kind of goals when you’re achieving something and then you think, well, what else? What else can we do? How else can we keep going? And, you know, the fact that you’ve worked to improve judging school, I mean, that’s a constant thing. And improving the way the judges have scored the prints, it’s easy to see that it’s a culture of not just sitting on your laurels, but let’s move forward. Let’s see what’s next. So that’s really great and really appreciate you sharing the time with us and giving us that little teaser. So thank you very much, Terrie, for coming on the podcast today.

Terrie Jones

You’re so welcome. I’ve really enjoyed talking to you. As you can tell, I’m just so passionate about what I do. And it’s not just a job. It’s something that I really feel that I was born to do. And I’m just so lucky, so, so lucky that I get to work every single day in an industry that I absolutely love. So thank you for having me. Thank you for letting me ramble on about my dog for far too long.

Joe Lenton

Well, thank you, everybody, for listening. And it’s great to have somebody on here who’s so passionate. And as you’ll know with Focused Professional, we’re very much passionate about people connecting with what really motivates them and what they really want to do. So thank you for listening to the Focused Professional podcast.

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