Subject: "Request for Membership Consideration"
When a photographer writes in with a request to join Best of Wedding Photography,
Add the information provided to the Google spreadsheet in this folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1g_kQ3QE0UJv_4dPk0Lx5qg4qgx6h9yrJ. A new one is created once voting has taken place (every couple of months, so please be sure to check this folder for the most active spreadsheet: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1g_kQ3QE0UJv_4dPk0Lx5qg4qgx6h9yrJ.
If a potential wedding photographer submits more than one link for their professional indicators and/or Other Considerations, copy that information to a text document and separate each line -- then put see sheet two in those columns and add that information to sheet 2 of the spreadsheet.
Once that is completed, the canned response below is under BOWP. Please change Hi Name to Dear Name (as some photographers may not be approved.
Thank you for your membership submission and interest in Best of Wedding Photography. The management team strives to review submissions on a monthly basis. We will get in touch with you either way with respect to our decision and additional information before the end of next month.
Change the status to Pending. Add a note to the ticket -- Keep in pending for two days. If no response after two days, Shift Close the ticket. After 2 days, shift + close the ticket.
What happens next (I thought you would be interested in the process)?
On a monthly basis, Erick and Alice assess the websites based on very specific selection criteria (i.e. member of ISPWP or other professional wedding designations, owns studio, teaches workshops, modern website, etc) and, of course, great photography worthy of a top world-wide photographer. We both vote -- we need two votes to approve the photographer. Next, Alice prepares individual invitations (citing specific weddings on their blogs so that they know it is personal and not a canned invite) or send a really nice rejection email.
Once the approved photographers pay, they receive an automatic email listing all the details to submit so that we can input them on BOWP. We also set them up as users on our blog site so they can submit blogs. They are also added to two spreadsheets (all photographers who have applied since 2009 -- comes in handy when they re-apply) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lTeuGe-dZywPkSd1h_rhaias_J2qT0nD/edit#gid=160260199k and the BOWP Members list (all current and active members) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SyJseaoSspsjxR5AKrPH5rVJj4ytstG5/edit#gid=1173358473 - this is a list of all photographers since 2009 who have been considered for our membership. After a review is complete, a new spreadsheet is set up in the shared google drive.