Site Design: SSPS In-House Webmaster
Gary Local BSc(Hons)Arch DipArch UCL
We are proud to introduce the newly redesigned SSPS website, the result of a top-down overhaul designed by Gary Local, who joined the Society in September 2024 and has since become a Committee Member and our new Web Designer and Site Manager.
Gary brings over 15 years of experience as an architect before retraining in digital design. He worked for over six years as Corporate Web Designer and Internet Officer at Strathclyde University, and then launched his own consultancy, offering web and IT support to small businesses in the region.
With this extensive background, Gary was the ideal candidate to take over from Simon Lynch, who stepped down after eight years of dedicated service as Webmaster due to personal commitments.
From the outset, Gary accepted the role on the condition that he would be free to completely redesign the website, streamline the workflow, and urgently develop a new club logo. His modern, minimal logo now features proudly in the website’s header as the home button, and is also being used on a new line of club merchandise to celebrate this exciting relaunch.
To simplify ongoing maintenance and to encourage sustainability, Gary chose Wix.com as the platform for the site. The entire site is now powered by CRM/database-driven templates and repeaters, allowing for quick updates without requiring any web design knowledge. For example, placed competition images can be posted via smartphone to the Winners' Gallery of the site, seconds after the judges' announcements, if desired.
Additionally, members’ portfolios are auto-generated, pulling data from the competition entry database. Titles, photographers' names, the competition title and the level of achievement are dynamically superimposed on the Winners' Gallery images for a polished, on-the-fly presentation. No web page editing at all!
Complementing the new website is a 100GB Club Cloud Storage System. This serves as both a de facto data source for the Wix database entry and acts as a portal for competition entries, providing members with private folders for managing their NCPF/PAGB regulation-sized images and submissions. With all images hosted on this cloud storage, and NOT the Wix site, it also ensures the web hosting subscription plan we are on is lightweight and affordable.
Designed with efficiency in mind, the Club Cloud includes features like:
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A linked spreadsheet in every member’s private folder that automatically syncs with the competition secretaries' submission spreadsheet, to reduce the secretaries' workload when compiling competition lists. It even automatically generates perfect file names for all submitted JPG images.
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Competition Secretaries can also easily harvest PDIs from members' submission folders and copy them to competition folders ready for the judges to view and download remotely via a one-click link sent to them via email.
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A seamless workflow for the Webmaster to upload entries and results directly into the website’s database from the Club Master Record, a huge spreadsheet that will contain every submission going forward, as well as the last 5 years of placed winners.
The cloud system also addresses a long-standing challenge: scattered and duplicated, privately held club records. With centralised access to the Club Master Record, a multi-tabbed and backed, up mega spreadsheet, the Admin team can now instantly access club data and records, with no one person owning their own club info.
Former President Phil Dunn is also in the process of digitising SSPS’s extensive historical archive, with the aim of adding a detailed Club History section, chronicling our story since 1913. We're also working on backfilling competition results from 2020, to build a comprehensive and searchable archive of our members’ achievements.
We hope you enjoy exploring the new SSPS website and everything Gary has implemented. If you have any feedback, please use the “Stay Connected” button (located at the bottom of every page). We kindly remind everyone that Gary has volunteered his time and has put in countless hours to this project, and your constructive input will be greatly appreciated.