Alf Turner: capturing the moment

How did you first get into organising trips?

I only started organising for the camera club this year, but I’ve been organising trips for the Probus Club since they reorganised the committee just over 18 months ago.

I went on my first holiday with the Camera Club to Crete a few years ago and I really enjoyed it. This year the person who usually organises trips was retiring and I was concerned nobody else would take it up. I had enjoyed the trip and I like organising and planning so decided to give it a try and see if we could make it work.

What kind of trips do you organise?

With the Camberley & District Probus Club, we’ve been on lots of different day trips. We’ve been to the House of Commons for a tour, we went on a recent trip to Stowe Gardens in Buckinghamshire and we also went on a boat trip up the River Thames with the King’s officials to observe them registering the swans which was a lot of fun. We have a trip to Exbury Gardens coming up in Hampshire where we will be having an in-depth tour and talks about the Rothschild family. I’m also working on a trip to Aerospace Bristol.

The Camera Club do an annual holiday and so far I’ve been to Crete with them. I’ve organised our next trip to Portugal for around 20 of our group at the end of May. We are going with Travel Editions and will be visiting Lisbon and Sintra, before moving on to Braga and Porto.

What makes your Camera Club holidays different?

They are all about photography so we are looking for somewhere dynamic where you know you will be able to get good photos. In Lisbon, we know we will see the trams and the docks which will be very good for street photography. We’re looking for a nice diversity of cities, towns and beautiful villages with a good range of architecture that can help create great photographs.

The other thing that we like to do is visit the more localised spots. In Lisbon we will be going into the back kitchens where they make those famous custard tarts which the city is known for. We will hopefully get some lovely photos of them making the tarts.

How do travel companies and guides help you?

We like to make our trips a bit more in-depth with an added level of insight that you wouldn’t normally get from a day-to-day tour. When we went to the House of Commons, we learned about how it is organised from a helpful guide.

Our trip to Stowe Gardens had quite a few people with mobility issues and the staff were brilliant. I can’t speak highly enough of them because they made adjustments for us and took the group off the normal route so everyone was able to get the full experience.

How do you organise meals on trips?

There is quite a lot of freedom for members in both groups. With the Camera Club, we usually have a group opening dinner and closing dinner. The itinerary has been organised for us so we have various visits to bars, distilleries and places to have lunch. We leave people to do their own thing in the evening.

On our day trips with the Probus Club, people tend to organise their own lunch, we just make sure that the location has various facilities and then we tell people where we are going and leave it up to them to decide where they want to eat.

What is the most rewarding thing about your role?

One of the lovely things about organising trips and seeing them come together is watching people enjoying themselves - I get a real kick from that. I also enjoy the anecdotes you get from going somewhere with other people, even if it’s when something goes wrong or is unplanned. It’s the way people respond and provide solutions. That mutual support is really nice.