Linda Baldwin passed away quietly at home on Tuesday with her husband Andrew by her side. Funeral details will be known after Easter. Our thoughts are with Andrew and the rest of her family.
Roy Thomas and Jan Cawley have written the following obituary.
Linda Baldwin Hon FWPF
Our very good friend and admired colleague, Linda Baldwin, who recently passed away was a long-time member of the Welsh Photographic Federation, a determined and effective committee member and a delightful person to work with. She served as our Treasurer for many years as well as being our Welsh International Chairman.
She joined the WPF from the Bridgend CC about 20 years ago. She very quickly became involved in the running of our events, attending almost all of them learning, and making observations regarding our management and presentation of these activities.
When Linda joined we were very much in the “Dark Ages” of slides and slide projectors, and all of the competitions we ran were very manual and required mountains of paperwork. The entrant had to properly spot and label their work and then we had to randomise them before presentation to the judges. On being scored they had then to be put into slide trays relative to the scores they achieved. All the results were created manually and similarly, so were the catalogues.
Linda, who never suffered fools gladly, led us on a journey from slides to PDIs and almost singlehandedly chose the software to use and studied its use to the point where she became the go-to expert and created its use for both the WPF International and Welsh Salon of Photography. With a dedicated on-line entry system, including PayPal subscriptions which eliminated hours of manual work she took the WPF into the 21st Century. It is also true that following the WPF lead within a year or two the PAGB had also changed from slides to PDIs at their Warwick event.
She however remained determined to ensure that these events were properly run, completed on time to everyone’s satisfaction and she continually aimed for perfection, fixing all the errors that users of the system managed to impose on her, she put hours and hours into these events and would never ask for help, one had to ensure that you knew what she was up to and turn up at her house at the appropriate time to provide assistance, she was very independently minded and was happy to do everything herself.
She was a good personal friend to many of us, as was Andrew, her husband, who, during our Salons became an additional Exec member and was very generous with his help. She loved her quilting and never gave it up despite all the other tasks that she took on, and produced the most beautiful work of great precision as you can all imagine.
She was somebody who was fundamental to the modernisation of the WPF and was uniquely suited to this volunteer body, we are all pleased and honoured that we had the opportunity to know her and work with her over the years – she will be sadly missed.
The WPF Executive, past and present.
