wondered if I could pick some brains… I am involved with admin-ing a flickr group of photographers that meetup and shoot about once a month. We started out as a loose collective – just arrange a meet, turn up, shoot etc, but have progressed to being a bit more formal – hire venue, get models, makeup artists etc. – any money taken is to cover costs (venue, make up etc) and any excess is refunded to attendees.

Now, I myself carry public liability insurance (to £5 million) for when I am working on jobs, but it only covers me and up to about 5 people I might be teaching/using as assitants. But wondered if any legal-eagles out there (I know there are a few from reading other posts) could advise:

1) As someone who (with 6 others) organises a meetup, are we liable if something goes wrong eg if one of the attendees is injured whilst on the shoot, or does something to injure a model, or member of the public (eg a lightstand blows over and falls on them) or damages property. Or would an individual attendee be liable eg the person whose lightstand fell on someone?

2) Should we be doing risk assesments for venues eg last summer we shot a few times down on Tooting Bec common. Should we have risk assesed this (can see the need to risk assess, say a semi-derilict building)
Our membership is growing rapidly at the moment (due to some recent publicity, we have recruited 100 new members in the last part of Jan). Hence we want to sort this kind of thing out (and possibly look at the need of becoming a formal 'club', charging a subsription and getting group insurance)

Appreciate any advice…

I am not a lawyer and this is no substitute for real advice.

Two key factors are duty of care and negligence. Have a google – loads of good info out there and loads of scare stories ( most of which are bobbins)

The basic principle is have you done what someone in that position would do normally? Now if you are acting merely as a member of the public then this is a fairly low standard as you are not claiming any special skills or knowledge however if it is part of a more organised event then the standard is higher.

If you have 100 members than I guess its about time to have a formal club structure and draw up basic procedures to follow and get liability insurance. This need not be onerous

Time for real advice I would say