How to create a content type that incorporates a batch upload and body field, with a gallery output
You could make an image field accept multiple values and set its display to be gallery using one of that two modules galleryformatter, field_slideshow

And build a view list nodes ordered by the date field selecting one image image from the image field as a thumbnail (using relationships) by setting the delta to be just 1 

take a look at how-control-display-multi-value-fields-drupal