Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of the Bruton Art Society
held at Caryford Community Hall, Castle Cary on
21st January 2016 at 2.30pm
| Present: | 36 members of the Society and 9 members of the Committee |
- Apologies Tom Burr, John Chick, Sandra and Darryl Meech, Pene Cairns, Richard Field, Margaret Kelly, Heather Beadles, Sue Lloyd, Christabel Atkins, Katharine Skillen, Lesley Cruickshank, Patricia Harris, Nicola Botterill, Elizabeth Baxter
- Minutes of last AGM Read, confirmed and signed.
- Matters Arising from Minutes WV apologised for sending out the previous Minutes rather late. Next year we will endeavour to send them out sooner.
- Treasurer’s Report Copies of the Balance Sheet were distributed to members. Maggie Knight reported the following: Current Account at the close of 2015 £7430 Deposit Account £5353
Income exceeded expenditure for the year by £1,548.39
Subscriptions total £2100 - The Treasurer stated that the Society was in good condition and our income had exceeded our expenditure by £1548.
The four workshops covered their costs. We awarded £100 in prizes for the Five Schools Art Contest.
Annual Exhibition
The Exhibition was very successful and made a profit even though our expenses were higher because we invested in new large signs, labels and a colour catalogue. 79 artists exhibited and 26 sold work. All sales, including the catalogue, amounted to £4,967. The Society retained £1310 commission from sales of works. Entry fees totaled £1779. We received £350 from sponsorship.
Membership
Maggie Knight reported that membership currently stands at 164 and we only have 30 without an email address which is very helpful for communication. In 2015 we lost 15 members but 10 new members joined. (The previous year we gained 35 new members.) This year so far 3 new members have joined.
Cost of membership from 1st January 2016 remains at £15 for single and £25 for joint membership at the same address. Fees should be paid by the 1st March. As some members only join in order to exhibit at the Annual Exhibition we will endeavour to improve our publicity. Suggestions would be welcome. Thanks were given to Mr Derek Cooke for his auditing of the accounts.
Secretary’s Report
Damaris Lee reported that this year we have again had a varied and successful programme. We had 3 excellent talks:- “Pricing your work” by Sarah Sparke, “Colour, understanding the deception” by Jane de Sausmarez and “Back to the future, new art from old at the National Gallery” by Colin Wiggins. We had 4 workshops which went very well and were well supported. There were 2 outings, one to Art in Action and one to RWA in Bristol. Both outings were well attended. We also had 3 painting days and thanks were given to our hosts. Thanks were also given to Jane Onslow for all her hard work in dealing with the bookings and arrangements. There was a reminder that it would be much appreciated if members could book and pay for trips and workshops promptly (at least 2 weeks in advance) as there is a lot of work involved in booking venues, coaches, tutors etc and late booking and payments cause problems. DL also reported one new development: we now have a small display of members’ work in Bruton Surgery and if any member is interested in exhibiting there, they should contact her.
Exhibition Secretary’s Report
Tony Langham reported that the 2015 exhibition had been well supported and the work had been to a very high standard. He thanked all the volunteers who helped, without whom the exhibition could not function. Thanks were also given to Nicola Botterill, the head of Bruton School for Girls, who generously made their hall available for the exhibition. This year we extended our exhibition space with an extra room and tried to make the corridor more part of the overall display including stands with BAS information and a welcoming board. 79 artists submitted work of which 262 pieces were displayed out of 307 offered. The exhibition had 506 visitors.
This year the Sending-in day for the Exhibition is on Saturday 6th August from 10.00 am and collecting day will be on Sunday 28th August from 11.00 am to 12.30 am. The Private View will be on Friday 12th August from 6.00 pm to 8.00 pm and the Exhibition will be open to the public from Saturday 13th August to Saturday 27th August. (Further details can be found in the new Programme.) We would like to encourage members who would like to exhibit sculptures or other 2 and 3 dimensional works in various media such as metal, stone and other materials.
Newsletter
Tony Langham reported that the latest copy of the Newsletter had been sent out. He thanked Fletcher Robinson for his outstanding contribution with his account of his “Journey through Provence”. In future we hope to include profiles of members and their work. We would also like to encourage members to send in stories or comments that might be of interest to others and also ideas on how we can improve as a society. TL’s email address is in the Newsletter. Another newsletter should be sent out before the next exhibition.
Five Schools Competition
John Baxter reported that the competition has been run for 2 years and has been very successful. Thanks were given to Hauser and Wirth and Debbie Hillyard, their education officer, who were very helpful this year and allowed us to use their education room to display copies of the entries and for the prize giving. However, in view of the fact that the competition creates a great deal of extra work for the schools involved, it has been decided, in consultation with the schools, that we will not hold the competition this year. We may revise this decision for future years.
Website
John Baxter reported that the Website and the Newsletter were very useful for promoting the Society. We have approximately 25 – 30 visits a day. We would like to encourage the inclusion of profiles of members who can put a profile and up to 6 images on the Website. (See “Have a mini gallery”.) They can also have a link to their own website. A new development is that we now have a Twitter account which is run by Sue Hardy.
Programme for 2016
Jane Onslow outlined the new programme for 2016:
There will be 4 workshops:- 7th and 8th April – “Painting and Collage” with Mariella Polignano; 12th and 13th May – “Landscape painting” with Jonathan Mulvaney; 22nd and 23rd September – “Wire sculpture” with Melanie Deegan; 10th and 11th November – “Monoprinting and mixed media” with Catherine Pitchford.
There will be 2 painting days; one at Fiddleford Manor on the 21st June, and one at Lovington Mill on the 6th September.
The 2 outings will take place on 13th July (to National Museum of Wales in Cardiff to include the Augustus John exibition) and 19th October (to the RWA in Bristol).
Members should note that Sarah Hall is now taking the bookings. Suggestions are welcome and should be sent to the bookbrutonart@nullgmail.com address marked for the attention of Jane Onslow.
WV reported that we will also have 3 lectures: 19th April – “Inquisitive eyes: Slade painters in Edwardian Wessex” by Gwen Yarker; 1st December – our Christmas lecture – “Painters in Provence” by Juliet Heslewood and at our next AGM on 19th January 2017 – “50 years of stage and costume design” by Deirdre Clancy Steer.
Constitution
Will Vaughan reported that the revised Constitution with amendments was sent out to members. He thanked members for their helpful responses. We will therefore need to consider the points that have been made and then resend the amended Contstitution to members to be voted on next year.
Chairman’s Summary
Will Vaughan reported that the Society has had a successful year and our finances are in good shape. The quality of the Exhibition was very high but we would like to encourage more visitors. We will therefore need more publicity. He expressed his thanks to his fellow Committee members.
Election of Officers
Will Vaughan reported that there have been no resignations from the Committee this year. There were two nominations for new members of the Committee: Angela Scott and Marissa Weatherhead, nominated by Biddy Moreton and seconded by Tessa McIntyre. Both members were willing to stand and were duly elected.
The other officers and members of the Committee were willing to stand and were re-elected.
A.O.B.
The Chairman reported that there had been some late suggestions from members for the meeting. These would be open to discussion but could not be voted on as the topics were not on the official Agenda.
Francis Neale suggested that we might consider having the AGM in December so that the new Committee could be voted in before the new programme was printed. This could perhaps be combined with the Christmas party. There being no further business, the meeting ended at 3.05 pm and was followed by
a lecture by Will Vaughan on “Samuel Palmer: Shadows on the Wall”.