Bromley Art Society

Minutes of Annual General Meeting, 3rd February 2012

1. Apologies for absence

• Peter Dinsmore
• Penny Elliot

2. Chairman’s Report, Pat Tucker

Pat spoke of the sudden death of Ann Holdway who had been our secretary for many years and noted how much Ann had done for the Society. Many members attended Ann’s funeral.

It was explained that we have been unable to access the minutes of the 2011 AGM. These could not be found among Ann’s printed papers and have so far not been found on her computer.

The committee was thanked for all their hard work in 2011 – Allan Davies for editing and producing ‘The Easel’, Adrian Fowle for maintaining our excellent website, Chris Richards for publicity, Derrick Waller for designing and producing all our posters and the Society’s two banners, Brenda Sayburn in her role as membership secretary, Penny Elliot for arranging our programme for Friday evenings, Julie Collins for taking over the organisation of the Ripley workshops, Peter Dinsmore for storing and arranging the delivery of screens and David Goodier for taking care of our audio/visual equipment. Donald Wilson was thanked for his services as treasurer for the last nine years. His work has been invaluable. Donald is now standing down and his place will be taken by Darshan Thenuwara. Peter is also standing down but is still willing to deal with the screens and will therefore keep close contact with the committee.

We presently have 139 members.

This year, the Society was awarded the sum of £350 by Great Art, the online art materials supplier. This came about because Ann Holdway had entered us in a competition which we won. A representative from Great Art presented us with a cheque at Ripley and the Society was featured in the Great Art magazine, including a photograph of the Wednesday afternoon painters. The money has been spent on items to benefit the Society including new browsers and a card stand.

3. Treasurer’s Report, Donald Wilson

The Income and Expenditure Account for the year to the end of 2011 shows that we had a surplus of just £75 on our general activities – that is, everything other than exhibitions. This compares with a deficit of £75 in the previous year. This was achieved despite the fact that we received no grant from Bromley Arts Council in 2011. There will almost certainly be no grant forthcoming again in 2012 so the Society will have to rely on its own resources. Hopefully, the slight increase in the rates for membership subscriptions will help.

The Wednesday group art sessions at Ripley produced a net surplus of £1,579 in 2011 but the cost of hire of the studio will be going up this year so the figures for 2012 are unlikely to be as good.

On the expenditure side, the fees paid to lecturers and demonstrators have increased considerably. We hope that the committee’s decision to invite more high profile speakers will attract more people to come to the monthly meetings and more people to become members.

There is a serious problem with the hire of the Verrall Hall on Fridays. This year the fee has doubled from £70 per session to £140.

On the positive side, the figures for the exhibitions are the best we have had for a couple of years. This reflects the greater number of exhibitions organised by the committee in 2011. There is an exhibitions surplus of just over £400 which is a good result even if sales of work were not as high as exhibitors had hoped for.

The balance sheet shows £12,294 in our bank account. This has been built up over the years so that we can pay for new display screens when the time comes for the present ones to be replaced. This time is now not far off.

4. Secretary’s Report, Christine Richards

Having taken over the role just over a month ago in very sad circumstances this was a difficult report to make.

Thanks, to a large part, to Ann’s organisation all the exhibitions in 2011 went well.

We exhibited in the Central Library in March, Ripley in April-May, Harcourt House in June, Denbies Vineyard in August-September and Bourne Hall, Ewell in October. We also had four weekend exhibitions at BEECHE (Bromley Environmental Education Centre at High Elms).

Those of us who have spent happy and successful weekends at BEECHE are saddened by the fact that we shall probably be unable to be there again. The future of the Centre is very uncertain indeed. These weekend exhibitions have been some of the most enjoyable times members have spent together and probably the best venue to make ourselves known through our contact with the public. We would particularly like to thank Adrian, Julie and Peter for ensuring the success of our exhibitions there.

Of the two exhibitions that took place some distance from Bromley – Denbies and Bourne Hall - Bourne Hall was by far the more successful and proved an excellent venue. Sales were very low indeed at Denbies. For this reason we shall be going to Bourne Hall again this year but feel that the cost of exhibiting at Denbies is no longer justified.

Some members also exhibited at the Ripley Summer Fete and held solo exhibitions in London and Kent.

Brenda Sayburn and Gilly Hewstone have kindly offered to organise the refreshments for our Friday meetings but please remember that they will always be happy for volunteers to help them.

5. Election of Officers

Allan Davies and Pat Tucker have agreed to reverse roles. Allan will now be Chair and Pat Vice-chair.
Christine Richards agreed to act as secretary.
Darshan Thenuwara agreed to be our treasurer.
These people were proposed and elected.

Julie, Penny, Adrian, Brenda, Derrick and David were re-elected and two new committee members, Hazel Cossey and Arthur Brown, were proposed and elected.

6. The Committee is therefore as follows:

• Allan Davies -  Chairman
• Pat Tucker - Vice-chair
• Christine Richards - Secretary
• Darshan Denuwara - Treasurer
   
• Julie Collins
• Hazel Cossey
• Penny Elliot
• Adrian Fowle
• David Goodier
• Brenda Sayburn
• Derrick Waller

There is one vacancy.

7. The future of the monthly Friday meetings

The fact that the hire of the Verrall Hall will be doubled from £70 to £140 if we continue to meet on Fridays was discussed. (The reason given by the United Reform Church is that we shall be the only Friday users and must therefore bear the whole cost).

There was discussion about the various options open to us:

1. We could meet at the same venue on a different evening
2. We could look for another venue
3. We could stay the same and somehow raise the extra cash needed to fund this.

No conclusion was reached at the meeting and members are asked to contact Pat Tucker, preferably by letter or ‘phone to offer their opinions.

We hope to find a suitable solution but this will be difficult to do without the help of all our members.

8. The Jack Hill Cup

This is presented annually and this year was awarded to Christine Richards for her services to Bromley Art Society.