Present: Ruth Chesterman, Anne Anderson, Val Clark, Tony Berry, Beverley Chadwick and a request from Steve Abbott to sit in on the meeting.
Ruth confirmed she will now be stepping down as Chairperson due to health. We would all like to thank her for leading us for the past year, and inspiring us on.
Anne Anderson has also stated that she no longer is able to fulfil her role, and will be stepping down as Vice-Chair. Ruth thanked her for all her support and said she had been brilliant!
Maria Hoather will be stepping down as vice treasurer. Huge thanks to her for all her input over the years.
Therefore, we now have just 4 members on the committee ( Val Clark treasurer, Tony Berry model co-ordinator, Steve Ridgway Exhibition lead and Beverley Chadwick secretary. )
None committee members, but part of the team are Gillian Taylor she has said she will continue organising the still-life evenings, and Jo Greer will carry on organising outdoor activities. John Britton will continue to maintain the website.
VACANCIES;
Chair person (Role) to co-ordinate committee meetings and oversee committee members, supporting where appropriate. To send out weekly emails (and Facebook posts) to all members with updates of what’s going on in the group that week, and in the near future. To be the main point of contact, leading the group with creativity, and new ways of doing things that will move the society forward. This is not a conclusive description.
Vice Chair person (Role) to support the Chair person. Step in when the Chair is unavailable. Maybe required to lead committee meetings.
Demonstration co-ordinator (Role) This job has been previously done by Pam Wakefield who is moving out of area. A list of current demonstrators is available and Pam is happy to hand over the contact details of artists we have used.
The role involves booking one demonstration per month. None in December.
Make sure someone will be available to let demonstrators into the building (ideally themselves)
To ensure demonstrators have any equipment they might need to borrow for the session (ie easel/lights/table) and to thank them at the end of the evening.
They will have a budget from the treasurer, and it will be up to them to spread this across the 11 months we have demonstrations.
They would need to be on the lookout for any new artists that we might not have seen, and make sure a good variety of mediums are represented.
Facebook publicity this job does not require any committee duties and would involve promoting our upcoming events for both the members and public pages on Facebook. Uploading photos of artwork from our weekly meetings and creating ‘event’ listings.
New Members co-ordinator this has been done by Anne Anderson who has done a great job for us for many years and is now stepping down.
Maria Hoather has supported her by drafting up a really good information guide for new members. This will be ready prior to the exhibition next year when we get a lot of enquiries about membership.
Anyone wishing to welcome our new members would need to allow for the increase in enquiries before and after the exhibition and be available around this time to respond. Enquiries can come via our public Fb page, the website or email, so being comfortable with using these would be an advantage.
Enquiring about on-going membership is also part of this job. Chasing up renewals around October time when subscription fees are due helps us keep our membership records up to date.
Also discussed at this meeting but not related to the above, was the possibility of having a members photo gallery, so everyone knows who everyone else is.
At SMA we work very much as a team. We fully appreciate that life happens and sometimes people are unable to carry out their roles. If you are thinking of taking up one of these jobs, you will be supported throughout and shouldn’t feel this is an individual responsibility. New members are especially encouraged into these posts, as they will have new ideas which we might not have thought of!
LETS GROW THE SOCIETY!
We welcome new suggestions for our weekly groups, is there something you’d like to try out maybe working on a limited palette, drawing reflections/shadows? A new place to visit where we could sketch…Whatever you can think of keeps us all engaged with our art so please email me with ideas.
THIS YEAR’S AGM WILL BE ON 1ST OCTOBER (refreshments will be available on this evening)
To keep to times, I will send out the minutes of last year’s AGM which means that these will then not need to be read out on the night. This is a Society requirement.
AOB If you have any proposals that the members would need to vote on please let me know by 14th September as these need to have been announced before the AGM.
A full treasurers report will be discussed at the AGM.
You may feel that you are being bombarded by SMA emails running up to the AGM…we will try to keep these to a minimum but some are a requirement of us being a Society!
As you can see from these minutes we have a committee that is very depleted at the moment, and are appealing to everyone to consider helping out (job sharing welcome!)
Well done for reading this right to the end 😊
Beverley Chadwick