Dear members,

As I’mwriting this newsletter to you,out of the window I can see all the burgeoning signs of Spring going on in our valley –the trees beginning to green up , the rape seed making the fields stand out , and beautiful magnolias and camellias still in flower in the gardens. With the sunshine promised for the Easter weekend I hope you will get a chance to get out and do some sketching and painting in your local environment.

I was pleased that so many of you made it to the OVAS AGM in March and we certainly had a productive meeting. Our President, Phil Creek, gave us an encouraging welcome addressand said he is looking forward to his forthcoming demonstration evening and workshop in June. (Please contact Maureen Stone if you are interested in joining this workshop).

In my report as Chairperson I thanked the committee for all of their hard work and support over the last year and I outlined the need for more support for the committee where there were a few vacancies. The meeting unanimously endorsed the continuation of the existing committee membersin their various roles for 2019 and following my appeal for new committee members, I am pleased to say that Simon Gray and Stan Browning were proposed and duly voted onto the committee.

I informed members that, unfortunately, it will be necessary to increase the subscription rate from £20 per year to £30 per year in 2020. This year’s renewals and the rate for new joining members joining before the closing date for exhibition entries in July will stay at £20. New members joining after this date will have to pay the rate of £30, but this will include their membership up to the end of 2020.

Mike Bird, our treasurer, presented the accounts for 2018, which showed a small loss on the year of £49. The increase in subscriptions will enable a good range of activities, including bringing in quality demonstrators, as well as building our reserves after the purchase of the new projector. (After the formal business meeting the projector was put to good use for the talk by Simon Gray on his wood sculpture of ducks.)

Terry Davies, our Membership Secretary, reported that as of the date of the meeting we had 65 paid up members and 4 life members. I am pleased to notethat the paid-up total has now risen to 69, as a few who had not responded earlier have now renewed. Existing members are asked to spread the word and help enrol new members if they can.

I would like to thank Chris Poole in his work for the society in contacting the local press with publicity on our activities, some of which you may have seen recently. 

As usual we had a competition of art works on the theme of “Transport”, which by popular vote went to Mariette Rennie. Phil Creek presented the Griffin Trophy to Mariette and congratulated her for fine piece of work.

A good piece of news for you all is that Maureen Stone has managed to arrange a critique with Ray Balkwill on September 20th, to replace the one we had to cancel earlier in the year due to the weather conditions.This will be an extra meeting in addition to our usual one at the beginning of the month.

Ray remains a great supporter of our Society, so please may I bring to your attention his courses, both at home in Exmouth and away in Cornwall, which I can heartily recommend. Details are attached.

We recently enjoyed a demonstration and workshop with James Tatum , giving guidance on how to create expressionist landscapes.

If you are interested in plein air painting we are hoping to arrange a couple of events this summer again, so please ask Maureen about these. I do hope that you are all busy painting in readiness for our summer exhibition, which I will give you more information about in my next newsletter.

With best wishes for a very Happy Easter,

Penny Lamb