Dear Members

Congratulations to Angela Watkins, our church recorders’ group organiser, who was recently presented with a Golden Jubilee award by the Chairman of the West Midlands Area, Roly Trevor-Jones.  This is “in recognition and appreciation of her outstanding contribution to volunteering for The Arts Society”.  Angela has been group organiser almost since the inception of the church recording group in 1996. The group has recorded seven churches and is currently working at St Francis of Assisi, the Roman Catholic church in Baddesley Clinton.  Angela recently retired as the West Midlands Church Recorders’ Area Representative, having been in post for twelve years.

It is timely in this May update to mention the issue of GDPR which many of you will know is on the horizon. In order to comply with the new legislation concerning General Data Protection Regulation which is coming into force at the end of May, the Committee now has a Data Management Policy, available on request, which states which personal data the Society may keep with regard to members and how it will store and manage it.  Consequently, the Membership Renewal Form which is issued annually, will include wording to reassure members that the data will be used only for the purposes of running the Society efficiently and effectively.   You will be sent a copy of the Data Management Policy along with your papers for Membership Renewal and it will be available on the website.

At our May lecture, we shall have as our guest the West Midlands Area Chairman, Carolyn Trevor-Jones. She will say a few words before the lectures, so please be seated a few minutes earlier than usual to allow for this.

There are still some tickets for the dinner marking the national Golden Jubilee of the Arts Society and the Silver Anniversary of our own Society which is being held at Walton Hall near Wellesbourne.   They are very reasonably priced at £50 and include a drink of bubbly or soft drink on arrival.  I must say, the menu looks delicious and the setting will be magnificent.  The guest speaker will be Elizabeth, Lady Hamilton, biographer and historian whose family owns the estate and whose knowledge of the Hall and its history is personal and extensive.  It will be a memorable celebration and great fun. So add a touch of romance and glamour to your lives and spend a long summer evening with us.  The date is Wednesday 13th June, the time 7.00 for 7.30pm and Kate Varney will be selling tickets at the May meeting.

John Clark is just back from the wonderful tour he planned for members in Provence.  They have had a full schedule each day with visits to both traditional sights and more, including a boat trip. John’s own review runs like this: “Terence, our guide for the trip, was superb, full of facts, jolly and did his homework. This was especially useful when advising, negotiating and booking for our large group in restaurants. We visited Cézanne’s studio in Aix, kept just as he left it all those years ago. In Arles we ate at Café le Soir, the glowing pool of yellow which Van Gogh captured so brilliantly.  The Carrières de Luminères comprising thousands of digitalised images of works of art projected onto all the former quarry’s surfaces, moving to the rhythm of a musical soundtrack, was probably my favourite event.  Altogether a good show!” …. And he picked the best week of the year so far for it!

Very recently, indeed, Anne Flower with her customary care and emphasis on sharing, arranged for the Leamington Groups of Volunteers from the Art Gallery and All Saints Church to go over to Coventry to the group working at the Herbert Art Gallery, to see what their work involved.  It was a very useful morning of ‘exchange’ and both groups enjoyed discovering in more detail what the projects involved, quite apart from visiting the museum itself.

Ann Pitt is taking the Day Visit to Oxford on May 8th which is proving a very popular event with its walking tour and museum visit.  We hope you have a very good day out.

I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday 2nd May for the lecture on Piero della Francesca by Shirley Smith.

Best wishes,
Elizabeth Hunter (Chairman)