## **Chairman’s Report to Members for the 30th AGM of The Arts Society Cranleigh ~ February 26th 2025** Dear Members, I’m beginning this review with a brief update on the changes which have taken place at The Arts Society this past year. Following a rather contentious period during which several Societies took issue with the direction and governance of the Arts Society, a new direction was proposed and a ballot taken. The Reformers’ views came out on top and as a result, the Trustee board, the Chief Officer and the Finance Director resigned. As of now, the new Trustee Board appears to be governing well and has forward looking plans. The Executive roles have been reformed. We are optimistic that the Arts Society will move forward well. This past year TASC has been on an even keel both financially and in terms of our membership numbers, which continue to hold ground. As you will read in the Treasurer’s Report each year as we renew subscriptions we lose around twenty five members, for a variety of reasons, but over the following months these build up again. We started this subscription year with 197 members. As of now we already have 213, including old members who have rejoined. We are not the biggest Arts Society in our South West Surrey Area and most are rather smaller - but we are well regarded which is very gratifying. We have had an average of 118 members attending Talks this year with an average of 11 guests. The highest number came last January for the Talk on Eric Ravilious with 142 members and 35 guests. The popularity of this topic took us by surprise and was definitely more than a comfortable number! In light of this we do reserve the option to restrict our guests booking if we feel it would disadvantage our members! This year’s Talks began with the hugely popular Talk by Jo Walton on Eric Ravilious. Jo will be with us again for our Special Interest Morning this coming Saturday 8th when she will be speaking about his wife, Tirzah Garwood – a highly talented artist in her own right, and their circle of postwar colleagues. This was followed by Talks on Images of Napoleon, The Gardens of Versailles, Joaquin Sorolla, The Field of the Cloth of Gold, The Story of Coffee, Walter Sickert, The National Trust Libraries, Theatre Postcards and Saving London’s Museums and Galleries. After each Talk the committee is tasked to report back to the Arts Society reviewing a number of aspects and rating a Talk from ‘Poor’ to ‘Outstanding’. We take this task seriously and have a proper discussion. This year we rated 7 Talks as ‘Outstanding’, 2 as ‘Excellent’ and 1 as ‘Good’. We held a Special Interest Morning on February 3[rd] and were thrilled to hear Dr Tobias Capwell speak to us about the history of Armour as personal decoration and then of his momentous role in the discovery and reburial of King Richard III in 2015. Our thanks to Jacqui Camfield for her excellent selection of topics and speakers! Day trips this past year were to Leighton House and Sambourne House in Notting Hill, to Champs Hill Spring Exhibition, the Towner Gallery and Ditchling Museum and to the Frameless immersive art exhibition at Marble Arch. Short breaks away were to Madrid, including the Sorolla Museum, to Leicestershire in the footsteps of Richard III and to Birmingham Rep Theatre, to Thessaloniki and to Glasgow, Dumfries and Bishop Auckland for the Kynren Spectacular. Our thanks to Gwen to arranging this brilliant programme! Towards the end of the year two events were held to celebrate the Christmas Season. After the November meeting members enjoyed drinks and cakes, and in December we held a Christmas Lunch at the Sir Roger Tichborne in Alfold Bars. Our thanks to Claerwen for setting up these two very successful events! Last August we learned with great sadness that Pat Morgan had died. Pat had been the driving force behind the launch of Young Arts projects, working hard to engage local schools and firing them with her enthusiasm for creative projects. Just before her death we learned that the judging panel of the Marsh Awards at The Arts Society had awarded her a Special Recognition Award for her work in Arts Volunteering. The news reached her in time and the award was richly deserved. The Young Arts team have been very busy this past year. Instead of listing their projects here I am attaching their excellent Annual review which is full of news and photos. Do please have a look. We are full of admiration for the team: Felicity Kemp, Carole Lewis, Heather Head, Geraldine Ritchie, Sue Pescodd and team leader Diana Kay. Thank you all! And thank you, Diana for producing our excellent monthly and annual flyers and posters which make us all feel proud of TASC. Our regular helpers have continued to support the committee by taking on tasks to ensure our meetings go smoothly. Our thanks and appreciation to you all! If you’d like to offer help we’d be happy to have you on board, whether as a ‘meeter and greeter’ for example, on the ‘check in’ table, do let us know. Thanks also to the Arts Centre staff and volunteers, who are both supportive and helpful. Particularly thanks to John Coughlan who runs the screen powerpoint files, the sound and the lighting so capably. Finally, and on behalf of you all, thanks go to our excellent committee ~ Jacqui Camfield, Debbie Gauvain, Norma Halder, Claerwen Harries, ‘Nid Jones, Gwen Wright and Alan Halder, without whom all this year’s events and achievements would not have been possible. We have been lucky over the past few years to have a committee that is settled and very supportive of each other, but none of us can go on indefinitely. Looking to the future, it would be reassuring to hear that some of you might be interested in finding out what we do from month to month. If you would like to ‘sit in’ on a committee meeting one month, with no obligation do let us know. We’d be very happy to have you along. This is also a ‘shout out’ yet again for anyone who might be able to take over the Treasurer role from Alan Halder. As he has explained previously this is ‘book keeping’ rather than full ‘accounting’ and he would give his full support to anyone willing to take it on. Please give this some thought. Thank you for your Membership of our very special Arts Society Cranleigh and enjoy your year with us. Best wishes ~ _3 Feb 2025_ ## TREASURER’S REPORT The year to 30[th] November 2024 saw a significant change in the membership of the Society. We started the financial year with 212 members and by the time of the renewal for the 2025 year this had grown to 231 paying members. At renewal, only 197 paid for their 2025 membership, so a successful year of recruitment left us slightly further back. The early indications are that new members are still emerging but this phenomenon, of running to stand still, is likely to remain with us. The extra income from the new recruits contributed an extra £500 to the income over the previous year and, with the cost of talks also being below the previous year, without any reduction in quality, the expected impact of inflation was avoided. The year was also a good one for the members’ events, with the Special Interest Morning in February 2024 producing a surplus of £520. A third welcome contribution to reduced costs was the charge from the Arts Society for the service they provide nationally. After the upheaval during the summer when a majority of the officers of the Arts Society resigned and the organisation vacated its previous offices, the amount that we were required to pay fell by over £500. These factors contributed to an increase in the annual surplus, and a healthy growth in the Society’s reserves. The trustees are looking at how we can use some of these funds to further our objects as a Society, whilst being conscious of the need to remain robust. We are conscious of the number of Societies, both locally and nationally, that have or are closing, and we have even benefitted in a small way from some of these closures, but we have to continue to give our members a good service to avoid joining them. 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