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POOLE and EAST DORSET ART SOCIETY TRUSTEES’ ANNUAL REPORT From 19 July 2019 to 31 December 2020

Charity Name: Poole and East Dorset Art Society Registered charity number: 1184632

Principle/Registered office: Poole and East Dorset Art Society c/o Upton House Upton Country Park Poole Road Poole BH17 7BJ

Names of Charity Trustees during the period:

Name	Office (if any)	Dates appointed or resigned in the year
Jacqui Gush	Chair
Pamela Marshall	Treasurer
John Biggs	Gallery co-ordinator
Sally Holland
Linda Honeyborne
Carol Cox	Membership Secretary
David Roberts		Appt. 02 Feb 2020

Name of trustees holding title to property belonging to the charity:

Trustee name	Dates acted if not for wholeyear
None

Bankers: Lloyds Bank plc PO Box 1000 BX1 1LT

1. Type of governing document: Constitution

2. How the charity is constituted:

CIO

3. Trustee selection methods:

Elected by Members at AGM

4. Additional governance issues :

Trustees meet on alternate months. The Gallery Upstairs sub-Committee meets on the other alternate months. Co-ordination is by attendance by all or a trustee.

5. Objects of the charity:

Our objective as a charity is to foster, promote and increase, amongst the general public in the local area, the knowledge, practice and appreciation of art.

6. Summary of the main objectives:

PEDAS aims to make art, both its appreciation and making, available to the community in the vicinity of Poole. We run courses, events that are available to all, we have a membership of around 100 and we run a community gallery where noncommercial groups and individuals can exhibit their work to the public.

The Art Society is open to anyone to join, regardless of ability or experience. The activities run by PEDAS, namely workshops, demonstrations, en plein air activities and trips to visit art and cultural destinations and events are open to all members of the public to join in with.

We run weekly and monthly programmes of events, involving a wide range of topics relating to art practice and appreciation. These are advertised on our website and social media and we encourage visitors and non-members to attend and join in.

We run a viable, high quality community art gallery which offers an opportunity for local artists, or groups including other charities, to gain exposure for their work throughout the year with exhibitions managed on a 2 week rotating basis.

The gallery is open and free of charge to the local public within Upton Country Park and forms part of their leisure and recreation facilities.

We aim to participate in and/or organise at least 2 events specifically for the general public every year.

They will include partnership with the management of UCP as part of their public programme of activities and events in the recreational Park. There will be a public presentation/talk on Art as part of a local community event or facility.

We may also work in partnership with other individuals/organisations involved in community art in these ventures.

At the time of writing, our memberships stands at 87, 10 down on 2019. We feel this is largely due to COVID and we will undertake a membership drive as conditions

loosen. With most of PEDAS income deriving from Membership fees, we have been able to hold the annual fee of £30 per person since 2015.

7. Summary of the main achievements and benefits during the year:

Following our recognition as a charity in July 2019, we have carried a programme of workshops, talks and other events in accordance with our charitable object. We have also managed The Gallery Upstairs, a community gallery within Upton Country Park, in Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole Council area, where we have enabled a number of local charities, art clubs and individuals to exhibit their art work. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic restrictions, our activities have been somewhat curtailed in this reporting period.

To compensate for our inability to meet during the pandemic we developed a Virtual Programme . It started May 2020, was set weekly and emailed to club members and also put on the website for public access and public benefit. During the period up to 31[st] December 2020, 31 separate weekly art sessions were devised, requiring varying skill levels from simple Tangram patterns, step-by-step instructions, video sessions and a lecture to watch, to more demanding painting and drawing exercises. Virtual Programme - Poole & East Dorset Art Society (pedas.org.uk)

During the first lockdown we started Pedas at Home Facebook page in March 2020, to help keep members engaged and sharing their Virtual Programme outcomes. It was also a way we could assume that members who posted were at least relatively ok during that difficult time. Helpful comments could be elicited. Although only members could post, it was set for public viewing. The comments have been supportive and friendly. More than 40 members regularly contributed in that period, (more since) and the page typically saw a handful of postings a day. PEDAS AT HOME | Facebook

The PEDAS Blog was started just before Christmas 2020 as another way of keeping public and club members informed of PEDAS activities and Gallery related news. The news was naturally thin due to the lockdown and we are also mindful of the need to ensure that postings were relevant to subscribers’ expectations. The Blog has 190 plus subscribers; roughly half are PEDAS members, the rest members of the public who have asked to be informed of club or gallery news. Poole & East Dorset Art - Society Blog (pedas.org.uk)

The Gallery Upstairs was closed and our events were cancelled from mid March 2020. We did arrange socially distanced en plein air (painting and drawing in the open air) events in the summer of 2020. Events recommenced in September 2020 and the gallery opened in October, only to be closed again in the December lockdown.

In all, we did host 18 exhibitions with over 350 artists and over 9,000 visitors. 3 of the exhibitions were specifically for charities. PEDAS exhibited twice during the period: ‘ Joy of Art’ from 4[th] to 21[st] October 2019 and again when the gallery reopened: ‘ A

Breath of Fresh Air’ 16[th] Oct to 2[nd] November 2020. PEDAS also hosted the ‘Upton Country Park Open 2019’ from 30[th] November to 19[th] December 2020, when all artists within a 15-mile radius of the gallery were invited to submit work.

Evening and weekend sessions were also curtailed, but we ran 23 evening and 8 Sunday sessions, attended by a total of 557 people of whom 70 were non-members. (We attracted 7 new Members to join the Society).

The sessions were led by experienced locally recognised artists/tutors. These were either illustrated talks such as Abi Kremer’s presentation on Modernism, or art demonstrations such as Tony Paul’s demonstration of painting in egg tempera. Of note was the guest speaker John Browning who enlightened us on ‘Kites as Art’. As restrictions eased, we managed, with covid safety measures to arrange one indoor Sunday session with Rob Adams on the principles and methods of plein air painting in September 2020. Some were led by professional artist/tutors such as Roger Seddon and Diana Girdwood, others by members of the club, and some were untutored, and included 2 life drawing sessions.

The public can view the Sunday and Thursday sessions on the PEDAS website. Visitors are always welcome, we ask for a £5 donation.

The Plein Air programme was our fallback position when we couldn't meet indoors on Thursdays. The programme was listed for public viewing on the website. It was always subject to weather and changing covid-restrictions. We met to work on location at places such as Wareham Quay or Upton Country Park.

8. Policy on reserves:

We do not hold a specific reserve. Our income is less than £5,000 pa and our expenditure is geared to that on an ongoing basis. We have a reliable income from membership contributions and the gallery covers its expenses.

Income from The Gallery Upstairs was much reduced due to the pandemic and planned refurbishment in Jan 2020, led to a significant depletion of funds. However the hire fees have remained unchanged at £15 per day.

9. Finance:

When we were granted charity status on 29 July 2019, the accounts for PEDAS and for The Gallery Upstairs (GUS)were separate, though both reported to the main committee and to the AGM. Given that the change to charity came in the second half of our financial year, the need to open new bank accounts and reconciling our system of accounting, we have not produced amalgamated accounts for the last 5 months of 2019. We have produced amalgamated accounts for the financial year, 01 January 2020 to 31 December 2020. These are attached and have been reviewed by our independent examiner.

Summary of accounts for 2019:

The opening balance for PEDAS was £7,112. Income was £30,521 and expenditure £29,082, ( £15,000 of this was for an Art Tour whereby money came in and all was sent out to pay for the tour) giving a surplus of £1,439 and a closing balance of £7,611.

For GUS the opening balance was £7,348. Income was £6,079 and expenditure was £1,922, giving a surplus of £4,157 and a closing balance of £11,505. The more than normal surplus was in anticipation of planned refurbishment in the Gallery for January 2020.

Summary of accounts for 2020:

The opening balance for PEDAS/GUS account in 2020 was £19,116. The closing balance on 31 December 2020 was £13,100. The reduction is due to a number of matters. COVID closure lead to a much reduced income at the Gallery Upstairs, down by around £3,000. At the same time planned refurbishment of the Gallery cost over £4,000. The PEDAS account was less affected by COVID, since most income is from Member subscriptions.

With the resumption of our activities we do not foresee a continuation of this shortfall.

We do not have “restricted” funds. Only a small amount, around £50 is retained as a cash float. We do not own property and our assets consist of tables and chairs for use in the Gallery, of insignificant value. We do not foresee any “Liabilities” for 2021 apart from unpaid rent for room hire at £440 and our contribution to a public art project at Upton Country Park of around £500.

Payment to a Trustee:

In early 2020, serious illness to our website manager resulted in the need to redesign and re-launch websites for both PEDAS and GUS. One of our Trustees, with considerable experience in IT, investigated the matter and obtained quotes for the job of around £1,000. On examining what was involved in website production, she undertook to take on the project herself at a cost of £500. In accordance with CC rules, this matter was discussed in the absence of the Trustee in question and it was agreed to make a payment of £500 to our Trustee, thus saving the charity at least £500. Both websites are up and running efficiently.

10. Future plans:

We plan to continue with our basic programme of events and exhibitions, with an expansion of our involvement in events that include the general public, both through our own activities and in conjunction with others. We intend to develop the idea of “Friends of PEDAS and The Gallery Upstairs”, gathering a list of individual and organisations with whom there might be mutual benefit to the public’s exposure to art and artistic experience. This would include local shops, educational institutions as well as interested individuals and make use of social media to disseminate information.

Declaration:

The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees report above on (02 August 2021) Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees:

Signatures: Full names: John Ashley Biggs Position: Trustee: Gallery Co-ordinator Date: 04 Sept 2021

PROFESSIONAL ADVISERS :

Advisers: Steve Place: Community Action Network (Bournemouth, Christchurch, Poole) Bankers: Lloyds Solicitors: Dutton Gregory Insurance Brokers: Eastlake Beachell

Independent examiner: Peter Barber