I forgot to remind everyone in the Newsletter sent out yesterday about the request for new prints so we can change the display at St Wilfrid’s.  We have a long standing arrangement with St Wilfrid’s Hospice to provide about 30 prints, kindly provided by members that are hung in the Hospice corridors.  The display is changed around 3 times a year and is much appreciated by residents at a very difficult and often traumatic stage in their lives and of course staff and visitors.

The box for prints will be out on the next 3 Thursday Club evenings so please bring some prints along.  For new members, the prints have to be in mounted in the usual 50cm x 40 cm mounts and Hilary Featherstone then arranges to take them to St Wilfrid’s and puts them into the frames provided by the Hospice.

This year the ‘old’ display will then be transferred to the recently opened Sage Centre in Tangmere (for patients suffering from dementia) and then returned to members a few months later.

These intitiatives provide opportunities for members across the Club to display their work and, importantly, helps to promote the Club’s community profile.  Please do show your support by bringing in some of your work.

In addition we are also seeking prints for the Selection Committee to consider for external Club competitions and for the Novium display  about which separate posts have been written

Stephen Marsh asked at the last AGM if the Club would consider changing the title of the Annual Exhibition to the Summer Exhibition suggesting that the tile ‘Annual’ is inappropriate given that we run 3 ‘annual’ exhibitions at North Mundham in January and separately in the Spring as well as in August.  At a time when many Clubs struggle to mount one exhibition a year then we should celebrate the fact that we run 3 such popular events.  This was referred to the Management Committee who agreed entirely with Stephen’s point at a meeting last Tuesday so in future the August event will be known and marketed as the Summer Exhibition.

We have a long standing arrangement with St Wilfrid’s Hospice to provide about 30 prints, kindly provided by members that are hung in the Hospice corridors.  The display is changed around 3 times a year and is much appreciated by residents and staff.  With members support we will be extending this arrangement to two other locations:

The Sage Centre, Tangmmere – this is a purpose built centre, with a catchment over the south of West Sussex helping those suffering with dementia.  The Centre opened last May, really warm and welcoming and we were approached by someone who had heard of our St Wilfrid’s arrangement asking if that could be replicated.  Hilary and I visited a few days ago and identified a number of treatment rooms where our pictures would be very suitable (in the process being dragged into a pom pom dancing class with residents, but fortunately with no video).  We hope that the St Wilfrid’s display will move on to the Sage Centre before the prints are retuned to members.  We will be asking for more of your prints when the season starts.

Fernhurst Centre at St Richard’s Hospital – this is the MacMillan Cancer unit at St Richards.  Jan Davis has been in discussion with staff about how best we can help to brighten up the unit and several members have kindly agreed to donate some of their images.

Both these initiatives help to raise the Club’s profile in the local community as well as helping vulnerable people at a difficult and often traumatic stage in their lives.  They provide further opportunities for members across the Club to display their work.  I do hope everyone will continue to give your support and provide some images when the boxes go out next week.