r Members,

Welcome to our April newsletter.

Last month saw the last of our Special Interest Days that Adrienne Fox will organise as sadly she is stepping down from the role at the end of the season. Micheal Howard gave us some interesting stories about his life as an art historian and showed his passion in pursuit of finding out about the ‘real’ Lowry. A delicious buffet lunch was also enjoyed.

Reminder: As our January lecture was cancelled due to bad weather, we have an extra lecture on July 11th. This will be ‘The Arts and Crafts of Kashmir’ given by Zara Fleming.

Our April lecture is being held on Thursday 10th April at 2pm.

The lecture is actually entitled: ‘Three Families and their Gardens - a history of the Asters, Rothschilds and Sackville-Wests’. It combines the lives and family history of these families with the story of the gardens they have created in the English countryside.

Our speaker is: Caroline Rayman

Caroline has  lectured for many years to universities and art organisations in America and on cruise boats. She was an official guide at the British Museum and has published articles on samplers.  The story of Caroline's lecture The Mysterious Disappearances of the Ghent Altarpiece is to be told in a new film in 2025, entitled The Bold Thief.

Refreshments will be available after the lecture as usual for a small donation.

There will be opportunity to buy tickets for the upcoming afternoon tea with Nick Bianchi on 13th May, the Cinema Club on 25th April and the visit to Arley Hall on 14th July. ( See Events Newsletter.)

The raffle will be held before the lecture - 50p a ticket to win a £10 book token. Proceeds go towards Arts Volunteering projects.

AGM

The AGM will be held before the lecture on 12th June.

The committee is still keen to recruit more people.  

Publicity/ Communications is a new role we would like to develop with someone who is reasonably I.T. confident. Would you be interested?

A Visits/ Events Organiser is also still really needed. This could be shared between a couple of people as we have done previously so that it is not a very onerous job.

With all these roles, there are people on the committee who can help and support you while you gain confidence.

Local Events

Local Arts Societies:

North East Cheshire

Wednesday 9 April at 10.30am at the Brookdale Club Bramhall.

 ‘Banksy – Fraud or Genius’ and the speaker is Pepe Martinez.

The lecture will trace the story of Banksy’s humble beginnings as a tagger on the streets of Bristol in the 1980’s to one of the most recognisable names in the art world.  

Wilmslow

Thursday10th April at 7.30pm at the United Reformed Church, Wilmslow

‘The Age of Jazz’ and the speaker is Sandy Burnett

Drawing on his experience both as a musicologist and gigging musician Sandy can shed light on jazz from the inside. His talk covers the early years of jazz up to the Second World War and touches on the disparate influences which lay behind the emergence of jazz.

Arts Events:

The New Macclesfield School of Art at the Silk Museum  offers different art workshops every month. Coming up on 10th May is a lino printing workshop.

KEMS - Macclesfield Symphony Orchestra have a concert on 17th May with pieces by Dvorak, Smetana, Beethoven and Janacek.

Cinemac- Macclesfield  is showing a series of live events ( musicals) in the coming months starting with ‘ Billy Elliot’ in April.

Please see our own website for more details of Events.