TAS Wessex Area AVR’s meeting with Society Chairs Friday 1st November 2024

Usually the Wessex Area AVR’s meet in Salisbury once a year to share and celebrate the different projects that we have instigated and developed each year. However, in this year we decided to amalgamate this meeting with the Wessex Area Chairs Day and look in depth at Volunteering as one of the strengths and purposes of the Wessex Area. With a number of new chairs and committee members it seemed a good time to look our purpose, why we volunteer, who we support and where our funds come from.

Our Area Study Day courses have provided a solid fund from which we have been able to draw money to support a wide range of Area projects. From Bath Phil’s work across the county with Young Carers, CPD from Art teachers, intergenerational dance projects radiating out from Salisbury, a community arts series of workshops and exhibitions, workshops at Salisbury Cathedral, support for Bath Arts prize and of course our support for Art Bytes.

This funding has provided a solid base to work from for a number of years and we are grateful to the organisers, Julie Price, Maggie Watts, Anne Deuchar, and currently Caroline Cobbing, Christopher Clarke and Susie Pearson, and all the people who have enjoyed the courses that have been so successful for generating this funding pot.

As well as area funding, the societies have been very active in supporting projects near to them as well as using their community grants and Patricia Fay Memorial Fund Awards to engage with larger projects.  This funding has also been successful in pulling in match funding from other organisations as well as cementing the value of what we do and achieve.

We discussed the joys of art project report filling - the necessary follow up to the more exciting part of engaging with the projects. However, this enables us to track, record and celebrate all the outreach that TAS Arts Volunteers achieve each year.

On the day we had a presentation from Art Bytes showing how successful last years project had been. Over 189 students work was submitted, both in their digital gallery, and in the exhibition in Chippenham. Our cultural partners were Chippenham Museum and Art Gallery who provided gallery visits and workshops. Chippenham Town Council, Chippenham Borough Lands Charity and Wiltshire Area Board also provided funds to support schools engage with Art Bytes.

 Our next presentation was from Magic Lantern, a company who provide dynamic workshops in schools using art history to reach across the curriculum.  Some of our societies already have provided the funds for schools to engage with Magic Lantern and there was an enthusiastic response towards more funding in this area.

We then were able to hear from TAS North Wiltshire on their photographic project in Lacock school. The school is 200 years old and to celebrate this occasion the society worked with the students to create images inspired by the original Fox Talbot photographs. A display board was made locally, designs and layouts were tried and the final photographs were printed on aluminium and inset into the frame which was then installed in the school. Just in Time! Queen Camelia, a local resident of Lacock came to visit and to admire and celebrate all the work the students had achieved.

Julia Villiers, AVR from TAS Poole has just been awarded a Marsh Award for her impressive list of creative arts projects. She gave us a resume of the different groups she and TAS Poole had supported from Creative Clay for All – a ceramic project with Dorset Blind Association, a series of printmaking workshops for young people and a school’s lecture in association with TAS Bournemouth and East Dorset and TAS Wimborne. She has many more in the planning stage.

After lunch we had a Heritage Volunteering presentation by Hilary Olleson, The Lead for HV at The Arts Society.   Hilary gave us an inspiring overview of the breadth and depth of Heritage Volunteering. From textile and book conservation, research projects in parks and gardens, stewarding in houses and museums and working with churches and other institutions to preserve our national treasures.

The day ended with a presentation from Jeremy Thomas the new chair of trustees.