Annual General Meeting 2025 Report

Friday 7th February 2025

Deepcut Community Centre

The were fewer people at the AGM this year than last, probably largely due to the very unpleasant cold, wet weather. Apologies were received from Olga Salgado, Jenny Colquhoun, Ian Sams, Peter Tuitt, Maureen Broomfield, Vicky Harte, Eileen Huson and Brian Hammans. Fortunately, Deepcut Community Centre is both warm and bright and those who did attend were comfortable and stayed to enjoy a wonderful array of cakes and biscuits after the business part of the meeting had finished.

Chairman’s AGM Report 2024

2024 was both a successful and significant year for the Society. We saw membership numbers increase , attracting artists of all ages, abilities and interests. This has also been reflected in an increased attendance at meetings.
Although we were forced to find a new venue after 50 years at the Adult education centre our new venue at Deepcut Community Centre has been well received by members and allows the Society room to expand.

We have greatly increased our profile within the Community. At the beginning of the year we were invited by Surrey County Council to create an art display in a shop window in a prime location in Camberley town centre. This resulted in raising our profile, sales and new members. We had another very successful pop up at Longacres garden centre in June and Frimley Green Carnival in July and we have been invited back to both venues this year. Lesley Kilner continues strong links with the Heritage gallery in town where we have members paintings for sale.
We enjoyed six high quality demonstrations from Eunice Friend, Mark Warner, Rick Holmes, Tushar Sabale, Aurora Spain and Ann Blackson.

This year we have once again organised some outstanding artists to demonstrate for the Society. These will include Hannah Bruce, Becky Gouverneur , Frank Waters, Cat Croxford and Rodney Kingston. Cat and Rodney have both appeared on Landscape Artist and Portrait artist of the Year.
Many thanks go to Mark Wells, Marie Bunce, Craig Whitehead and Lesley Kilner for their members demonstrations which continued to be very popular. I would also like to thank our President Liz Seward for her very popular drawing session in October. Liz has agreed to do another session this October and Janet Wilson has volunteered to demonstrate using salt with watercolour, Patti Dutton Gelli printing and I will be introducing a new activity Paint and Sip in August.  Members also enjoyed Plein air painting at the Canal centre and Wisley. We will return to Wisley in May and visit a new venue, Watts Gallery in August.

Our main exhibition at High Cross church was a great success. The event was very well organised and was set up in record time with the increased help of volunteers and hard working members of the committee. Thanks go to the continued support of our sponsors namely, Roka the Square, Martin Lambs and Sons, The Fish Shop Camberley, Bridge View Dental Surgery, Howlands Sales and Lettings and the Village Eye clinic who enable us to cover some of the major costs of the exhibition. It was opened by the Mayor of Surrey Heath, Councillor Sarbie Kang and this year our judge was Melanie Paice, a local artist teacher and lecturer who has had a career with the Tate galleries. The standard was extremely high and after long consideration ten highly commended rosettes were awarded for the first time this year and an additional trophy was awarded in memory of Graham Scandrett. This was won by Martin Singer. Congratulations also go to winners of our other awards Elaine Winter, Merle Hattersley and Alan Stoney. It is traditional to present our winner of the People’s choice at this AGM. Congratulations once again to Lesley Kilner who won with her painting of David Attenborough named Thoughtful. I would like to thank the hard working committee for their support and commitment this year and would like to welcome any members who would like to join this team.
Their individual reports will reflect our increase in membership, a healthy budget and a very well managed and utilised website.

I look forward to enjoying this year with you all and celebrating the joy of art in every form. Finally I would like to thank you, our members. Your enthusiasm, expertise, involvement in events and joy of painting makes it all worthwhile. 

Honorary Secretary’s Report

In the past year, the committee has held five meetings, at various members houses and one meeting was via Zoom. 

We talked about various subjects, mostly to improve membership numbers, getting our name ‘out there’ through word of mouth and advertisements and moving smoothly to the new facilities. 

We made some decisions about making the ‘studio lives’ every other week, unless it falls before an event, keeping the fees the same and continuing to do the Longacre Popup and Frimley Park Carnival every year. We also decided to plan the entire year in advance so that everyone knows what will be going on and can put it in their diaries.

The New logo is being brought gradually to all publications and notifications going out to the members and public. It has had a very good response to it.

Treasurer’s Report

Everyone should have received a copy of the Accounts for this year.  

Income:

Annual subscriptions have risen thanks to Craig Whitehead and Carole Head’s hard work at getting new members and publicising our activities.  Weekly subscriptions have also risen as more people are attending on Friday evenings.  This is in part due to interesting demos and workshops and because of our fabulous new venue. Luckily this can hold larger numbers!

Interest:  Over £400 ! It was well worth moving our assets to Skipton Building Society. 

Exhibitions:  The Annual exhibition was a success with more pictures on display and more sold than in recent years.  We made a profit of about £300 thanks to sponsorship.  Longacres was also excellent

Expenditure:

The studio rent payments on the accounts sheet show them as being higher than in 2023.  In both 2023 and 2024 there was money owed to the County Council from the previous year.  About £750 backlog was paid off in 2024 and we go forward with no outstanding debts.  The current rental is £21.80 per hour – more than we were paying this time last year, but less than the studio would have cost after September price rises.

We provided a full programme of demonstrations and workshops in 2024, including many freely given by our members.  Good quality demonstrators are getting more expensive so this figure for Demonstrator fees will be even higher in the year ahead.

The website is running out of space so will need further investment in the upcoming year. Stationery:  We are gradually replacing our new logo on stationery and flyers, hence the rise in expenses

Equipment:  This year we invested in another 2 tables for our gazebo, and the SumUp card reader.  In the next financial year, we are considering some new banners bearing our updated logo, and better equipment for viewing live demos.

Sundries:  This section includes expenses such as thank you gifts, and Christmas party expenses such as prizes and table decorations.  It also includes the outgoing money to Phyllis Tuckwell from the raffle and our Annual Insurance. 

Exhibition sundries included van hire, hire of High Cross, (which will be going up again next year), tablecloths, bubblewrap, a trophy for the Scandrett award, rosettes etc

The bottom line shows that the balance sheet has been maintained at more or less the same level as last year. The society’s total assets have increased slightly.  We are therefore in the enviable position of being able to think big .– We will not have to change our fees. We will be able to offer a similar, if not better program of activities to the membership. We are improving our website, modernising our presentation and investing in equipment.

Lastly I would like to thank Fran’s husband Fred Green for looking over our accounts yet again

Membership Secretary’s Report

Membership in 2024 fluctuated between 56 and 90

The number of members at the end of the year being 90. 

However, 26 members have not yet renewed or resigned.

This graph shows the year end number of members (typically representing close to the highest level of membership in the year).  You will see we have reversed the downward trend

Webmaster Website Report

Olga Salgado had sent her apologies as she was away on business and so Marie Bunce agreed to present on her behalf.

We keep increasing year over year the number of visitors to our website, which give us more visibility and increase the probability of having new members. We had in average 2.5 thousand unique visitors per month and increase of 1000 from previous year. 

One of the most popular pages is the News, where we post the write ups summaries from demos and more.

Remember that there is an individual members gallery page, that we can update with new paintings if they want. Just contact the gallery@fcsaonline.org.uk

Patti mentioned that Olga has been cleaning up the website by taking off members who are no longer associated with the group and their pictures in the gallery. The exception is two previous committee members who have passed away.

Election of the Executive Committee

The room voted on the following posts on the Committee. Marie Bunce has been a member of the committee for 8 years and she agreed to take on the role of Vice Chairman. She was proposed by Sue Whitehead and seconded by Patti Dutton. The Committee is as follows:

Post and present holder	Time served/stand again	Name of Nominee	Nominated by (two required)
Chairman: Sue Whitehead	1 years/YES	Marie	Jan
Vice Chairman: Marie Bunce	YES	Sue	Patti
Hon Sec: Patti Dutton	2 year/YES	Liz	Sarah
Hon Treasurer: Lesley Kilner	4 years/YES	Janet	Fran
Membership Sec: Craig Whitehead	3 years/YES	John	Patti
Webmaster: Olga Salgado	5 years/YES	Carole	Sarah
Committee Member: Natalie Lianata		Sue	Patti
Newsletter Editor: Carole Head	5 years/YES	Janet	Craig

The Seward Memorial Trophy

The Seward Memorial Trophy, known as the People’s Prize, is given for the painting that won the most votes at the Annual Exhibition. The winner this year is Lesley Kilner, who had carefully cleaned the trophy ready for its presentation to her once again for her painting “Thoughtful” of David Attenborough.

Any Other Business

Voting on themes for the Exhibition. Suggestions were made for Movements, Music, Emotions and What inspires you. Liz suggested we do Movements, Music & Emotions as one theme. It was voted and agreed by all.

Craig Whitehead asked everyone to take some new pamphlets to hand out amongst the community and various clubs.

Patti Dutton mentioned that everyone should start to think about pictures for Longacres and Frimley (but no larger then A3 size). Liz Seward, the President, Voting on themes for the Exhibition. Suggestions were made for Movements, Music, Emotions and What inspires you. Liz suggested we do Movements, Music & Emotions as one theme. It was voted and agreed by all.

Craig asked everyone to take some new pamphlets to hand out amongst the community and various clubs.

Patti Dutton mentioned that everyone should start to think about pictures for Longacres and Frimley (but no larger then A3 size). Liz Seward, the President, asked if people knew any potters, sculptors or woodworkers as Frimley & Camberley is an Arts Society, not just for artists who paint.

Report by C. Head