A rectangular table discussion
Tonight we had our monthly meeting at the White Hart starting at 7:30pm. Quorum was attained; we had our coordinators and several members – some new, some old – Graham B, Eric D, myself (Andrew RH), John B, Steve C, Jan T, Katya P, Chris & Brian G, and Aldo. You’ll probably spot a few new members in that list!
The blurry photos of us are completely my fault. I mean, they are completely my artistic creation.
Christmas Procession
We started off with a special guest: Richard Tozer, one of the town’s community wardens. He told us of a Christmas procession starting between 5 and 5:30pm on Thursday Dec 11 from Seeviours Court, down Bell St and Winchester Street, ending at Whitchurch Primary School. They’re going to be some animals, fire engines, police cars, etc to attract people to the school. At the school will be creative artistic events, like music, story telling, dancing, etc. Input from Whitchurch Arts is being solicited!
Money
Some serious artistic discussions going on.
Eric let us know that he has picked up the application forms for opening a bank account at Natwest – we were all agreed that this will be our bank. We agreed that Graham, Eric and myself will visit the bank together next week to hand over the application and prove to the powers that be that we are in fact real.
But then what to put into the account? Well, money of course. And that is where Graham let us know that he is submitting grant applications!
Meetings
Before we went any further we decided that our next meeting would coincide with the awards ceremony for the Family Christmas Window Decoration Competition. Namely, Saturday, 20 December at 11am. Judges from the competition will meet at 9:30am to decide the winners (likely at White Hart, but to be confirmed).
Graham reminded us of two events in January, the potato days on the 24 and 25th where we may want to have a show of art relating to allotments; and the arts workshop at the Gill Nethercott Centre on Saturday January 17th at 11am. We agreed that I will contact organizers of the latter to see if Whitchurch Arts could be present there.
The January meeting is not yet set; however there will be a meeting of the coordinators at 7:30pm on Thursday the 8th at the White Hart.
Events
The Whitchurch Beer Festival is this weekend ~ Art must be put up at the social club tomorrow night.
The Family Christmas Window Decoration Competition is in the final stages of planning ~ a letter will be sent to Whitchurch’s industrial businesses (not the town centre businesses, for they are running their own, separate competition) asking for prize donations. Several people helped out with the letter – and in particular John B and Virginia P (present via email!). We have already secured prizes from Oak Tree Nursery (2 x £10 book tokens) and Hampshire Cycle Training; and just at the meeting, Graham offered up a prize from his garden design business.
Aldo thanked us again for his wonderful show on Sunday; some great feedback was offered. e.g. we need to work on improving our publicity (we also need money to pay for it!), like informing libraries and schools. Steve offered me some valuable tips on how to take a photo which the newspapers would be likely to use (key things: don’t crop and do scrunch people in tight). Aldo is keen for us to work on a museum for the town on the theme of Watership Down ~ a great idea!
We all agreed that a show should be planned around Easter time; perhaps at the Parish Hall.
Ohhh and Ahhh
Finally, it was time to ohhh and ahhhh at everyone’s art. No musicians unfortunately, nor singers. There was plenty of nice artwork and photos, though!
Steve and I showed the photos for the Pub Life this weekend (at the Beer Festival); and Steve explained how he composed the shot of two beer-belly guys at The Bell with a third playing the casino game. We played spot the triangles. Its all about shapes, says Steve. My stuff was photos I took at the Bell and then processed to make it look arty. You can see it all at the Social Club this weekend.
Our newest, and youngest, member Chris (14) then showed us his wonderful pencil drawings. He loves animal and nature themes; plus the occasional alien and chainsaw massacre. His dad Brian was rightly proud of his son’s fantastic work. You can buy his work at the local hairdresser’s and elsewhere around town. A rising star!
Jan showed us her drawings and paintings ~ many of which are for sale as cards in the library and elsewhere around town. If you’ve lived in Whitchurch for a while, then you will most definitely have seen Jan’s work ~ She’s been on more Parish Magazine covers than my photos have! 
See you next month!
Tags: Meetings, Scribbles, White Hart