Newsletter No.9 – October 2011
After a rather dismal summer, it was lovely to welcome so many members (including a sprinkling of new members) as well as some fifteen guests to the season’s first lecture last month when Harry Fletcher gave an interesting overview of the life and work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh. Our new digital projector and screen were much appreciated and will, we hope, enable us to offer efficient and professional support to our lecturers and increase members’ enjoyment of the lectures.
Below you will find details of various functions being arranged by the committee. In view of members’ dissatisfaction with the quality of the meal and service at the Christmas lunch last year (see newsletter number 7), the committee has decided that this will be replaced by a drink and mince pies after the December lecture and an evening event next summer (watch this space!), as well as a coffee morning at the end of this month (see below).
The total membership of the society remains steady at around 230. This season we welcome some 15 new members, and there are some more in the pipeline! We look forward to holding a coffee morning exclusively for new members in the New Year to enable the committee to get to know them and for the new members to meet each other. Invitations will be sent in due course.
This is your society. If you have ideas, comments and suggestions on how it might be improved , the committee would be delighted to hear from you. Committee members wear badges at the lectures and social events, or can be contacted by telephone (telephone numbers are shown on the back of the programme) or via our website (see address at the end of this newsletter). You might also be interested to visit www.nadfas.org.uk, which provides general information about NADFAS and about the activities of other societies.
MEMBERS’ COFFEE MORNING
A coffee morning will be held for members at the Knockomie Hotel (Forres) on 28 October from 10 am until noon. This will be an opportunity for members to meet and chat informally. The cost is £5 per person. Further details will be available, and bookings taken, at the October lecture or by telephone from Sally Bedford (01309-641044).
SPECIAL INTEREST DAY - The Barber of Seville.
Scottish Opera staff and performers are providing our first Special Interest Day of the year on 2 November from 10.30am to 3pm at Gordonstoun School. The day will include presentations on the history of the opera; the current production (at Eden Court on 3 and 5 November) in terms of set, costumes, lighting; the process of bringing an opera to the stage. There will also be live excerpts by pianist and soprano. The very reasonable cost of £20 includes morning coffee and a two course lunch. Booking forms will be available at the October lecture or from Jennifer Kerr at jennifer.kerr@btinternet.com, or 01343-835258. (They can also be downloaded directly from our website. The closing date for bookings is 21 October.
PS The opera bus will be running as usual for the Saturday performance at Eden Court, but is already fully booked.
PRE-LECTURE SLIDE SHOWS
Our wonderful new projector is able to show slides directly from a memory stick and we plan to put on slide shows before the start of each monthly lecture . If you are a keen photographer and have interesting photos from a holiday or from visits to special places we would like to offer you the chance to share them with other members. All you need to do is put the digital photos on a memory stick , with your name and a title written on the stick, and give it to Jennifer Kerr at a lecture. (The stick will, of course, be returned to you after use!)
HERITAGE VOLUNTEERS
Work is continuing at Fort George Highlanders’ Museum, with the archivist volunteers now helping to pack up the exhibits for storage during the refurbishment of the building. A team working with our member Marylyn Johnston is progressing well with the making of garment covers for the uniforms, but would welcome further support. Anyone interested in volunteering to assist in this work should contact Sarah Fennings-Mills.
CHURCH RECORDERS
The church recording team is already hard at work at Pluscarden Abbey, its most ambitious project to date, and is receiving enthusiastic support from the monks. Shelagh Townsend- Rose, the Scottish Area representative, and Bobbie Smith, an expert on stained glass, will be coming to help with some aspects at the end of October. Anyone interested in this work should contact Marion Yool.
YOUNG ARTS
We are supporting Life Drawing for schools at the Moray Art Centre. 14 secondary school pupils, who are studying Higher Art and who hope to enter Art Schools or Colleges, have enrolled. The students (from Forres, Elgin and Fochabers) are provided with materials, model and tutor thanks to the support of your society. The course will finish on 24 October and we hope there will be some interesting work which may be suitable to exhibit at the Art Centre.
HELP TAG THE NATION’S OIL PAINTINGS
“Your Paintings” is a new website launched in June by the BBC and the Public Catalogue Foundation. It already includes over 60,000 paintings from 860 collections and by the end of next year will hold all 200,000 paintings in national collections. To allow users of the website to search for subjects that interest them, the sponsors seek help from the public in identifying what can be seen in each oil painting. This work is very valuable and does not require you to be an art expert, but merely to identify what can be seen in a painting. For details go to www.bbc.co.uk/yourpaintings