Club Update – November 25

·        Membership – we are delighted to report that our membership number is now 155

·        Tea/Coffee Money – On Wednesday 12 November we presented a cheque to Michelle from Cancer Support Ayrshire for £350 at our Wednesday Club night. This was our Tea/Coffee donations from the last 18 month which was doubled by the Club.

·        Storage Space - We are still looking for storage space for our exhibition display boards and associated materials – the space needs to be around 2m X 4m - if you have a storage space we’d love to talk to you about using it long term and paying a small fee for the annual use.

·        Travel in dark evenings - the membership signup responses demonstrate that 20 people say that the dark evenings may reduce their attendance at Club nights or they must leave early, of this group 4 members report that they cannot attend at all (I presume these members have primarily signed up for the opportunity to exhibit their paintings).  The Clubs response to this is to offer the Visible Voices workshops which are held during the day – 10am to 12.30pm, the next one is on Monday 17th November.  All members who have reported an issue with traveling in the dark have been invited via email.  There will be 2 additional workshops in January and February next year.  Unfortunately, we cannot move the TAC timetable for a number of reasons one being that the BB Hall is getting used more by other groups and we have been told that we can only have the first 2 weeks in July for the Summer Exhibition.  This earlier time for the Exhibition leaves a shorter time for members and the committee to prepare.

The committee will continue to consider other options to support travel

·        Visible Voices - We have emailed eligible members about our day time programme called ‘Visible Voices’.  The support programme, which is funded by South Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership, will offer support workshops for members who are 65+ during the day and will support them to exhibit their work locally and throughout Ayrshire.

·        Online profiles - We are encouraging as many members as possible to have a personal profile set up on the TAC website. Several pages are already there so have a look if you are not sure what to include. 

We suggest:-

·        A brief CV

·        A photo of yourself (nice to have but optional)

·        Up to 5 (quality) images of your work - we hope to increase this number eventually

·        A link to your own website/Facebook/social media if you have one (optional)

You can see existing members pages here: https://www.troonartclub.co.uk/members-gallery

The main purpose of the Profile pages is simply to show off the great and varied work being done by TAC members but we are hoping to attract more visitors to the website and this might lead to offers of purchases or commissions.

Members of the public who want to contact an artist about their work can do so using the general website email address to the Secretary but your personal email address can be added to your profile if you wish.  This will never be done without a member’s express permission.

If you want to have a profile set up then please contact Edith at eb.mcinroy@gmail.com

Edith is happy to set up your profile and answer any questions you might have.