Welcome to The Arts Society New Forest. As a society we are interested in furthering our knowledge of the fine arts. We meet on a regular basis to enjoy lectures on a range of topics, delivered by renowned speakers. Our interests are extended further when we study subjects in greater depth and go out on day visits and breaks away, both in Britain and abroad.
An important aspect of our society is our aim to offer the opportunity, within an artistic framework, to young people from the local community to explore and extend their personal knowledge. Conservation of heritage is important to us too. A group of our members regularly meet to record for posterity, the fabric and artefacts of local places of worship.
Our society is a local branch of The Arts Society , an international charitable organization.
Ideas and suggestions for virtual tours of exhibitions, lectures and cultural activities during the corona virus lockdown are on the Page entitled ‘NEWS’ on the bar at the top of this page.
These also include work from the Royal Ballet, the Royal Opera House and the Met in New York. These wonderful opportunities are all free.
They are regularly updated and open the door to so many wonderful experiences !
If you have any ideas or suggestions please email them to me : ruth.conway@hotmail.co.uk
Additional notes from your Chairman 16 June 2020
Little did we foresee the havoc which has been caused by the coronavirus pandemic!
The good news is that nearly all of you have renewed your membership of our society and we have been able to take some new members from the waiting list as well. I thank you all for your support which will ensure that we will carry on thriving despite the difficulties at present.
To this end we have decided to hold our delayed AGM, pared down and by e-mail on 27 July 2020 and hence I am giving the required 28 days notice and would ask you to fill in the voting forms we are e-mailing to you. Please return your votes to our secretary Diana Heatly (dheatly@gmail.com) by by 27 July 2020. Those of you without access to the internet will receive the voting forms by post.
Sadly it would seem that the spread of Covid -19 is greatest in places of ‘indoor crowding’ which will compromise our use of Brockenhurst Village Hall for our meetings. So we have taken the decision to postpone our Autumn lectures for September, October and November and also the Special Interest Day we had planned for November, and the visit to the Queens Gallery in December. We hope we can resume normal activities in time for our Christmas lecture but that too may have to be postponed. Your committee has been working very hard to re-organise our programme as conditions dictate. Once we have established all our financial obligations please be assured that Helen our treasurer will reassess the annual subscription charge to reflect the current situation we find ourselves in.
We have had to cancel the visits to Bologna and Stratford this year but they will be rearranged in due course and we will let you know our plans soon as possible.
Discussions about our future activities and events are ongoing and we will be sending out a questionnaire so you can let us know your views and which will assist us in making all the decisions necessary to carry us forward .
The exciting news now is that for those of you who have internet access we are planning to hold our September lecture on Monday September 14th by ZOOM –instructions will follow!
We very much want to stay in touch with everyone hence we are keeping our website full of interesting items for your perusal so do keep an eye on it. The Arts Society ‘Connected’‘ website is well worth a visit too. In addition Rose will be sending out weekly updates on events in the world of arts to keep you entertained.
I very much hope you will all participate in our AGM and I look forward to handing over the chairmanship to Diana Heatly thereafter. Your newly updated Programme will be sent to you in August and let us hope that our 49th Season, albeit different this year, will be a good one.
With very best wishes
Sue Balfour