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Picture: Members chatting before the meeting at Marle Place. More pictures from the AGM can be seen here.

The SEOS AGM was once again held in the splendid surroundings of Marle Place near Brenchley, Kent. Before the meeting, team members and helpers found themselves setting up gazebos, tables and barbeque equipment during a thunderstorm! Luckily the weather improved in time for the arrival of members and guests and remained fine for the rest of the evening.

Sadly, Franny Swann (Chairman) and Caroline Winn (Development Officer) had decided to stand down at the meeting. Our thanks to them for their hard work and dedication to SEOS over the years.

A new Chairman was elected. Rod McIntosh is a sculptor and creative consultant with extensive experience within the arts industry. We welcome him and look forward to his leadership.

 

MINUTES OF SOUTH EAST OPEN STUDIOS ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Held on Friday 24th July 2009 at 7.00 at Marle Place, Brenchley

In attendance
Committee: Franny Swann (Chairman), Dominique Morgan, Hazel Addley, Paul Williams, Felicity Flutter, Sue Evans, Terry Ayling

Members:
Members list to be made available

Apologies:
Caroline Winn, Helen Mayer, Liz Garnett, Charlotte Rice.

Welcome
Franny welcomed the members and thanked Lindel Williams for allowing the use of Marle Place.

1. Minutes of 2008 AGM
Minutes of the AGM held on 10th July 2008 had been circulated and were agreed to be an accurate record of the meeting.  They were signed by the Chairman.

2.  Proposed changes to the Constitution

i)    2.1 of the Constitution be amended to read, ’the organisation is a mutual concern and does not operate for profit.’
    Franny explained that this change was on advice from accountants but that if the organisation collapsed with debts all members would be liable: if in profit all members would be repaid.  It was agreed on a show of hands to withdraw ‘the organisation is a mutual concern’ which will be negotiated and decided next year but retain ‘does not operate for profit’ to facilitate Google and Paypal services.

ii)    The amount above which committee members have to obtain three quotes from different suppliers be raised from £750 to £1,000.
    This was passed on a show of hands.

iii)    Makeover of Website be exempt from requirement for three quotes but allowed as a one-off expense.
    Franny explained that a Website replacement would be subject to three written quotes but we would be likely to need a facelift only in the near future.  The members asked for a ceiling on the amount but Franny explained that all is subject to a budget.  This was passed on a show of hands.

iv)    The title ‘Development Officer’ be removed from the list of officers.
    Franny explained that Caroline Winn was resigning and the downturn had negatively affected our ability to attract funding.  The committee would look at the remodelling of the post next year.  This was passed on a show of hands.

v)    SEOS officers wishing to stand for re-election who have been in post for two years must ask for Committee approval for their candidacy.  This procedure to be repeated at the end of each two year period.
    Franny clarified that this amendment would prevent underperforming officers remaining in post.  This was carried on a show of hands.

3. Chairman’s Report

2008 has been a really great year thanks to my extremely hard working team. We met at the beginning of our year- which is September- to look afresh at the Constitution and at the ethos of SEOS and talk about where SEOS should be heading in 2009.

We so enjoyed that all day meting that we have kept the formula having had eight all day meetings this year and continual committee e-mail contact in between.

SEOS is a complex organisation to run at the quality level that its members are now used to and all the committee are working at full stretch.

Despite the downturn 2008 saw the highest artist numbers ever with 270 members. We continue to attract high quality artists in all disciplines, some great contemporary work and some younger artists. This year we awarded a bursary to Luke Brabants a young graphic Designer who had just completed his HND.

Greenwich University joined us again for their third year and we have had four galleries interested in joining us in 2010 which would be a new venture. We are also getting enquiries from Canterbury which has previously been a slow growth area as we compete with the Festival there.

The economic climate caught up with us this year. Our council funding which was £3,700 in 2007 has fallen to £630 this year, and
although much time was spent chasing sponsorship and advertising it was pretty unsuccessful.

Questions from the floor concerned the possible requirement for members to provide their own public liability insurance.  Franny recommended that from A-n which costs in the region of £36 and explained that the subscription would not be lowered to take this into account as insurance counts for a very small proportion of it.  Public liability insurance cover would be a condition of membership if no ‘central’ insurance could be negotiated.  Home insurance does not cover a public event.  Several members felt that an increase of £36 was a big imposition but Franny explained that she had found only one insurer who would not be able to quote for the 2010 event until six months time so no guarantees could be given at the moment.  She said that when artists participate as a group their cover would have to be checked with the insurer.

4. Treasurer’s Report

The income/expenditure draft was circulated.

Hazel reported that income had been reduced by lower local authority grants and less advertising in the Guide.  It was also affected by the take-up of the register before Christmas offer and the 1.67% levy on each Google payment.

Hazel said the bank account was healthy with about £7,000 on account until the next payments in January and a £4,470 contingency fund.  It was suggested from the floor that this information be included in the income/expenditure sheet. Hazel said it would be shown in the accounts.

Members reported Google was no longer accepting Maestro.  Paul said he was currently negotiating to swap to Paypal.

Hazel was asked why the accountant’s fees were higher and she explained that, additionally this year, they had advised on tax and the constitution.

The accounts for the 2008/09 year have now been finalised by Creaseys Chartered Accountants. If you would like to be emailed a copy please send a request to the Treasurer, Hazel Addley.

5. Grant Liaison Officer’s Report

This year so far we have received £630 in local authority funding. We are still waiting to hear back from 2 more councils about their decision.
Year on year Local Authority funding for SEOS has been on the decline. One council was not awarding grants this year due to the ‘impact of the global financial crisis and recession upon the Borough Council’s finances.”
Other reasons for not getting funding from councils include:
•    Not having a strong enough case when based on financial need.
•    Prioritising projects that haven’t had Council support before.
•    Supporting projects that have a greater impact on extending engagement in the arts in the specific borough.

The other part of my role is to collate the data from the feedback forms. Thank you to everyone who sent these back. This data is invaluable to feedback to the committee and it informs the work we do towards the event.
We received 86 feedback forms from individual artists and 80 studios submitted their visitor numbers. From these figures we could deduct that there were approximately 21,400 studio visits/visitors to the event.
We received feedback forms from 299 visitors. Making the forms available in the studios has proved a success for a second year running.

Hazel said an additional £500 had been received from local authority funding and KCC’s response was awaited.  Funding was decreasing.  One reason was that authorities did not see a strong enough case for SEOS financial need.

6. Development Officer’s Report

Report to be made available.

7. Area Co-ordinator’s Report

Apologies from Owen Legg (E), Charlotte Rice (F), Janet Aldis (G/H), Vinka Dekovic-Knight (I), Liz Garnett (K), Mary Sampson (J) and Fiona Bell (P) who are unable to be here today.

Area Co-Ordinators are extremely important to the success of Open Studios
in each area. Providing invaluable contact with each artist taking part.
I am very grateful to the ACOs for the work they do throughout the year.

Some have continued in the role for many years.
However when a post becomes vacant it is not always an easy task to find replacements.
There are areas, in North and East Kent where we are competing with other Open Studio events where participating artists are now thin on the ground and our ACO has to manage a vast area with few artists. With increasing Recruitment this will hopefully improve.
Whereas in Hastings, SEOS has flourished alongside Coastal Currents.

New ACOs for 2010 are:
AREA M – Hastings -  Mark Fisher
AREA O – Tunbridge Wells – Ellen Montellius
AREA E – Tonbridge – Hildegarde Pax (TBC)

I am still looking for replacements for Area F – Maidstone and AREA L - Tenterden / Headcorn / Smarden  where the ACOs would like to stand down.

There were a number of Taster events this year which appear to have raised general awareness of SEOS.

I have been pleasantly surprised by the general feedback which seems to be mostly positive despite the 'credit crunch'.

Artists expected visitor numbers and sales to be down and therefore most were not too despondent. While a significant number reported their best year yet.

Artists' experiences of opening their studios vary so much due to their expectations and the differing efforts that they have put into local publicity.

The larger groups have been more successful than the smaller groups. Next year, will be important for me to encourage the ACOs to do more recruitment. We also need to make artists aware of the longer term benefits of being part of SEOS.

Felicity was asked about the basis on which galleries can fit into SEOS.  She said that membership basis was to be decided by the next committee but it had to be within the constitution and ethos of open studios: a gallery could not enter simply with its own artists.

8. Website Officer’s Report

The website’s online application facility had a major upgrade this year. In addition to completing the form, applicants could upload an image, review their entry and pay online.  Dividing the form into separate stages with pop-up instructions at each stage resulted in fewer errors. Almost everyone understood how to use the two sets of opening times and made good use of them.

Individual members had a choice of applying online or by post. I’m glad to report 68% chose online, just 2% short of my prediction last year. Many thanks to all who did; it really does help. Unfortunately postal application remains the only option for group members. Online entry would be too complicated and financially unviable.

Our early entry discount encouraged more members to sign up in December and many had web pages online by the end of the month. Regular email reminders sent from the website to 480 previous members also encouraged an early sign up. We thought the £55 surcharge in February would eliminate late entries, but were surprised when a few latecomers joined at £150 each.

For the first time, Art Trails were available from the website. Judging from the number of hits on the download page, they were popular and we intend to repeat them next year. Thank you to the ACO’s and members who sent them.

Two other new features were the video page and SEOS photos. The video page currently has three short films; more will be added when available. The photo collection includes 230 images from 30 open studios. It’s already proving to be popular and will be a useful source of images for the guide, website and publicity. More collections will be added every year forming a permanent online record of each event.

The website continues to have a healthy number of visitors, up to 185 per day during the event but take up of website advertising is still disappointing. We are looking into ways of improving this in the coming year.

Paul was asked why a group studio was not viable.  He said that the cost of setting up a complex system was too great.

9. Database Officer’s Report

This year has seen the consolidation of the online database as a safer and more efficient tool to the group.

The Database Officer’s tasks were redefined in line with the changes in the guide-editing procedures and the improvements to the website.

We firmly believe that the quicker we produce the guide, the greater the responses will be in terms of publicity, advertising, public awareness, support and sponsorship.
In the February Newsletter, I was able to announce a provisional number of entrants of 273 (sadly a few had to cancel afterwards), made of 109 postal applications and 164 online.

I would like to thank again the first 62 applicants who made the effort to register before Christmas – the first application was made by post and arrived on 21st Nov. Not only did you save £5 by joining early, but It meant that the logging-in could start early and that applicants, especially online ones were able to view their new web pages within a few days of entering, so long as they didn’t encounter the initial technical problem of the online payment via Google.

Two points to re-iterate:

1.    Don’t be afraid to give us your home address if different from your studio address. It will never be passed onto third parties. It is purely used for us to send you your application form and any important messages, should you not have an email address.
2.     Description of your art or Media category: Please tick the boxes corresponding to your current working practices, i.e. work that will be on show during the event. The reason being, we use the boxes to make up the index at the end of the guide and we don’t want to mislead visitors. If possible, state your type of work in your statement too.

Onwards to 2010 and a few key points to mention:

I have already received 26 new requests to join for next year’s event.

Paul, Terry, Mike Ball and I met at the beginning of the month to see how we could further improve the website/guide/database. As a result, it was decided for example that the online form will contain an auto-fill checkbox to save you (or myself when it was left out) typing your address twice, in the case of your home address being the same as your studio address.
Another example: a pop-up message will automatically appear if you try to enter your data all in lower case or all in capital letters, which does create a lot of unnecessary retyping for me.

Vikki Furse reported members were upset by the index organised by category only.  Dominique said that this had been noted and that an A-Z index would also be included next year which should solve the problem.  Paul felt members do like to limit visits to particular categories of work so it is a valid way to organise the Guide index but that members did fill in too many categories on their applications.

10. Publicity Officer’s Report

Recruitment Publicity

Recruitment publicity went to all the usual media contacts.   No money was spent on advertising as I prefer to keep the advertising budget for attracting visitors to the event.

Advertising

As with last year I focussed on advertising in magazines as the budget wouldn’t stretch to advertising in all the local newspapers for such a large area.  Newspaper advertising is expensive and to fully benefit from advertising in these we would need a much greater budget and need to advertise several times per newspaper.  The greater budget would cost each artist and additional £50? each to fully benefit from newspaper advertising.

We advertised in 14 magazines.  Four of the adverts were free.  Six of the magazines were nationals (three of which were free).  With most of the participating artists in the Weald there was more advertising in this area.

Aspect County covered both Kent and East Sussex and is aimed at high net worth individuals ie potential art buyers.  I also advertised in Kent and Sussex Life magazines again covering the whole area.

The most expensive advertising was in Galleries magazine.  This was because it is specifically aimed at art buyers.

This year I tried, wherever possible, to incorporate pictures of artists at work to show the friendly face of art and illustrate the warm welcome visitors would get when coming to a studio. 

The advertising budget print out is available for people to view at  the end of the meeting along with a selection of press coverage.

More press coverage is available on the SEOS website.

Press coverage.

Publicity for the event starts in January and carries on into June.

Press releases were sent to my extensive list of media contacts in both the national and local press, magazines, TV and radio.  As in previous years area co-ordinators and artists were encouraged to generate their own local press coverage in support of the general SEOS ones I sent.

Linking in with the RIBA South East Architecture Festival has been a help to get additional publicity (generated by RIBA) and new visitors.

Promoting art trails has been a good “hook” to get newspapers interested although my efforts to get maximum press coverage in my local area were not rewarded.

Not all press releases are printed so artists also need to work on their own mailing lists.  Personal mailing lists continue to prove to be the best way of getting visitors.  Press coverage serves as a reminder and may bring in new visitors.

Congratulations were received from the floor. Comments included:
‘adverts were seen everywhere’
Galleries’ magazine adverts a good idea
Adverts were mostly in the Weald area where 40 extra visitors were reported but few adverts in West Kent.
Parish magazines were suggested.

The small recruitment cards were a great success and more are needed now to place in libraries.

It was reported that Eastbourne Open Studios erect banners in the town.  It was agreed that such an initiative would need research into the law regarding planning.

11 Guide Production Report

This has been my first year as Guide Editor and as I have discovered it takes an incredible amount of work to produce the guide, not only from the editor, but also the rest of the committee, especially Paul, Dom and Flic and I’d like to thank them for all their help this year.
It was decided at my first committee meeting in September last year that it was time to look at the logo.  The paint tube has been a brilliant image for SEOS for a number of years and as all good logos was immediately recognisable.  The down side was that we no longer had the original illustration and over the years the quality of the image had deteriorated. 
So my first job was to come up with a new tube.  At the next meeting I presented a number of designs, some quite different and others similar to the original.  It was felt we should not get too radical and after a bit of tweaking the new logo was unanimously approved.  I imagine a lot of the visitors this year won’t have noticed the difference and this was the idea, but now wherever the logo appears so does the website address and it can be enlarged to any size and still remain sharp and bright.
The next job was to  redesign all the forms, leaflets, posters and cards using the new logo.
After this I turned my attention to the guide.  The guide is much loved and it would have been wrong for me to blunder in and change everything, but there were a few areas where I thought improvements could be made - a couple of which were highlighted by members last year.
Firstly, I have divided it up into nine areas and started each section with a map.  This meant there was no need for the separate map that has been used for the last few years.  This saved on print costs but has caused a few problems, some, I have to admit, were my fault. 
From what I understand, previous SEOS maps have often been a source of complaint, especially from artists who lived on small country lanes that weren’t shown. I felt that it was not sensible to make the separate map more and more detailed and that a better way was to divide it up in to areas and use each map at the start of a section to show roughly where the studios are. It’s then up to the visitor to use the artist’s directions in conjunction with road map or sat nav to find the studio.  They could also print off a detailed map from the artist page on the website.  It was never intended that you could find a studio by using just the map, but I do have to admit that I could have taken more care in the positioning of some the markers and next year will work closely with Paul and Mike to get them accurately positioned.   
The other suggestion was to indicate where artists were exhibiting in the same location.  This makes the layout of the pages a little more difficult but I think the pale tint used to show this has worked and connects the artist together.
In addition to these changes I redesigned the front cover, changed the way opening times were displayed and added a more comprehensive index at the back.  This last change has also caused some problems.  I thought that dividing  the index into headings was a good idea so that a visitor who was interested in ceramics could quickly see who would be displaying ceramic work.  This didn’t work because I took the information from the data base which is created from the forms all artists fill in and under ‘Description of your work’ artists had ticked categories that they didn’t display. This is partly our fault for not making it clear but for next year you’ll be ask to tick only the categories that visitors can see exhibited.
There was also a demand from some people to have the alphabetical index as in previous years.  Next year I will try to incorporate both.

All in all I’m pleased with the way it came together and that we met Charlotte’s deadline for delivery of the printed guides, which was a week earlier than previously.

Appreciation of the effort in making such an improvement to the Guide was expressed from the floor.  Some members were concerned about the accuracy of the map and questions to Terry were mainly on this subject:
 
    Could the map be sent with the proof to put the onus on the artist to get it right?
Terry said this would not be compatible with the order in which the guide has to be produced.

    Must the Website map be the same as the guide map?
    Chris Furse was unhappy with placement – could map be passed through ACO’s?
Terry was confident that close liaison with the website manager would solve the problems for next year.

    The back inside cover was underused.
Terry said this was because the advertiser had been lost and next year it will show areas.

12 Guide Distribution Report

This year’s guide distribution went smoothly.  We had 28,000 guides printed and although a little tight it did mean that they were all distributed instead of having a large number left over as in past years.  As in previous years the libraries’ guides were distributed by the Library Distribution Service and only four libraries have contacted me to change their allocation for next year.  Each ACO was sent a form to complete for any extras required for their areas along with a stamped addressed envelope for its return and with two exceptions these were returned.  Despite a small amount of trimming of numbers I feel everybody received what they wanted.  Next year I will be looking at the question of 40 guides per person especially if quite a few artists had guides left over.  Other than the minor changes listed above I will carry on my role as Guide Distribution Officer next year.

Franny said that approx 1,000 guides were left over.  From the floor it was stated that groups need more guides.  Franny said that the ACO needs to be told in good time if more are needed.  It was also noted from the floor that advertisers were not given guides and Franny said that Charlotte needs to be told who the advertisers are:  this will be addressed next year.

13 OSN Representative’s Report

Background
The Open Studios Network is a national organisation for open studio events across the UK.  SEOS is represented on the steering group by Helen Mayer.  (This representation incurs no costs for SEOS, as the OSN was set up through grant-aid from Arts Council England.)
The organisation’s full aims and objectives are available on the OSN website, but in brief its aims are to give the open studio movement a national voice, to promote the importance of artists to the economic, social and educational well-being of local communities, and to lobby to make a wider range of agencies aware of open studios and to encourage their support.

2009
Two conferences were held in 2008 in early Spring and Winter to enable representatives from events across the country to hear from speakers, and exchange ideas and experiences on a wide range of topics.  To capture those events whose timings prevented their attendance last year, an Autumn conference will be held in October.  Reports from the conferences are posted on the OSN website, and feedback collated to develop examples of best practice in the field.  The major topic of the October conference will be debate on the options for PR, and will include the results of the campaign undertaken earlier this year to promote Open Studios, one being securing interview time on Radio 4’s programme You and Yours.

Another topic will be a resource booklet being written for fledgling open studios events looking for information on the options available when setting up a new organisation.  The booklet describes the variety of structures and methods of operation commonly in use, and provides information on the avenues of information and advice available locally and nationally.  It is hoped that the resulting listings of reference sources, which will be continuously updated, will also prove useful to established events.

14 Any ACO reports from co-ordinators present.

These were available to the membership at the meeting in the form of a booklet.

15 Nominations and Elections

Chairman:  Rod McIntosh’s candidacy was circulated through the newsletter.  There were no further candidates.  He was nominated by Tish Tunstall, seconded by Rose Bridgeland Colebridge and elected by the meeting.

Grant Liaison Officer:  Charlotte Rice offered to take on part of this role by analysing funding feedback.  She was nominated by Christine Angell, seconded by Chris Furse and elected by the meeting.

Development Officer:  the committee will examine this role during 2010.

Management Team:  the current team were prepared to stand again and were nominated by Vikki Furse, seconded by Debra Barr-Smith and elected by the meeting.

OSN:  Helen Mayer is a co-opted member of the team and does not need to stand for re-election.

16 AOB

Shared Studios: 
The meeting questioned the rationale behind the inclusion of pictures in the guide.  Franny explained that this year there were split pictures for group studios that had paid less per person for entry.  A group had to be six or more.  She said that some large studios were interested but would not join if each member had to pay individually.  Consequences of the reduced fee are that artists are not searchable by name on the website nor are they entitled to an individual image but this can be obtained by extra payment of £6 for an image and £10 for text.  Only 20 guides are received by group members.  For some this was a safe way into exhibiting with SEOS that presented little risk.  She suggested that the membership write to the committee with their ideas concerning shared studios.

Franny was thanked for her work as chairman and presented with a gift in appreciation.

Lindel Williams was thanked for the use of Marle Place and given free membership.

Caroline was thanked and will be presented with a gift.

17 Prize Draw

Ann Kay drew the winner:  Helen Rawlinson.

The meeting closed at 8.30.

The committee, members and their guests retired to a BBQ supper in Marle Place grounds.

If you would like to comment on matters raised at the AGM, why not use the message board?