Notice of the 2022 Canberra Art Workshop Annual General Meeting

2022 Annual Report

Membership – Paulina Piira, Membership Coordinator

2021/2022 has seen a steady increase in new memberships. Since the last AGM, we have averaged 269 members for each reporting period of two months.
It’s pleasing to see a small increase of full memberships and full-time students which now amount to 55% of total memberships.
CAW seeks to find ways to meet the needs of its members and the public and has introduced a new temporary pass. The pass allows a visitor to Canberra or someone wishing to try CAW activities a temporary 30-day pass in which to do so. We’ve had two people take up this offer since it was established in August 2022. CAW also introduced Gift vouchers in December 2021. Three have been used to specifically purchase memberships.
CAW continues to investigate and introduce improvements to the website interface to improve members’ experience.

 Events Report – Prue Power, Events Coordinator

CAW Events Team

Events team
Each member of the Events Team works hard to ensure our continuing program. They not only plan and develop an interesting, varied and challenging program each year but maintain an accomplished behind-the-scenes administration effort which involves: contacting and scheduling tutors; maintaining their proposals and agreements; writing and posting material to the website; creating posters; keeping a running record of bookings; handling participant requests and attendances; managing social media and then making sure each event runs smoothly on the day. Many thanks to them all: Prue Power (program manager), Amanda Adrian, Sallie Saunders, Paulina Piira, Fiona Baker, Richard Heaney, Peter Pickernell (social media and website) and Carolyn Brooks
(graphic design and posters). Thanks also to Rick Cochrane for printing the posters. 

If you would to be part of this stimulating and exciting activity, new members of the team are
always welcome.

Note from the President – our particular gratitude to Prue Power who has again had the
unenviable task of managing the scheduling and re-scheduling of workshops and courses this
year and last year during the lockdown periods.

WORKSHOPS

COURSES

 CAW Exhibitions – Amanda Adrian, Exhibitions Coordinator

Exhibition Team
• Rick Cochrane
• Jill Mail
• Francis Johnson
• Amanda Adrian

Testamur 3 2021 Exhibition
The Testamur 3 2021 Exhibition was to take place from Friday 13 August to Sunday 29 August 2021 and was successfully hung at M16 Artspace but was not opened as the ACT COVID-19 lockdown occurred the day the opening was to have been held; though a digital exhibition has been available.
The Exhibition was open to visit in person for a short time at the end of October. The beautiful Testamur 3 Catalogue is a great reminder of this ‘almost’ Exhibition.

On Show 2022 Exhibition
The CAW On Show 2022 Exhibition took place from Saturday 14 April to Monday 1 May 2022 and was held M16 Artspace, in Gallery 1.
While the opening was a minimalist affair with COVID19 restrictions still in place it was great to be able to see the works on the walls and enjoy the masked company of some of our colleagues and friends.

Profile Exhibition 2022
The CAW Profile 2022 Exhibition was held from the 16 June until 3 July 2022 and the opening was a joyful event that was a platform works of the human face and form as depicted by CAW Members.
Most significantly, it was also the showcase for Sonia Thoms, the winner of the inaugural CAW Mavis Hall Trust Grant. Sonia’s magnificent portraits in the exhibition were enhanced by the Artist’s Q and A Session and tour through her creative journey that was held during the exhibition.

Curation and hanging
Once again our thanks go to Ilona Lasmanis who curated these exhibitions; and to Berend Kraak and CAW member Francis Johnson who professionally hung the exhibitions.

 Graphic Designer

The colourful and delightful CAW posters and exhibition catalogues are the work of the very talented CAW volunteer, graphic designer Carolyn Brooks. Thanks to Carolyn for her professional and creative work!

Communications, Marketing and Website Report – Peter Pickernell, Communications Coordinator
Overview
The CAW website maintenance continues to be combination of professional management/maintenance by OPF with smaller changes and aesthetic ‘tweaks’ by the volunteer website assistant Peter Pick.
For the most part it seems to be serving CAW well as both an interface with our members and the public and an efficient point of sale for all CAW’s products. The CAW website has had minimal downtime to my knowledge.

Exhibitions
The web portal for exhibition entries seems to be working reasonably well, ‘On Show’ and ‘Profile’ worked smoothly and submissions for ‘Testamur 4’ are currently possible.  The exhibition catalogues are on sale rather than free and these can be purchased within the exhibition entry form to avoid handling cash during the event. A PDF version of the catalogue is available from the website for those who do not want to purchase a paper copy.

Blogs
There is plenty of material coming through for the ‘What’s New’ blog section but there is no metric to monitor visits.

Interface Improvements:
The board worked with OPF to streamline the booking/payment process:
1. Art group booking can be made on multiple dates before proceeding to checkout/shopping cart (tho’ this only works well on the current month).
2. The default payment method is selected upon reaching the checkout.
3. “Term and Conditions” is checked by default rather than requiring a click each transaction.

Social Media
Building on Michael Creagh’s hard work, the CAW Instagram page has now passed the milestone of 1000 followers and the number continue to grow. The CAW Facebook account does not enjoy the same success, while the metrics show a reasonable amount of visits there is very little interaction with the account.
With the Website improvements we are also working on further developing our overall communications strategy – we already have regular Newsletters; occasional blogs on the website and our social media, however there is a need to improve this and integrate it into a rational plan.

Newsletter
Thanks to Sallie Saunders for the management of the Newsletter. This remains an important conduit for information going out to members.

The CAW Studio
The improvements to the CAW Studio are continuing and are making the working space more efficient. We are continuing to employ cleaner weekly which has reduced the burden for members.
Our thanks to Sallie Saunders, Peter Pickernell, Richard Heaney, Paulina Piira, Jill Mail and Prue Power for all their hard work. Jill Mail is the CAW Studio Officer and has continued to liaise with the M16 team in relation to all repairs, maintenance and replacement – thank you Jill.

Finances
The Financial Reports for CAW are in a separate report. They are comprehensive and selfexplanatory. However, I do want to express my thanks to the Finance and Membership Teams – Richard Heaney, Prue Power and Paulina Piira with the able assistance and scrutiny of our Keeper of the Books, Richard Cobden and our Reviewer, Sharon Sidhu.
Our application for charity status submitted to the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission has been successful. Thanks to Richard Heaney and Sallie Saunders who invested an enormous amount in preparing this application.

Mavis Hall Trust Grant
 CAW member, Sonya Thoms was awarded the first Mavis Hall Grant winner in 2021, and as noted in
the Exhibition Report, the CAW Profile Exhibition showcased her work and included an exciting
presentation and show in the gallery and studio. Congratulations Sonya!
Preparations began for the second Mavis Hall Trust Grant and the successful applicant will be
announced at the 2022 AGM.
Mavis Hall was a longstanding and active member of CAW. She died on 29 July 2017 and named
CAW as one of the beneficiaries of her estate. The CAW Trust, set up to administer the scholarship,
must use the interest generated from the capital for payment of the scholarship.
Our thanks go again to Prue Power for organising the selection process. A more detailed report of
this will be made in the 2022-2023 Annual Report. However, the value of the second grant will be
$2,500.

 M16

Our thanks goes again to the M16 Director, Emerson Radisich and James Lieutenant for their
continuing support and good humour during the difficult 2021-2022 year.

CAW Board
My thanks also go to the 2021-2022 Board in run up to AGM:
• Jill Mail – Life Member, Exhibition Team member and Studio Officer
• Sallie Saunders – Secretary, Public Officer and Events Team member
• Richard Heaney – Treasurer, Mavis Hall Trustee
• Prue Power – Vice President, Life Member, Events Team Coordinator, Mavis Hall Trust Trustee and CAW achiever across many other aspects of CAW business
• Fiona Baker – Events Team Member
• Peter Pickernell – Website Liaison
• Paulina Piira – Membership Coordinator, Events Team Member
• Amanda Adrian – President, Events Team and Exhibition Team member, Mavis Hall Trust Trustee.

Amanda Adrian
President
October 2022