Message from the President

Fellow DVAS Artists:

It seems I have been shovelilng snow for the past 10 days. But I keep thinking that we have only about 7 weeks of winter left and other than the past week or so it’s been an easy one. I had two robins appear on my fence last week, so spring cannot be far off.

This year we have seen an increase in members taking part in studio group and we have had some new members join up. That is very encouraging to see. There is a great deal of talent within the group, and we can certainly learn from one another.

We have some interesting workshops coming up for this winter/spring session. I do hope that some of you get to take advantage of them.

The executive have been busy redoing the bylaws and we will present them at a general meeting in March. We have also redone the policy manual and a new mission statement. This will bring us to a present-day state, as the ones that we had in the current manual date back to the beginning of the society in the 1980’s.

I want to remind members that members dues cover a calendar year, January to December. We give members until the end of February to pay their dues. So, if you haven’t paid yet, I would urge you to do so.

The last month has seen Janet Warnes resign from doing the newsletter. Ashley Ritter has kindly stepped up to take over this role. Janet had filled many roles for DVAS over the years including President, Secretary and Newsletter. We appreciate all the work she has done. In addition, Natalie Mike has stepped down from doing communications. Currently Beatrice Milner is doing the role of membership and communications chair along with her role as Treasurer. The executive feel that the roles of membership and communications can be combined as the membership chair has all the contact information for members, and to then send out emails would be simple. Beatrice has streamlined the procedures for the role of membership/communications to make it easier to do. We urgently need someone to step up to take on the role of membership/communications. Let either Beatrice or myself know if you are interested.

Some members are participating at various venues in HRM to display their art. We will put information on the website so that all our members have the opportunity to visit these venues to support our artists.

S. Grebeldinger

President, DVAS