Volunteering with The Arts Society Sidmouth (TASS)
Becoming a part of one of our volunteering projects gives our members a chance to make new friends and socialise whilst learning new skills with people who have similar interests. There is a range of opportunities to become involved in research and conservation, share a passion for the arts with others and enjoy knowing that our Society is making a difference within our local community.
One of our objectives is to set up a Young Arts Volunteer Group to fundraise and award grants to arts projects for children and young people in our local area and to give them better access to the arts. In a time of cuts and changes to the national curriculum, this has never been more important.
Working with schools, museums and youth groups, Young Arts Volunteer Group will support a wide range of projects. They are passionate about the benefits that creativity and arts education can bring to children in early life and adolescence.
Become Involved
TASS is very keen to set up a Young Arts Volunteer group. If this or any of the above activities appeals to you, please contact us: sidmouth@theartssociety.org
November 2022 ongoing The Ham, Sidmouth Riverside Walkway Revisited. The Arts Society Sidmouth are one of the funders of this project which will improve the public walkway from the Ham playpark to the mouth of the River Sid at the Alma Bridge where outdoor galleries and a brass rubbing trail will highlight local heritage and biodiversity on a range of themes (including the fishing heritage: the history of boats and fishing in Sidmouth, the biodiversity in the River Sid, The River Sid source to sea, The Jurassic Coast, and the history of The Ham) to create a reflective wellbeing space. This Collaborative project will be delivered with the community as active participants co-creating the artwork, key to generating ownership and responsible stewardship.
Coldharbour Mill Sample Books Collection Care Project September 2022 to March 2023 After two half-day training sessions on the activities involved in the project learning about assessing and recording condition of the fabric sample books as part of an archive of the Fox Brothers firm held at Coldharbour Mill at Uffculme, three Arts Society volunteers (Sidmouth, Honiton and Taunton) with other local volunteers started cleaning away insect and other debris and making storage enclosures. The training had been given by RAMM Exeter on both paper and textile conservation and subsequently there were weekly morning sessions to clean the books and make manilla-card storage enclosures,
Almost all the sample books had experienced some extent of insect infestation by at least one type of insect, and the cleaning included recording the types of damage present on a condition form, and recording other damage to bindings and torn pages, creased samples, use of adhesive tapes and corroded pins and staples.
Further conservation will be needed but approximately 35 sample books have been cleaned and stored in new enclosures or acid free boxes, and placed in a temporary archive.
October 2023 The Arts Society Sidmouth sponsored a talk at the Sidmouth Science Festival on Wed 11th October 2023 by Julian Richard on 'Stonehenge' at the Parish Church. 80 people attended this event and Julian (an Arts Society lecturer) spoke most passionately about his favourite subject, all of it without notes!
December 2022 and 2023: Patients at Sidmouth Hospice at Home's new wellbeing centre had a morning making festive boxes and
received an art activity pack from The Arts Society Sidmouth, with more packs available for carers and patients from Sidmouth at Home.
The Potter's Wheel for Sidmouth College - in 2019, The Arts Society Sidmouth funded a Potter’s Wheel for Sidmouth College and then arranged for a well-know local professional potter, Tim Andrews, to launch it with a set of master classes for the students. The wheel is already very much in use and a range of pots have been produced. During Tim's visit at least one pupil showed a natural ability for potting, and more have followed. We will exhibit some of the pots in the Art and Craft Exhibition at Kennaway House on the 20th and 21st June this year.
Schools Outreach - Previously:
An exhibition of art and writing from Sidmouth Primary School, Sidmouth College, Rose Lawn Residential Home was held making art from recycled objects, recovered from beach cleans etc. Deirdre has visited Rose Lawn retirement home and met several of the residents, and one who is a talented artist has agreed to let us have some of her pictures.
One of the Autumn units at the Primary School studied what it was like to be a child growing up in the WW2 it was suggested to some of the Rose lawn residents that several of them who could write or record their memories of their lives in WW2 would like to record their memories and we could transcribe them perhaps use their recorded voices on a loop that we could that complements the work that the Primary School children had done in their WW2 module.
RBA Young Arts - Started in 1973, Young Arts provides exciting opportunities for children and young people to expand their horizons through their involvement in creative arts activities.We have helped a variety of projects for children of both primary and secondary school age ranging from silkscreen printing to working in oils.
The Arts Society Sidmouth supports the Royal Society of British Artists Annual Exhibition which shows the best of contemporary representational painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing.
The Arts Society works in partnership with the RBA to find the most outstanding work by final year A-level students from around the country and display it as part of the exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London. The exhibition is small; in 2013, for example, only 20 works were selected, one of them from a Colyton Grammar School pupil. We aim to inspire young people with a lasting enthusiasm for the arts and an awareness of our arts heritage and its conservation. Our vision is equality of opportunity for all to learn through participation in the arts.