Waveney & Blyth Arts

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Notification of the 2021 Annual General Meeting

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This is a crucial meeting where the future of W&BA will be considered.

Thank you to those who responded to my recent appeal for help. All 20 of the members who replied spoke warmly of what W&BA has done over the years. And there were some generous offers and good ideas for future events. However, W&BA’s capacity to organise and manage these is still missing. Nobody has been able to step up to plug the crucial gaps of website management, administration of membership, accountancy and two area representatives.

So we regret to say that the recommendation from the management committee is to dissolve Waveney & Blyth Arts. You will appreciate how painful this is for us, what a difficult decision it was to have to make. We’re certainly proud of what we have achieved over the years and grateful for the hundreds of people who have been members and participants.

You will see in the AGM 2021 AGENDA and below that we have made formal proposals arising from our recommendation to dissolve. As a membership organisation we are relying on you at this point. The W&BA Constitution spells out in section 8 what has to happen in order for us to close. We need 10% of the membership to attend the agm and of these, three-quarters or more to vote in favour of our proposal in order for it to be agreed.

If our proposal is accepted, we will then need to decide what to do to disburse the funds we have in our reserves and how to deal with all the associated closure requirements. The constitution gives us a starting point for this process, and we will be consulting the membership about the details.

If our proposal fails, then we hope those present at the agm will make an alternative proposal, which would need to be agreed, possibly by the full membership.

You will appreciate that it is more than usually important for you to attend if you can.

We hope that as many of you as possible will come to the agm, not only because of the decisions that we have to make but also because it may well be the last chance for us to come together as a creative and networking community. We will be displaying our archive of publicity brochures, CDs, postcards, etc as a reminder of the many enjoyable events which we have organised across our 11 years of being W&BA.

Thank you

Ann Follows, Chair

 

AGENDA

Annual general meeting 2021

1 Minutes of 2020 AGM AGM 2020 MINUTES

2 Financial statements and Chair’s report 2020/21 W&BA Financial Statements 2020-21

For approval

3 Report from the Recovery sub-committee

4 The future of W&BA

Proposals from the management committee:

 1 That W&BA is wound up and its assets after settling outstanding liabilities, dispersed as set out in the  W&BA Constitution

2 That the membership be consulted about the dispersal of any remaining assets

3 That the processes required to wind up W&BA be handled by a small group comprising Ann Follows, Brian Guthrie and Jade Nice

5 Any other business

Ann Follows

11 November 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wild About Bungay, 2021

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This wonderful publication has been produced to acknowledge and celebrate Bungay’s wildlife and the life and love of Jasmine, sister and wild-life enthusiast who sadly died in 2012. Jasmine’s brothers Chris and Terry Reeve, both residents of Bungay, led the nature walk for around Bungay’s local footpaths and countryside. Keen to show us the natural environment as if through the eyes of their sister.

First stop at Bungay castle where a small wild flower garden has been planted in memory of Jasmine. In this mid-September morning, no flowers were in bloom, but the plant list showed it would be full of colour and insect life in early summer. Chris read the poem The Song of the White Jasmine Fairy by Cicely Mary Barker.

In the heat of summer days

With sunshine all ablaze,

Here, here are cool green bowers,

Starry with Jasmine flowers;

Sweet-scented, like a dream

Of Fairyland they seem.

 

And when the long hot day

At length has worn away,

And twilight deepens, till

The darkness comes – then, still,

The glimmering Jasmine white

Gives fragrance to the night.

Our group of 20 walked through the water meadows on a footpath along the side of the river Waveney between Bungay and Earsham. We stopped frequently on the way to examine points of interest in nature that Jasmine had enjoyed in her lifetime: willow trees grown for making cricket bats; common alder trees that like their roots in water; common fleabane in flower; playing grandmother jump-out-of-bed by pinching the base of flowering convolvulus with its brilliant white, trumpet shaped flower.

 

 

 

As we approached Earsham besides a field, a herd of huge beautiful cows began to walk besides us, as if accompanying us. We learned from their owner, farmer and photographer Frances Crickmore, that this herd had been imported from France when they decided to diversify their farming products to include cheese. This particular breed is known for their rich milk, and from it the Crickmore’s developed the now famous Bigot Brie cheese. The cows followed us along the footpath until we crossed over the river via a wooden bridge. Here we were joined by Frances Crickmore who introduced herself, told us about the farm and the land around us. She told us we could purchase the cheese in its signature circular wood box from a vending machine by the farm.

 

At the end of the walk we thanked Chris and Terry for an interesting and enjoyable afternoon. We had all learned about their sister and shared her love of this area.

Ann Follows

September 2021

Two Rivers Book Festival at Cupiss Letterpress, Diss

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To say that Cupiss Letterpress is a hidden treasure of Diss is a bit of a cliche but true nonetheless, and all the more so because it’s closing down after nine years shy of two centuries in business.

As part of our Two Rivers Book festival, we were offered free guided tours for the day. John Harding, who’s worked there since leaving school and 55 years later about to retire, was our host. The imposing mechanical printing machines contrasted with dusty Victorian decor and piles of print paraphernalia, an historic assemblage of past logs and equipment most of which with unrecognisable functions.

 

Inside the workshop, sited at the top of a track in the middle of Diss, John welcomed us and explained that the original business, established in 1830, wasn’t printing but for mixing and distributing a home-made medicinal horse “digestive”. The original recipe, in popular demand throughout the 20th century, was invented by the first Mr Cupiss. He needed to print labels for the dispensing bottles, and rather than find a supplier, he purchased his own printing press. As the demand for his horse digestive declined, so the print works grew and became a locally significant printing business.

 

 

This bell jar trophy, is a stone passed by a horse in the early 1900s having successfully been treated with
Mr Cupiss’s horse medicine. Next to it a complete set of the Suffolk horse society’s stud books dating back to 1885, each one hand wrapped and ready. As with the demand for the horse medicine, the stud logs have also declined as machinery replaced working horses. And today the digital revolution has replaced the need for the mechanical print business.

 

 

 

For me the overwhelming sense of a living history and indeed my learning on the day, was in the huge array of fonts and lettering. Tray upon tray, both beautiful and functional, the variety of fonts made from wood and lead were immaculately if chaotically stored. The wood ones hand carved, some acting as 3D ‘shadow’ had a fascinating appearance. The ‘upper case’ trays being capitals and the ‘lower case’ trays being, well, lower case. Another commonly used term originating in the printing business is ‘form’ which is the frame that holds individual letters in place ready for print.

 

John gave me the opportunity to run a pre-set form through the 19th century printing press, which involved inking up and rolling under the press using nothing but cogs and levers.

The first electrical press, purchased in 1950, stood next in line to the 1830s mechanical press. Behind these, in a rough back extension, were a couple of computer screens and digital printer which have replaced the entire works. Cupiss of Diss is both a working museum and modern print shop. The old printing presses are used by artists and for specialist print work. Now it is on the market for sale, it will be interesting to see whether it remains in Diss or is split up and re-located to new owners elsewhere. I left the hour-long guided tour feeling I’d just been part of something really unique and unlikely ever to be repeated; an unexpected delight of W&BA’s 2021 Two Rivers book festival.

Ann Follows

October 2021

Looking Out, November

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The night before November strong winds and heavy rain blew remnants of summer away.  Cherries and maple were late turning colour but now their leaves have been whisked away, pirouetting across the garden. Oaks and elms stoically remain green-leaved but almost all our ash trees dropped their leaves in one day.   November is a month of winds and rain, or fogs and frosts, ushered in by the festival of Samhain. But we can no longer be sure of our seasons as the warming globe creates more unstable weather patterns.

 

November usually marks a turning in, preparing for hard times ahead, a time of harvesting, storing. Everything seems to be busy – the squirrel running down the path towards me, sugar beet clamped in its jaws; the screech of the jays as they raid the oak tree; blackbirds stripping fruits from rowan and rose; the rat invading the compost bin; the last butterfly, a Red Admiral, sipping sugar from a patch of blackberries and hedgehogs pulling leaves and grass into a safe winter house.

 

Other wildlife is on the move. Young foxes turned from their earths to find their own territories; tawny owl young dispersing, and the barn owl hunting along farm ditches at dusk. Once the winds turn north-easterly the winter migrants begin to arrive. Scandinavian thrushes, late this year; geese flying in to coastal marshes; starlings gathering with resident birds in nightly murmurations.

 

November’s full moon, the woodcock moon, brings these strange long nosed, woodland waders across the North Sea from Siberia. According to fable the goldcrests arrive too, the woodcock’s pilot. It is a time for gathering and for contemplation. But this year, it is hard not to think more globally as the COP 26 conference  starts in Glasgow. We think about the changing world and our part in it. Do arts and culture have a role. Can we do more with our creativity?

 

As November inches into winter, the conference brings a call for action to reduce global warming. The website for the UN Climate Change Conference UK 2021 supports the need for cultural and community action.

 

Culture — from arts to heritage — can help catalyse a step-change in the global ambition for climate resilience.  Rooting resilience measures in existing community action, culture, heritage and knowledge …. helps assure more effective and durable outcomes.

Several organisations are promoting the involvement of artists: see climateheritage.org and cultureatcop.com. You can raise your voice above the wind and sing with a global song – Enough is enough – see

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz8ex7Mnjb4

As wind whipped the trees here into a frenzy, I thought back to the 2007 storm – our national outpouring of grief  at the loss of so many trees. Several friends had young children at the time. They remember listening to the wind as they gave a night feed, or slept blissfully through it as a child spent its first night sleeping. Those children are getting married this year. A reminder of how cycles and seasons turn. We look back and remember the noise, the fear, the sadness and the rush to clear up. 15 million trees lost in one night of destruction.

Since then, we have let trees disappear, slowly, one by one, making way for railways, roads, houses.  Perhaps as leaves fall we should celebrate the trees, draw their profiles, photograph them, weave words round them. The night before November strong winds and heavy rain blew remnants of summer away.

 

 

 

 

Walking Right up your Street with Dean Parkin

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Our walking group met Dean by Lowestoft old Town Hall in the pouring rain. One or two were dressed for the weather in sou‘westers and wellies!

Dean began by setting the context: here on the site where we stood, the old Town Hall no longer used, is covered in large colourful words created by local children, inspired by Dean in workshops he’d led at their school. Dean recently wrote and produced a play Pearls from The Grit and a published the book The Grit – the story of Lowestoft’s Beach Village, these both tell all about the area we were setting out to explore.

[Read more…] about Walking Right up your Street with Dean Parkin

Mill Street Studios 2021, so far

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Mill Street Studios held two print workshops in the Summer and Autumn of 2021, which were run by Fine Artist and Printmaker, Catherine Greenwood who has a wealth of knowledge and expertise in printmaking and was an inspiration to all in her printmaking. We were able to learn and gain printmaking skills throughout the two-day workshop in hard and soft ground etching and collagraphy.

The second workshop was an Aquatint course lead by Fine Artist and Printmaker, David Stubbs, and was an introduction to aquatints over two days.  This was truly inspirational and has given us more possibilities of what can be achieved with aquatint in several ways with our newly purchased aquatint box.

Looking Out, September

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Redwings and Cuckoos

October – nights now longer than days, mists sneaking around the hedgerows, birds beginning to arrive from Scandinavia – even Radio 4’s The Archers included the arrival of redwings. The first week of October brought some welcome rain to eastern England and with it a change in birds being seen. The last of the summer warblers have slipped away. My two chiffchaffs, living in the Hebe for the last month, disappeared leaving the garden to the robins. The tagged cuckoos are now in Africa along with the swallows and swifts. In place of them, around the coastline wildfowl and waders arrive in ever-increasing numbers. Soon there will be redwings and fieldfares flying in to hunt the hedges and field for fruit.

Redwings are the herald of winter – they migrate at night and you can hear their thin calls as they fly over unseen, moving south and west. A few years ago, I found a tired redwing sitting in the road.  I drew near but he stayed put. It is rare to have such a close view of these shy birds. I could see his cream eye stripe. I tried to flush him away from the road concerned for his safety. He moved a few steps. I tried again and this time he flew to a nearby bush, showing his rich rust red underwing from which he is named.

This October starts with a new moon and meteor showers. Looking out at the pinpricks of starlight  I think about migration. The magic of the appearance and disappearance of birds as they move between continents across the seasons lies deep within our culture and our DNA. The arrival of the cuckoo, the swallow and the swift, bringing their promise of spring, is celebrated in literature and song, retold in myths and now studied by scientists. In a generation we have witnessed dramatic declines in the numbers of birds arriving here. There are parishes now where the cuckoo, the turtle dove, the nightingale are all absent. There seems to be far less story telling about the winter migrants.

Scientists can study these birds and gain an understanding of the perils that they face as they make their long journeys. Landscape change, wars, forest clearance, changes in food production, droughts, storms and human predation all combine to threaten birds as they move across traditional migration routes each year.  Science can give us the facts but it does not touch us in the way that story, myth, song and art do.  A few years ago I saw an innovative performance about the cuckoo, part of the British Trust for Ornithology’s (BTO) FlightLines project.

FlightLines endeavours to use the creative arts to emotionally connect us back to our migrant birds, to remind us of their music and their magic and to inspire us to care again. Story-teller Michael Green and his son, Joshua, an accomplished musician, gave a compelling and engaging account of the cuckoo. Michael had seen one of the BTO tagged cuckoos receive its radio transmitter at Fylingdales and he tracked its journey on migration into Chad and the Congo. But he did not just sit with his laptop monitoring the progress. He linked with photo-journalist, Toby Smith, and set off for the cuckoo’s African homeland, the Batέkέ Plateau in eastern Gabon. They spent time in this oppressively hot country but failed to spot the cuckoos although their GPS tags located them here.

Gone Cuckoo relays Michael’s experience of his year with the cuckoo. He morphs into cuckoo, as only a story-teller can. Flying above Africa we look down with him across the Sahara, and stop with him in Cameroon, a beady eye glancing upwards and outwards for danger. Joshua sang old folk songs, mixed with the rhythm of African chants, reminding us that these are not our cuckoos but they link us across Europe and into Central Africa.
Such performances make us think – think about the meaning of the cuckoo and other migrant birds that appear each spring or winter. But it also warns that such birds may soon only be heard of in myth, and their calls, their flight and their global journeys may soon end.

As the moon hangs above the horizon, I reflect on all these journeys and the wonder of a world that still contains so much mystery and magic. We must use all the creative arts we can to galvanise action, to make sure we are not the last generation to hear the cuckoo. Well done to the BTO for taking this initiative.
Here now at the beginning of October, I wait for a different migration – the quiet tseep tseep calls of the redwing as their night time flights bring them here for the winter, migrating under a hunters’ moon.

Melinda Appleby October 2021

https://www.bto.org/our-science/migration/flight-lines

Looking Out, September

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Ah – September – the golden month when low sun slinks across fading gardens, hedgerows hang heavy with fruit and the arable  harvest is almost done. The last two wheat fields are being cut today, the huge thumping combine knifing through the silvered crop, leaving  stubbles glowing yolk yellow. As we watch the tractor pulling alongside to take off another load of grain, a rat leaps for freedom. Already on the rest of the farm young oilseed rape is emerging from barley stubble and sugar beet is the last crop left to cut.

At the end of August over 30 house martins appeared, sunning themselves on the east facing roof, preening, swooping up at the old nest site, reconnoitring, remembering, gathering friends and family. They stayed 30 minutes and were gone, drifting south, heading for France and onwards. No-one knows quite where the house martins spend our winter.

One afternoon I watched as over 70 birds whisked across the garden – a flock of blue, great and long-tailed tits. A steady procession, some stopping off for a quick feed, others keeping to hedgelines, little contact calls filtering through the window. There have been other visitors to the garden – chiffchaffs, willow warblers, lesser whitethroats – often juveniles in very dapper plumage. It has taken some patience to identify them – leg colour, eye stripe, eye ring – I check through the key features. They spend most of their time in a giant Hebe bush, its raspberry flowers spilling petals like confetti, hovered over by bees.

This movement of birds between the seasons brings to mind other migrations, migrations of people. The world seems to be on the move.

Walk past any tree covered in ivy and the humming note will make you pause. Yellow green domes of flowers, so easy to overlook, are laden with insects feeding on late flowering blooms. There is a sense of urgency. Jays screech through the oak trees carrying a cargo of acorns, birds fatten on blackberries, wood mice hoard the hazel nuts before I can collect them and squirrels are searching for walnuts. Have you watched a squirrel at work? He digs a neat hole in which to conceal the walnut, from which he has already stripped the green husk.  Then he back fills with soil and using both little paws, pats and pats away to secure his larder.

In the mornings the stubble fields are netted with silver and the orb spiders’ ornate webs, slung between seed heads of thistle, sparkle with dew. Thin spindly spiders hang out in the bedroom stretching their hammock nets across the ceiling and feasting on the large house spiders that come looking for warmth and a mate.

September was made for artists. The colours, the contrasts, the movement of birds, the feeling of fullness and maturing. Whether you paint with a brush or with words it is a month to go out and be inspired.

September – A Harvest of Spiders

The moon sulks, full and yellow,

over the harvest fields. In its weak

light the combines race across

wheat. The pulse of cutter bars’

rhythmic turning vibrates through

the land and busies my heartbeat.

At intervals the chamber-full signal

beeps to call the tractor, feeding

alongside like a whale and its calf.

They roar on the road to grain bins,

pushing on as the moon slips

its berth, foreshadowing rain.

Now morning lays the harvest dust

in a cloak of mist. Phosphorescing

over the stubbles, spiders have set

their  nets or crafted pitfall traps.

Wrinkling their way into houses,

through crevices, looking for love

spiders live in the shadows until

low sun plucks their spinning

threads as they move unseen or

emerge, helping Robert the Bruce,

hanging over Miss Muffet, or guarding

the sacred mountain in secret realms.

Industrial Great Yarmouth Photography Walk with Mark Cator

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The group of thirteen met in the loft at Mark’s Victorian former fishing warehouse on the headland between Yarmouth’s harbour and the beach. The area appears disused, derelict and lacking a sense of community but this hides the very vibrant history which in many ways remains just below the surface. Mark himself is dedicated to ensuring this history is not lost, being an expert on the nineteenth century photographer Peter Henry Emerson, and having lived and worked in the area for a long time. Mark enthusiastically revealed his knowledge and commitment to the area. Whilst he was talking to us, we had a reminder of the industrial life that is still very present because right next to Mark’s warehouse is a metal galvanising plant from which there was a constant rumble as a fork lift truck moved metal stock from yard to lorry/lorry to yard.

After we’d heard from Mark about his own work and that of P. H. Emerson and viewed some of his photographs, we all went into the streets around Mark’s building with our cameras to capture some of the industrial beauty that is definitely still there. We viewed over the river Yare towards Gorleston to a view Mark pointed out had been photographed over a hundred years before by P. H. Emerson. As it turned out, we were not alone walking these streets because the very next day images began to appear exactly where we’d walked which, it was later revealed, were the work of Banksy.

We spent about an hour walking between the former industrial and fishing area around the harbour at the river Yare across to the huge Nelson’s monument, known as the Britannia memorial (it is Britannia not Nelson standing on top) towards the pleasure beach and most recent buildings created for entertaining tourists. We returned to Mark’s building for a review of our findings, a further look at Mark’s wonderful photographs taken in the area we’d walked and welcome refreshments.

Some of the participants have sent us their chosen best photographs which are shown here.

Ann Follows

Savouring the Sandlings

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On 9th July Ivor and Jean Murrell led a group of eleven on the Savour the Sandlings walk.

We took a circular route of 11 kilometres from Westleton village across Westleton Common and Heath then through footpaths around Dunwich forest stopping at the Potton Hall café for refreshments.

Along the route Ivor stopped at various points to show sites of special interest.

On Westleton Common the cobble stones worn to a smooth round by the movement of ice age glaciers.

 

 

 

 

Besides this site were Silver studded blue butterflies, bee orchids and beautiful clumps of heather in full flower.

 

 

 

 

Everyone was interested to hear about the massive military activity in 1943 on Westleton Heath when the British army were given training in the then modern-day trench warfare. The scene of thousands of soldiers, flame-throwing tanks and explosions were recorded by the well known East Anglian war artist, Edward Bawden.

 

Stopping periodically, Ivor recited his published poems about the landscape, its special characteristics and the unique birds that live here like the Nightjar and Dartford warbler, also the more common Crow.

 

Corvus corone corone

I see you Crow.

I watch your studied nonchalance.

Your oil drip eye gives nothing back

green gleam on midnight feathers

steals surrounding light.

 

I know you Crow.

The trickster who can count

 gifted master of the false feint

when paired and stealing food

from the unsuspecting.

 

I hear you Crow.

Not for you the Rook’s ‘Caw’

but a raucous shout for meat

with your ‘Pawk  Pawk’

and your butcher’s beak.

 

I fear you Crow.

I feel your dark slow strut

feather ancient memory of the hunt,

the unknown made gravid

by the eater of the dead.

 

Ivor Murrell  

After a long working life, with experience as a maintenance engineer, a sugar industry trouble shooter, a maltster, some involvement in ladies fashion and finally as Director General of the Maltsters Association of Great Britain, Since retiring Ivor Murrell has found more time for his writing, has achieved a BA Hons Humanities degree with the Open University and has been Chairman of The Arts Society East Suffolk.

http://versifier.co.uk

 

 

“What a very successful walk!  Ivor was so knowledgeable and his interest and delight in his local landscape made it even more enjoyable. “

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