SPRING/SUMMER NEWSLETTER 2024

Dear Supporter,
 
Thank you for your continued support as a champion for Arts4Wokingham. We’re keen to keep you up to date with how our activities and fundraising ventures are progressing and hope you that will find this newsletter helpful.
 
The advancement of arts and culture for the benefit of residents throughout the borough of Wokingham remains our key objective.

Our launch project, the siting of Nicola Anthony’s exciting stainless steel sculpture, The Arc, outside Wokingham’s Carnival Hub, continues to be the central focus of many of our fundraising activities. Nicola is busy creating a maquette of her installation and we remain very excited about being able to show this to all our supporters very soon. We’ll be making sure that this miniature version of her work is showcased at future arts events and is made available to everyone who’d like to get a much clearer sense of just how impressive the final work will be.

However, against a cost of living crisis and the war in Ukraine, sourcing significant funds for a major public art project is proving to be a real challenge. If you know of any local businesses or individuals who’d like to help us and be named as major supporters of this project, do please get in touch. Challenges aside, we are determined see this project through and have initiated a number of activities across the past year to bolster funds. 
 
In November 2023 we launched our second mini art sale. Local artists, both amateur and professional, donated nearly 100 postcard sized original artworks selling for between £5 and £20. The cards were exhibited in Wokingham library and buyers eagerly snapped up the wide range of one-off art works that were on offer.

In April 2024, we initiated an altogether different project. Tagged ‘The Art of Running’, it involved four runners taking on the Brighton marathon, all wearing A4W vests and raising funds for us from sponsorship and an online Just Giving page.

As part of their training routine, the runners enjoyed a rather special bonus. One of our patrons, Strictly Come Dancing’s Ian Waite, put them through a specially choreographed fitness class to help ensure that they’d last the course. And it worked. All four runners completed the 26.2 mile challenge and not only generated cash but also helped to raise A4W’s profile along the way.

Ian Waite is not the only patron we were thrilled to welcome  to Arts4Wokingham in the past year. John Gibbs, Professor of Film and Research Dean for Heritage and Creativity at the University of Reading, also accepted an invitation to join us. John sits at the heart of a number of  prestigious film, arts and museum projects and we are delighted that he’s embraced A4W.

Completing our line up of distinguished patrons is former High Sheriff of Berkshire, Lucy Zeal. As High Steward of Wokingham and a Deputy Lieutenant of the County, Lucy is only too aware of just how much impact public art can have upon an environment and those who live within it.

We are honoured to have three such committed patrons and would like to take this opportunity to publicly welcome them to the charity.

To further our objective of increasing and making available the range and amount of public art that can be seen and enjoyed in the Borough, we are delighted to support a series of free art exhibitions in Wokingham Borough libraries. The initiative, called ‘Art In The Library’, began in Lower Earley on 15th April 2024 and runs until 24th May. It features work by one of our own committee members, artist Jo Wyles. Jo is exhibiting a number of works created from cardboard packaging. If you can’t make these dates to see Jo’s intriguing creations, there’s a chance to enjoy more free art in Wokingham library where you can catch a further exhibition from 20th May until 17th June 2024.

Do keep an eye on our website, www.arts4wokingham.com, for more information about further ‘Art In The Library’ events and details of other free art based projects that you can access locally.
 
Finally, if you’d like to champion public art or simply help to make sure that the arts in general find a proper and significant place within our community, we’d love to hear from you. Volunteers can do much to make sure that we achieve our objectives and make a real difference to the area in which we live. Do get in touch via our website  if you’d like to join us.

Thanks, again, for all your support and help so far.
 
Best wishes,
Charlotte Haitham-Taylor