AGM Weekend
The West Region hosted another very successful and enjoyable Guild AGM weekend April 11-12th at the Army Flying Museum, Middle Wallop. Activities during the weekend included, as last year, sketching in the Historic Army Aircraft Flight (HAAF) hangar.
The traditional Guild dinner was held in the Army Officers’ Mess thanks to the efforts of Richard Folkes, Janet and Alice, the Mess supervisor and the Mess staff.
Over 50 artists and guests attended at various times over the weekend, some for the whole weekend. There was a good attendance at the AGM itself and proceedings were broadcast via Zoom, enabling more members to ‘attend’ virtually.
56th Annual General Meeting of the Guild of Aviation Artists 12th April
President Chris French FGAvA chaired the proceedings.
The Chairman’s Report covered various topics including organisation and administration, membership, communications and PR, exhibitions, the Regions and the future for the Guild.
The Financial Report and auditor business was presented by Janet Latham. This was followed by General Committee elections. Honorary Vice-Presidents Patricia Forrest and Alison Wilds were re-elected and four new Honorary Vice-Presidents were elected: Tom Allett, Editor, FlyPast; Dr Harry Raffal, RAF Museum; Ian Thirsk, DeHavilland Museum and Alisdair Wood, Leonardo and President, RAeS.
During the proceedings, thanks were expressed, for their years of service to the Guild, to long standing Trustee, Sir Ian Macfadyen KVCO CB OBE, who stepped down at this meeting, and Phil Jackson GAvA, stepping down from the General Committee and as East Anglia Regional Organiser. Heartfelt thanks were expressed to both.
Chris French presented the Guild Awards for the 2025 Exhibition and made other presentations as well.
The meeting was brought to a formal close with retiring Trustee, Sir Ian Macfadyen, giving the closing resolutions, thus ending another very enjoyable and memorable AGM weekend.
With thanks
Thanks go to all who helped, supported and facilitated the running of the AGM weekend and made this weekend such a great success:
Chairman Phil Hadley, Rob Hames, local Regional Organiser for hosting the Guild at Middle Wallop.
Trustee Brig Richard Folkes OBE FRAeS for arrangements with the Officers’ Mess and making the arrangements for getting the artist group into the Historic Army Aircraft Flight (HAAF) hangar on Saturday, particularly considering the heightened tension in the military arena. Much appreciated.
Andrew and Janet Latham and Martin Perman for all their organisation and support of proceedings.
Guild members and guests, wives, husbands, partners who organised, helped and facilitated and all those who attended plus guests. Thanks also, of course, to our hosts at Middle Wallop: Heather and all the staff in the museum and the HAAF, Alice and all the staff at the Mess and the catering staff in the Apache Café.
Thank you all!
Richard Thorne AGAvA
Secretary
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Robert Hames, West Region Organiser, adds:
I would like to thank all of you who were either involved in helping organise the recent AGM, or just attended on the days themselves. I felt privileged to be the regional host, critiquing an overwhelming abundance of work from the sketching day, and seeing a real appreciation for the surroundings of the dinner in the officers mess watched over by so many Guild luminaries paintings. All in all a success, and I look forward to a visit to an area not oft frequented by myself next year.
