It never ceases to surprise me at how quickly the AGM comes around bringing a sharp focus on the activities which need to be carried out to meet the legal requirements of the Charity Commission and Companies House. The draft final accounts have to be certified by our auditors, notification of the AGM has to be sent to members and for the draft accounts to be available for inspection.  This does take up considerable time and thanks are due to our Finance Committee members and our auditors.

The society has been represented at a number of civic functions such as the Mayor’s Sunday Service, the D Day Commemoration event and the Remembrance Sunday Parade.  We continue to oppose the demolition of the Shirehall which we wish to see re-purposed. We have also been actively involved in assisting the trustees of the Morris Hall to obtain listing of the building, which has been inspected by Historic England and we await the outcome. We are also working to see of the frontage of the old Sentinel Works on Whitchurch Road can be protected from development. We have shared sponsorship of the Shrewsbury Arts Trail which has proved to be very popular. Russell Game and myself have been working with Mike Phillips of the History QR.info system, the aim of which is to produce a series of multi-lingual QR code plaque to be placed around the town which are attracting interest – try the one outside Bear Steps. The very popular lecture series on the history of Shrewsbury by Russell Game us running again and are also being given to the University of the Third Age. We have joined BID and take an active role in Vibrant Shropshire as well as attending meetings of the Shropshire Visual Arts Forum. The society also attends quarterly meetings of Shrewsbury Town Council’s Climate Change Committee.

The society manages its affairs through invaluable volunteers and an active committee structure ie a Council of Management (which meets quarterly), Planning Committee (monthly), Finance Committee (monthly) and a number of ad hoc groups.  We have adopted a rolling Five Year Plan to help us plan for the future, which is recommended as good practice and will, hopefully, help us in applying for grants.

Members may recall that last year new lighting was installed to improve the display of artwork (much welcomed by the artists) and reduce our electricity consumption. This has been take further by the installation of new, efficient heating throughout the building to replace the inefficient and expensive storage heaters. We now have panel heaters installed in all rooms, except the Hall and shop areas. The panel heaters provide instant heat and can be turned off when not required unlike the previous storage heaters. The new heaters in the Hall and shop areas are quartz and suited to the areas which need to be heated. In addition, they are on 10 and 30 minute timers which can suit the number of visitors present. The cost of the new heaters (about 13k) was eased by a grant from the Marches Energy Fund of £4k. Long term the electricity bills will start to reduce.

Our only office PC has reached nearly ten years old and is ‘exhausted’ and so, to upgrade out IT capability for the future, we have purchased new laptops. This year we have greatly benefited from out intern, Charlotte Pryce, now in her third year of a history of art degree at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Lottie has considerably improved our social media presence, and our good wishes go with her for her final year. 

The Bear Steps Galleries, managed by Dave Lupine, continue to be a sought after location for local artists to display their work, so much so that the diary bookings are now nearly full for 2027. The galleries are a valuable source of income for us vie room hire and commission fees. Our shop, managed by Nesta Orrells, is the welcoming face of the society to visitors. It continues to display and sell items by talented artists and authors, which are individual and often unique. We know, for example, that customers call regularly to buy greetings cards which are ‘different’.

To conclude, I would like to thank all of our volunteers without which the society could not function. Whether it is stewarding the shop, unseen work at committees, assisting artists, our cleaner, helping with lectures, functions, etc. I would like also to particularly thank Stan Sedman MBE for a very generous donation of learned textbooks to add to our library. It is appropriate to mention here the recently deceased David Trumper, a local historian of renown and friend of the society, whose knowledge will be greatly missed.

Finally, I would like to place on record by gratitude to Russell Game whose work as, in effect, out IT manager and mostly behind the scenes is invaluable. He has saved the society large sums of money by not needing IT consultants to solve our ‘problems’. In  addition, Russell has also brought in valuable income to us through his very popular history talks.

Michael Dinneen, Chairman