July, 2018.

CHAIRMAN'S MESSAGE:

Chairman Heather Wilson - Immediate-Past-Chairman

Dear Members and Friends,

Our Society wishes to acknowledge the recent appointment of Nick Mitzevich as the sixth Director of the National Gallery of Australia. Nick, a local boy, spent his childhood growing up on a farm in Abermain. Nick has discussed that as a boy, his eyes were opened to the beauty and power of art when he first visited Maitland Regional Art Gallery.

Nick has since gone on to make significant and substantial contributions to the Art World in Australia. We wish him well as he embarks on this prestigious appointment. Perhaps, as a result of our members generosity with our Young Arts Program, we too will inspire future leaders in the field of decorative and fine arts.

We aim to keep you informed about all events within our Society, as well as the numerous Arts related activities being held by the Cessnock Regional Art Gallery and Maitland Regional Art Gallery.

We are currently modifying our Website to be able to accept online payments for attendance at lectures and events. This improvement will also provide members with the ability to log in and update their communication details on our database. We will notify you with “how to log in” instructions towards the end of August.

We celebrate our twentieth birthday this year and to acknowledge this significant milestone, we held a party and movie night at the Cessnock Performing Arts Centre on Monday 23rd, July. A highlight was the film “The Life of Brian”. This is a humorous, entertaining and somewhat tongue in cheek story based on Pokolbin's very own Brian McGuigan.

How fortunate we were that Brian and Fay accepted our invitation to join us in celebration. We enjoyed a generous supper catered for by The Royal Oak Hotel accompanied by superb local wines. We have a review of this event above and photos in our Gallery on this website. It was a happy, relaxed and fun celebration.

On Saturday 28th September our Society is taking a bus tour to the inaugural “Sculpture on the Farm” in Fosterton. This coincides with The Dungog Festival, Dungog Design Exhibition and Dungog Contemporary Exhibition. It will be a memorable day which also includes lunch and a visit to two gardens on The Dungog Garden Ramble.

These events are planned to complement our rich and varied lecture program for this year.

Your Committee always looks forward to welcoming you. We hope that you continue to enjoy and be inspired through your involvement with ADFAS Pokolbin

Warmest regards,

Heather Wilson Chairman ADFAS Pokolbin