Three visits to enjoy this summer:

Tuesday May 7th - A guided tour of the Victorian Galleries in the Victoria and Albert Museum followed by an exclusive tour of the Albert Memorial.  Click here to go to the Visits Page.

Thursday June 13th - Visit to Parham House in Sussex.  Click here to go to the Visits Page.

June 26th - Visit to the Royal School of Military Music at Kneller Hall, Twickenham.

Click here to go to the Visits Page.

We are delighted to announce that at the first meeting of the 2017/18 season, Wednesday September 20th, we elected Phelim Dunlea as our new Treasurer.  

Our new name awaits final ratification.  Meanwhile we are continuing as 'The Arts Society Windsor'.

YOUNG ARTS

We are also very pleased to announce that we shall be supporting Eton Porny First School in their art project, "Only One Me" - a whole-school inititiative that will be unfolding during October and November.  Go to the Young Arts Page to see how the project develops.

LECTURE FEEDBACK - new development:

In an attempt to get more members participating we are now issuing a new 'easy-to respond' form at each lecture. The results so far have been very encouraging. Online feedback (within one week of the lecture) is still most welcome. The results from both sources are pooled at the end of this time-frame to give the chairman guidance on the official feedback to The Arts Society, and are presented on the 'Society News' board at the following lecture. 

NADFAS change of name to 'The Arts Society'

As announced in January NADFAS formally changed its name to The Arts Society on May 17th. Subject to members' approval, our Society's name will be changing to reflect this change.

New Lecture programme

The full 2017-18 lecture programme (Sep 2017-Jun 2018) can now be seen on the LECTURES page together with brief biographical information about each lecturer.

OUR PHOTO GALLERY - see tab on the Home page

This has six sub-galleries. Our previous Programme Secretary David Powell donated a selection of his photos from visits stretching back to 2004 which can be seen in galleries 1-4. If any member has photos to add to this collection of past visits we will be delighted to show them. Please let us know. We are able to make use of prints, negatives or digital camera images.

STUDY DAY '5000 Years of Glass' November 2016

Some 70 members of the Society were treated to a barnstorming day devoted to the world of glass, presented by Antiques Roadshow expert Andy McConnell.  It was clear after a few minutes that glass was a passion, and he had us all enthralled with his history of 5000 years of glass, taking us all over the world, including to one of his favourite places, Sweden, and Orrefors and Boda in particular.  The last session of the day was devoted to the examination of the various glass items that our members had brought in.  In his ‘no-holds barred’ manner he was by turns outrageously “scathing”, mainly about the layers of dust still clinging to these heirlooms – “don’t you have water and washing-up liquid in Windsor?!”, and delighted to come across 18th century claret jugs, and what he said was the largest collection of Lalique he had come across in one place.  It was clear that by the end of the session we, including him, had all had a thoroughly enjoyable day.

As well as flagging up our best wishes to Her Majesty on our website, we took the opportunity offered by the closeness of the date of our April lecture (on the 20th) to cut and share a celebratory cake among attending members and visitors - and to offer one lucky member the prize of a bottle of 'bubbly' in a free raffle. Hugely enjoyed by all.

October 2015 marked our 20th Anniversary  (The Society was inaugurated on October 11th 1995). To celebrate the occasion we held a Grand Reception in the Council Chamber of Windsor Guildhall.   Among our guests, we welcomed Mrs. Eileen Quick, the Mayor of Windsor and Maidenhead, Mrs. June Robinson, National Chair of NADFAS and Mrs. Dory Thompson, Chair of South Mercia Area. Wine and canapes were enjoyed by the Society members, and photographic displays told the story of the past twenty years.

We paid tribute to our President, Edna Thomas, who had the vision and enthusiasm to start the Society in 1995 and was its Founder Chairman.  Our present Chairman, Roger Askew, announced that she would be made an Honorary Life Member.

In 2012 our society responded to a new venture - ‘Adopt a Boss’ -  by the College of St George’s to help fund the conservation and restoration of the roof bosses on the ceiling of St George’s Chapel Windsor Castle, roof bosses being decorative architectural features frequently used to cover the intersection of vaulting, and often intricately carved and colourfully decorated. Over the centuries those in St George’s Chapel have accumulated dirt and become discoloured and need to be carefully cleaned and restored – a painstaking and very time-consuming process. The bosses feature heraldic arms and badges, angels, initials, dragons, animals and floral and religious symbols.

The 'NADFAS boss' is on the north side of the Quire vault (the Quire was the first part of St George's to be completed). It shows a Tudor rose within the Garter and most probably relates to King Henry VII. The detailed description is:

'The boss, on the north side of the Quire vault, depicting a Tudor rose, with its outer petals in red and inner petals in white, surrounded by sun rays and shown within the Garter probably represents Henry VII. He seems to have adopted the heraldic device of the 'rose en soleil' (a rose surrounded by sun rays) from the Yorkist King, King Edward IV, who devised it to combine his two principal royal badges, the white rose and the sun. In Henry VII’s case the white rose of York has symbolically been replaced by the red and white rose of the House of Tudor. As head of the Order of the Garter, Henry VII was of course entitled to display his heraldic badge within a representation of the Garter.

The Quire of St George’s Chapel was vaulted between 1506 and 1509 under the direction of stone masons William Vertue and John Hylmer. Under the terms of their contract dated 5 June 1506 they were supposed to complete the work by Christmas 1508 and incorporate bosses bearing roses, portcullises, fleurs-de-lis and “any other device that shall please the King’s grace to have in them”; the King in question being Henry VII.'

Click here to go to St George's Chapel website to learn more about the scheme.