President's Report March / April 2012

Hi Members,

I hope you all had a safe & happy Easter. Welcome to all the new members, we hope you enjoy our printing community at Impress. You have joined at an exciting time as we are about to move to our new studio and gallery in Kedron and we look forward to sharing the space with you (our members), the community and the public very soon. It will be great to provide the best facilities that are dedicated to printmaking in South East Queensland.  Please find below an update on what is happening at Impress. 

Thank you    

A special thank you goes to John Doyle, Gwenn Tasker and her son Jeremy for helping me collect and move all the inks, troughs and other materials that we were kindly donated by Southbank Institute of Technology and especially to Colin James for liaising and organising it all. Other special thanks go to our IMC committee and subcommittee members who are working tirelessly and voluntarily to improve Impress Studio, our secretary John Doyle, exhibition program and policy coordinator Glenda Orr, workshop coordinator Karen Kaese, Vice President Belinda Sinclair and Keegan Green for the website and Jenny Conde, newly appointed memberships coordinator and Blog publisher. We will need more volunteers like you to work on the clean-up, preparation and move to the new studio. 

Update on Kedron     

Works are progressing slowly at Kedron but we have been given an estimate that most of the work will be complete by the end of May. The guttering is to be replaced and Brisbane City Council have just signed off on an extra $200,000 to pay for the disability requirements such as the lift , disabled toilets, signage and ramps, so that gives us more money for the studio fit-out. The concrete floor has been poured for the ground and lower ground floors, and they are working on the mezzanine floor now. The lift has been ordered and will be installed in time for us to take up our lease. We are remaining optimistic that most of the work will be completed by the end of May, so that we can get in and clean, paint and prepare for the move. It has been frustrating with things moving so slowly but the project co-ordinator has confirmed the progress and that things are moving quickly now. The move, will allow us to expand our workshop and tuition program and Glenda already has a full schedule for the exhibitions program until the end of 2012. We need to start serious fundraising now for the new studio as there will be many unforseen expenses.

Exhibitions     

The next exhibition on our schedule is in July, our Queensland-Quebec exchange, Portraits D’eau- Water Portraits. It will be shown at the PoP Gallery, 12 Ipswich Road, Woolloongabba. Catalogues and invitations are being designed now. Updates are being posted on Facebook and our Blog

We have already sent out the EOI for the inaugural Folio box ReGenerate (to mark the occasion of our move to Kedron), if you are a new member or haven’t registered and wish to be part of this historic folio, please contact Glenda Orr on glendaor@bigpond.net.au.  

The Vie De Pacifique-Pacific Life exhibition artists have been selected, with 30 participants from overseas and 20 from Impress, so this will be a major printmaking event for Brisbane. There will be a catalogue printed for this and I am putting together a list of the exhibition venues for each country now.

Website     

We are in the final stages of upgrading our website and new logo design and it will be launched shortly. This will be a great time saver to a number of committee members and volunteer helpers, as a lot of information such as bookings, membership, workshops etc will be automated. Once it’s running smoothly we should have a much lighter load.

Volunteers    

If any of our members are interested in volunteering in any way for the studio and gallery, or have skills/equipment that could help us with the move we would really appreciate your help. The IMC work tirelessly to provide the best facilities, tuition and equipment to you, we would really appreciate any help you can give at this time. If any of you are on New Start, you can volunteer up to 15 hrs a week, so why not use it to support Impress?

AGM     

We are almost due for our AGM and at this stage it is looking like being held in Mid June, possibly in our new studio with a lunch to follow at Kedron Park Hotel. John will notify you shortly of the date, time and place. A list of committee roles will be circulated with the announcement of the AGM and if you are interested in having a more active role within our community, you would be very welcome.

Kind regards,

Jenny Sanzaro-Nishimura

President