Good Afternoon and welcome to the NEOS 2015 Annual General Meeting. I am Rae Osborne current NEOS Chair and I would like to declare this meeting open at 3.0pm

Let me introduce the NEOS Committee:

Secretary

Jane Appelbee who kindly volunteered to take on the role of Secretary even though she is an extremely busy Textile & Ceramics Artist. Jane has done a stirling job producing the Committee Meeting Minutes, and ensuring that we action tasks. Jane also wrote the Documentation and public notices for the Culture Republic Survey. Jane was a Directory Pickup Point.

Treasurer, Map Compiler, Printer Liaison, Directory Pick up Point organiser.

Gerry Potter, our Treasurer and map co-ordinator. Gerry is very meticulious regarding the accounts, keeping our spending in check. Organising and visiting the Directory Pickup Point Volunteers, and preparing the delivery schedule. Gerry also liaises with the directory printers, and along with the Committee proof reads the Directory to within an inch of it's life. Gerry was a Pickup Point.

Social Media, Advertising, Press Officer

Aubin Stewart, is responsible for keeping Social Media up to date, also the Role of Press Officer. administering the Adverts in the Directory, and contacting local Journals, with a view to placing an advert for NEOS, and maybe get editorial. Aubin is a professional jeweller and lecturer at Gray’s School of Art.

Gregor and Kirsty McAbery complete the Committee as ordinary Members , contributing where they can.

Absent Members:

Elaine Lindsay (Something Corny),joined the Committee after the March Networking event at which she spoke about her involvement with NEOS and how it had shaped her life. Building her life changing, successful Straw Sculpting and Teaching business. Elaine serves on many committees, but you know the saying “if you want something done ask a busy person”, but when she is at a meeting her commitment is to NEOS contributing fully to our discussions. Elaine was also a Pickup Point.

Outgoing Committee Members since the 2014 AGM.

We said goodbye to Jane Ronie, and Jennifer Watson. Thank you for your hard work and commitment over the past few years, and on behalf of the Committee I hope your time since leaving the Committee has proved fruitful.

Since I became Chair in January the Committee has faced and overcome many challenges.

As you have heard we are a very small Committee and we are all covering several key Roles. Not occasionally, but consistently throughout the year.

I covered several roles myself, Chair, Directory data compiler, Entries Secretary, Communications Officer and NEOS Rep for Aberdeen Festivals.

We need more committee members to take on some of these roles, but notably the Entries Secretary, which when shared with the Directory Data compiler, makes the Co-ordinator Role more manageable. You have all been sent the Entries Secretary Job Description, and if interested, please email your CV (experience) to .

Yes it has been hard work this year, but the reward was a definite NEOS buzz, and personally it was my best ever NEOS. I have heard more positive than negative comments, which is why I decided to see if we could plot visitor activity, and therefore asked for someone from each venue to complete the daily visitor numbers survey.

The survey will remain open until 31 October, as each day more responses come in. To date 82 completed surveys out of 151 venues have been received, so more would give more

accuracy.

The Terms & Conditions of Entry were introduced to protect local artists as over the past few years folks were renting in the area so they could take part. I thought this was unfair on the local artists and on the public who thought they were visiting local artists. The existing Guidelines had been abused, and not abided by. The T'S & C's have been taken more seriously, and feel to be more professional.

You will have heard the Committee Members calling this (holds up a Directory) a Directory and wondered why as you have always known it as a Catalogue. The reason is we are promoting the Directory as an annual Directory of Artists Residing & Practising in the North East of Scotland, rather than just as a Brochure for the NEOS 9/10days. The term “Catalogue” implies that NEOS is one big 9 day Art Sale, which is not what we are about. If that was all we were, then we could hire a venue, and invite you to submit work for sale. Whilst this may result in sales, the public would not get to meet the artists which is why NEOS is different. Open Studios allows you to build a personal relationship with the public, and any sales you make are more meaningful to both Public & Artist. The survey to date gives a total of 16914 visitors to each venue. I know many of them will be repeat visitors across several venues, but I wonder if a conventional exhibition would attract the same number of visitors.

At the Turriff Show a NEOS first time exhibitor had a stand and said the the “Catalogues” were flying out. When I mentioned that we were calling it a Directory, I was told a story of when this artists friend and her husband visited. The friend was told “I must give you a Catalogue before you leave”. The friends husband immediately responded “Oh no! She has enough Catalogues”!

Flyers were printed to be placed in outlets where a stack of Directories would be too intrusive. 250 were distributed around the B&B's in Stonehaven. Unfortunately we got them too late to be able to get them distributed to a wider area. Next year we will get them earlier as a pre-cursor to the Directories.

Aberdeen Festivals

Neos's membership has proved to be very beneficial with so much more exposure than we could have afforded. NEOS is very highly thought of and to date we are the only unfunded Volunteer led festival. As an Aberdeen Festival Member, NEOS is promoted alongside the other Festivals automatically. The Window Vinyls on Union Street and George street are updated to feature each Festival as it happens. The Popups that have appeared around Aberdeen City, the STV Adverts, and the P&J Weekend Supplement were all courtesy of Aberdeen Festivals. Aberdeen Festivals is no longer a pilot project, and it is here to stay, having secured further funding inviting applications from Aberdeen based Festivals to become Members.

23 April I attended Visit Scotland Expo and helped to man the Aberdeen Festivals stand. There was a lot of interest in NEOS from overseas tour operators, as it is free, cultural, and different. Russia & Spain to name just 2 countries. Aberdeen Festivals is being promoted on the Northlink Ferries, the East Coast Rail line, and in Norway.

21 June Saw 4 NEOS Members Elaine Lindsay, Aubin Stewart, Elinor Grieve, and myself demonstrate their artistic discipline in the Aberdeen Festivals Tent at the Highland Games. The public had a great time “having a go”, and as the 2015 Directories were not ready, we handed out 2014 Directories with a postcard with the 2015 dates.

23 October along with other Festival Directors I met with 2 Members of the Scottish Government. Chris Gosling Senior Policy Officer Cultural Strategy and Diplomacy, and Anne Diack (Aberdeen born) Cultural Relations Team Leader with a special interest in Festivals. A short but very interesting meeting, with lots of questions asked by them both about each individual Festival. They are very enthusiastic and offered help with making valuable government contacts.

Aberdeen Art Fair

NEOS had a stand at the Aberdeen Art Fair, and selected Artists were invited to submit 2 pieces of work. I asked the Curator for high end well priced work, that would compete well with the other work at the Art Fair. We had a lot of visitors to the stand and we handed out 7 boxes of Directories, but no sales, which was unfortunate, but all of the artists said that they felt it was a worthwhile exercise. They saw it more as promoting NEOS (which we did) and raising awareness of the professional quality of NEOS exhibitors. We did engage with a lot of people who didn't know about NEOS, who are now potential visitors. At the end of the weekend I went around the Gallery stands asking if they were looking for Artists and giving them a Directory to use as a resource. So you may get a call from a Gallery owner outwith Aberdeen/Aberdeenshire.

So as you can see NEOS has been a busy year for Public engagement, and Publicity. Aubin will speak in detail about this later.