The Advanced Training Scheme started in 1985. The Scheme exists to provide a structure of tuition, support and guidance for those calligraphers who want to develop their work in a more personal direction. It's not a teaching course. It's a programme which encourages students to find their own way ahead, and the tutors are very skilled in helping you do just that.
The framework gives students time and the necessary help and diversity of guidance to develop their own ideas, skills, imaginations and ways of working, with the great advantage of working with a group of people at a similar level of skill and with similar objectives.
The Scheme has come a long way since its beginnings. Back in 1985 students had just two days a year for review and discussion of their work. Now the scheme comprises two residential weekends of study each year for three years with two different teaching Fellows working as a team for each year. Each year new entrants form a group which stays together through the three years' membership of the Scheme.
The weekends are held in the Spring and Autumn.
Applicants are invited to attend a selection day in London in early January and to bring a selection of work in progress and completed pieces. Writing is not taught on the scheme (although there is some practical work in year two) so when you join the Scheme you will already have reasonably good writing skills. The important requirements are potential, commitment and enthusiasm. The more work you can do over the three years the more you will get out of the experience, and almost as a by-product, the better your writing will get.
The tutors are Year 1, Jilly Hazeldine and Cherrell Avery, Year 2, John Nash and Ian Garrett, Year 3, Hazel Dolby and Sue Hufton.
If you would like to know more, the administrator of the scheme is Marion McKenzie, marionmckenzie@talktalk.net who completed her three years in 2008, so she will be able to answer most of your questions. Her phone number is 02380 848020. The course currently runs in Spring and Autumn at Newnham College, Cambridge. It is open to all members of the Society.
If you would like to join the scheme, watch for the dates of the selection days which are published in the Newsletter. You will want to bring a variety of work, so you should prepare this in advance.
A RECENT STUDENT'S VIEW
The scheme provides tuition, guidance and support for calligraphers who have reached a point where they have sound lettering skills and who feel the need to develop these skills - but are not sure what to do next.
Know the feeling?
I was encouraged to apply - and it took the advice of others to persuade me. And that was my lesson number one - we are a modest lot! We need the opinion of others. I often hear ‘Not yet', 'Maybe next year', 'I'm not ready' - but maybe we cannot be our own best judges. Ask for advice from your tutor, a Fellow or someone who has been on the Scheme and consider it carefully.
I'll tell you what I got out of it. First, the advice I got to go for it - I needed a kick-start and I got it. Second, I became part of a group of like-minded people from whom I learned a lot and had much support. Third, this group and its friendships grow and we have continued contact and mutual encouragement. Fourth, there was a lot of enjoyment, real fun in the weekend gatherings we had.
But the real gain was the Fifth. Confidence in what I was doing, of knowing what I wanted, to focus and back my own judgment and decide for myself what was acceptable work and what was not. Of course I needed input on this - who doesn't - and it came from tutors and from my group. This input did not come in the form of direction but was another contribution to help me make my own decisions.
Many of us learn our skills in workshops, courses and summer schools. We have a kit bag of tools gathered over the years (and how many do we use?) but where do we find the environment to find out how we can best use the skills we have acquired? No other course I know offers this.
The ATS does. Go for it!