Lay Members’ Day 2011: Saturday 7th May

Lay Members' Day 2011 was another great success – so many people put in so much effort to help and we want to thank everyone who attended, everyone who contributed to the exhibition and everyone who volunteered to help.

We also owe our thanks to the Northumbrian Scribes and Mendip Calligraphy Group who displayed their wonderful work from books about bears to plates, maps and even a painted cushion. We hope you were inspired by the some of the work that their members created and displayed.

The demonstrators this year were: Jan Pickett, who called her demonstration Letters Unlimited, showing just what you can do by mixing inks and creating beautiful multi-coloured lettering; Tanja Bolenz demonstrated drawn and painted lettering on stone and paper; and Valerie Dugan showed her botanical illustrations and lettering, explaining how she creates the art that won her the Members' Choice Award last year.

There were many stands selling books, paper and inks, and giving their advice on the best way to make the most from the items they were selling. Fellows were selling some excellent items as well and our thanks go to all the stallholders for doing such a great job.

The Group 22 Advanced Training Scheme students displayed their work, showing the ideas, skills and techniques they had developed during their time on the Scheme. We hope to see them continuing to develop these as they progress.

Visitors had travelled very long distances to the Day, representing America, Japan and also the Czech Republic, from where Zuzana Bednarova and her friend Pavla came to their first Lay Members' Day. They left thoroughly impressed and plan to establish a Czech-Slovak Calligraphy Association to support this beautiful and unique art.

Ian Garrett gave an excellent commentary on the Exhibition pieces, and seeing those pieces on a large screen really showed off the detail and effort put in by everyone this year.

There were three winners of book tokens by the three scribes who gained the three most popular votes inspired by our 'Project' choices. Interestingly nearly all the pieces had a lot of votes but the three winners were (in alphabetical order) Cathy Cooper, Ruth Sutherland and Helen White. (Photographs of the winning pieces can be seen on p.7 of the Autumn 2011 Newsletter.) Our congratulations go to them. We would love to encourage everyone to be inspired by our choices for next year, available on the website now, giving everyone as much time as possible to come up with ideas and to get those creative juices flowing.

The Daubney Lecture, given by Timothy Noad and entitled Herald Painter and Scrivener, was thoroughly interesting, talking about his history and how he gained a place at the College of Arms, as well as explaining how his work is created and where he gets his ideasfrom. We were lucky enough to get a peek at The Instrument of Consent he created for HM The Queen, granting Prince William permission to marry Catherine Middleton (see adjacent column and also the photograph on p.8 of the Autumn 2011 Newsletter). It really was a rare and unique opportunity to find out more about such an interesting area of calligraphy.

Once again, thank you to everyone who made the day a great success. LMD relies heavily on volunteers' help without which the day just could not happen. Volunteers to help through the year are always welcome in addition as a lot goes on behind the scenes and so much isn't possible without a bit of extra help. If you can assist please do make yourselves known to any of the team.

The images show some of the work from the Lay Members' exhibition.

The topics for the set project are decided by the whole team.