Well what a great weekend we had again this year, the weather was amazing with not a cloud in the sky for both days.
Mark Francois MP who opened our exhibition, was very impressed with paintings on display. After viewing the works and before he enjoyed his coffee and cake, he made a short speech to officially open proceedings. He thanked Brian Coppard, Corinne Scott and the committee for inviting him again this year 
and remarked and I quote “The standard of work on display this year is as good as last year if not better”. He went on to say that the work that the art group does is very important to the town and it was a pleasure for him to open it. He then wished the group every success for the weekend before finally declaring the event open.
As you will all be aware, each visitor was given a slip of paper on which to vote for their favourite painting, this year again the painting voted best in show by the public will receive the Josie Hook award. Josie who is a young 87, attended the exhibition both days and as usual, bought several small paintings.
The results of the public vote are as follows:
1st Roy Bull with his painting ‘Beach Pebbles’
2nd Colin Mossman with his painting ‘Sunrise2’
3rd Stella Masters with her painting ‘Are they for me’
The Josie Hook award, together with certificates for first second and third will be presented at this Wednesday’s demonstration, so please be there.
The standard of work in our group continues to be high and that is something we can all be proud of, it was certainly noticed by our visitors, as all comments were favourable.
We had over 100 paintings on display with sixteen being sold, not counting the ones bought from the browser.
A big thank you to all who worked hard over the weekend to ensure everything went smoothly, from the setting up on the Friday evening, to manning the kitchen, to the ladies for supplying the delicious homemade cakes, selling the raffle tickets, collecting the money for the paintings, talking to the public and finally dismantling it all on the Sunday evening. Thank you, Annabelle, for housing all the equipment.
We also must thank all those who exhibited 
their work, without them we would not have an exhibition. If you didn’t exhibit this year, try and make sure you put something in next year, you will find it very rewarding.
A special thank you must go to A R Adams Ltd, funeral director of Rayleigh, for again sponsoring our exhibition. Unfortunately, because of a prior commitment they were not able to attend this year’s event.
And lastly, but not least, we must thank the SAA (Society for All Artists) providing the winners mug and the certificates for the prize winners.
Report by Colin Mossman Photos courtesy of Laura Mossman
RAG 