Young Arts
The Arts Society aims to inspire young people, through participation and observation, with a lasting enthusiasm for the arts and an awareness of our arts heritage and its conservation.
At The Arts Society South Cambs we devote almost all of our Gift Aid funding (over £2,000 per year) to the support of Young Arts projects. Our earliest initiative was to make a small donation to Great and Little Shelford Church of England Primary School towards the purchase of art books. Following that, we have developed a close relationship with Sawston Village College (SVC) and have sponsored a number of projects there.
May/June 2025 - Cambridge Arts Societies Sixth Form Art Exhibition
In common with the other three Cambridge-based Arts Societies, we contributed £300 towards the Cambridge Arts Societies Sixth Form Art Exhibition 2025, which will run from 25th May to 8th June at Michaelhouse Café in Cambridge.
May/June 2024 - Cambridge Arts Societies Sixth Form Art Exhibition
This Exhibition is an annual event held under the auspices of the Cambridge Arts Societies. It is at the Michaelhouse Cafe in Trinity Street, between 26th May and 9th June 2024. Entries for pictures are selected from work of Year 12 students at Local High Schools and Sixth Form Colleges. There will be a maximum of 40 entries and, if previous exhibitions are anything to go by,the quality of the pictures will be high.
April 2024 - Sawston Village College
A letter from the College tells how grateful they are for our continuing support for their Arts Award programme. Click here to view the letter.
March 2024 - Sawston Village College
Grand Union Orchestra visits Sawston Village College
With the support of The Arts Society South Cambs which allowed SVC to host a visit of five musicians from the Grand Union Orchestra at Sawston Village College in March 2024.
Click here to read the report or here to watch the video.
February 2024 - Long Road Sixth Form College - Donation to the Creative Arts Department
With our regular monthly talks held at Long Road Sixth Form College, it was decided that, if suitable projects could be identified, the Society should consider a donation of up to £5 000 to the Creative Arts Department of the College. Towards this objective two members of the Committee were shown around the Department earlier this year and were very impressed with an evidently dynamic and positive organisation, the range of studies being undertaken and the quality of work being produced.
Based on the needs indicated by the Department, we agreed to fund the purchase of a Pro UV
Vacuum Tabletop Exposure Unit, an Epson Sure Colour Printer and seven heavy duty sewing
machines, all amounting to just under £ 5 000. The College has submitted several pictures for the forthcoming exhibition at the Michaelhouse Cafe exhibition, see above, but it is understood that these have been produced using their existing equipment, as the new printer and exposure unit, as of May 2024, have not yet arrived.
July 2023 - Sawston Village College
An exhibition of work created by Year 9 pupils with Artist in residence Amy Wormald. You may be aware that as part of our support for Young Arts, we have sponsored this project and members have been especially invited to attend the resulting exhibition.
Click here to view the short film of the project created by Arts Development Manager.
2021-2022
Sawston Village College
In this last year we have been able to continue support for Sawston Village College and their Arts Award programme. Covid disruption to consistent teaching and staff and student absences resulted in fewer submissions for moderation this year, about 175 out of 240 Year 7’s, as of July. SVC is hoping to offer another moderation this autumn so motivated students do not miss out. The College has again been awarded Arts Award Trinity Champion Centre status in recognition of their commitment to and delivery of the Arts Award at scale. A letter from the College shows how grateful they are for our continuing support. Click here to view the letter.
Bassingbourn Village College
We have almost finished a print project with Bassingbourn Village College. The theme is People and Community. We are lucky to be working with the very talented community artist Ricki Outis again. She has a magic way of imbuing confidence and energy in those around her with the result that both the process of creation and the end product are fun and life enhancing.
We now have a finished product ready to hang and installation is in planning. We will post images of the work when we have them.
Future Projects
It is our intention to continue supporting Sawston Village College Arts Award Programme in the next year.
How we spend the balance of our Gift Aid monies is yet to be decided. We will keep you informed.
Our previous projects are listed below in reverse chronological order. More on each project can be found the related year archive.
2017 SVC was selected by the Holocaust Memorial Trust as one of only 12 institutions in the UK to be the site for a memorial. Young people at the college designed a sculpture to be named 'Hope' depicting a bird escaping to freedom. SCDFAS cosponsored this sculpture and it was created by Neil Jones, the sculptor who created 'Birdsong' (see 2015 below). The sculpture was unveiled by the SCDFAS President, Audrey Williams, on Holocaust Memorial Day, 27 January, 2017.
A short video about the project, produced by SVC students, can be found here on vimeo.com.
2015 SCDFAS sponsored a sculpture 'Birdsong' (see photograph) at SVC with the theme of remembrance. Additional funding came from the Patricia Fay Memorial Fund, the East Anglia Area of NADFAS, TWI and the Heritage Lottery Fund. The sculpture, representing a tree decimated by shell-fire, was designed by pupils at the school based on paintings by the World War 1 artist, Paul Nash and was sculpted by Neil Jones, a former pupil at the school.
A small bird can be seen on one of the branches, symbolising the fact that, in spite of the horrific noise of battle, the soldiers often reported hearing birds and 'Birdsong' is the tiltle of the sculpture. The tree also features a few leaves, symbolising the hope of regeneration. The 'bark' of the tree comprises the first names of all the men and women commemorated on the World War 1 memorials in the seven villages in SVC's catchment area.
This work of art was unveiled on 24 June 2015 in the presence of June Robinson, National Chairman of NADFAS, members of SCDFAS, pupils and parents and representatives of the local community.
2014 The Granta School, Linton, caters for 120 children with special educational needs aged 2 to 19. SCDFAS sponsored an artist in residence, Tyrel Broadbent, to design a mosaic and to work with young people at the school in its creation. The finished mosaic was unveiled on 26th February, 2015.
2013 SCDFAS provided SVC with funds to support pupils in entering for Arts Awards.
2013 The ASPIRE project was partly aimed at restoring morale in SVC following the tragic fire in the school library in September 2012 which destroyed the wall panels which had been made under SCDFAS sponsorship in 2011. ASPIRE conveys the ethos of the school and is an acronym for Achieving, Self-Motivated, Positive, Independent, Respectful, Engaged. SCDFAS provided funds for professional help in making a film conveying this ethos.
2012 The Worldwide and Wonderful Day, involving the 7 primary schools in SVC's catchment area. In each school there was a project concerned with a particular art form and the a continent.
2011 A group of students at SVC developed three wall panels depicting the history and ethos of the school and celebrating the 80th anniversary of its foundation. (Note that these were tragically lost in the fire at the college that destroyed the library block.)
2011 Professional artists worked with a class of primary school children at the Cambridge & County Folk Museum.
2010 'Music for Kids' project at Wandlebury.
2010 A drama company facilitated a group of young carers to write, perform and film a play about what it is to be a young carer.