News
LATEST NEWS
Heritage Trails
A new category of trails has been added to the site. The first trail to be added in this category features the Cazalet family. Please see the trail in the Heritage Trail section to be found in the Main Menu.
Chelmsford Cathedral Trails
The Arts Society West Essex has recently completed and launched three Trails in Chelmsford Cathedral. Of particular note is a trail especially created for young children of pre-school age. Please look under 'Recent Children's Trails in Churches' to view this trail.
Help Sheets
Please note that all the Help Sheets for creating a Children's Trail have been updated.
Wheathampstead Trail - Tea, cake and an afternoon stroll in the sunshine. What better way to be introduced to a new aspect of volunteering?
"Increasing pressure on all aspects of resources has meant that volunteering activities have had to be curtailed by many Societies. The Beds & Herts Area wanted to acknowledge the enormous effort our volunteers make and inspire new ideas, by demonstrating that volunteering can be multi-faceted and fun. Trails of Discovery are a relatively new area of volunteering being supported by the Arts Society, so the best way to demonstrate how diverse, rewarding and relatively easy to organise, was to invite Societies to a sample trail.
We were delighted to welcome 25 representatives from 11 Societies within Beds & Hert as well as 3 Societies from our neighbouring Area, Chiltern, to join us at the Memorial Hall in Wheathampstead on Sunday 24th September. The sun shone throughout the afternoon, making it a particularly pleasant stroll encompassing the 14th century church, the grave of Antarctic explorer, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the striking Crinkle-Crankle wall and the picturesque River Lea, not to mention numerous examples of architecture representing centuries of Wheathampstead social history.
Upon their return to the Memorial Hall, members were rewarded with a spread of tea, scones and cakes and the opportunity to mingle with fellow guests from other societies and members of the Area Support team. Not only was it an enjoyable afternoon, but several people went away saying they had been inspired to explore the opportunities for Trails in their local area. The major success of the day however, was the interaction between different societies, many of whom followed the trail together and who mingled at tea to share experiences and ideas. Comments such as ‘good to meet everyone’, ‘the Trail was a joy’ which we were ‘inspired by’ and ‘we enjoyed meeting members from other Societies’ illustrate the feedback elicited by the event and we hope that it will inspire a new enthusiasm for volunteering in general."
Report from Caroline Barnes & Catherine Noden, Beds & Herts Arts Volunteering Support.
Guilford sculpture trail
A new sculpture trail has now been prepared by members of TAS Guildford with the charity in mind, taking participants on a circular walking route around the town centre to see and discuss ten of the public works of art on show. The area includes the picturesque Castle Grounds which provides a perfect stopping point for lunch and discussion time.
This trail can be added to in the future, widening the area and adding to the artworks to be discovered.
Halow Project
Members of the Halow project in Guildford (www.halowproject.org.uk) have recently enjoyed completing Trails of Discovery at Guildford Cathedral and Abbot’s Hospital, a Grade I listed almshouse on Guildford High Street.
Templates
An A5 size leaflet template has been added to the Memory Trails section. The A4 size Memory Trail templates have had Section 10 modified to reflect the increasing use of QR code download access to trails that precludes the opportunity to draw sketches as originally intended as the final part of a Memory Trail. This section is now headed 'Reflections' and provides the opportunity to reflect on the visit and the trail.
Trails
The Arts Society Glaven Valley has recently devised a walking trail in the East Anglian village of Blakeney and this trail has been added to Recent Neighbourhood Trails in the Neighbourhood Trails section. The trail is in leaflet form and features a diagramatic map of the trail on the front page.
The Arts Society Dukeries has completed an interactive neighbourhood trail featuring the town of Tickhill in South Yorkshire. This trail can be downloaded to a mobile device via a QR code and the trail completed online. The QR code poster can be found in the QR Codes and Interactive Trails section.
The Arts Society Leatherhead has launched an exciting new Neighbourhood Trail offering the opportunity to discover the richness and diversity of the many aspects of the arts to be seen around the town of Leatherhead in Surrey. The trail can be viewed in the Neighbourhood Trails section.
The Arts Society Truro has completed a downloadable town trail for Redruth in Cornwall using a revised template that has been designed to fit clearly on a mobile phone screen. The trail and this new template in Microsoft Publisher and Word version are listed in the Neighbourhood Trails section and the poster with the QR code has been added to the QR Codes and Interactive Trails section.
QR codes and Interactive Trails
QR codes are a new addition to making trails available at venues. The code is put on to a poster for display at the venue. The code can be scanned by a portable device such as a smart phone or tablet having a QR code reader and the trail downloaded to that device. The trail can then be followed using the download.
Please look under QR CODES AND INTERACTIVE TRAILS in the MAIN MENU for information and examples of posters. If you have a QR code reader on a portable device you will be able to use the code on the poster to access the trail. A template and guidelines for QR code posters has been added to this section.
A number of trails have now been made fully interactive for completion in real time on a mobile phone or tablet. To view these, please download the poster in the QR code and interactive trails section and scan the QR code using a QR code scanner on your phone or tablet.
For more information regarding this new development please contact Pauline Stewart at trails@theartssociety.org
Children's Trails
Town Trails
Recently three Village/Town Trails for children have been completed: Bishop Monkton and Newton Abbot trails are both interactive and the Shipton under Wychwood trail is downloadable to a mobile device.
In addition, two different type of trails have been created. The first is a Children's Craft Trail in Farnham ( this trail can be viewed by scanning the QR code on the poster in the QR Codes and Interactive Trails section) and the second is a Children's Garden Trail at West Horsley Place (this trail is listed in the Town/Village Trails section under Children's Trails).
A new garden trail for children has been added to this same section - Copped Hall Garden Trail.
Another Town Trail has been completed for the Hampshire town of New Alresford. The poster with a QR code can be found in the QR Codes and Interactive Trails section.
Church Trails
Two trails have recently been completed - St John's Church, Epping, Essex and the Roman Catholic Cathedral, Plymouth (the first trail in a Roman Catholic church in the South-West Area). A poster with a QR code for the Cathedral Trail is listed in the QR Codes and Interactive Trails section of the microsite.
Historic Building Trails
A recent addition has been the completion of an historic building trail in Abbot’s Hospital in Guildford for children accompanying the official public tours. A copy of this trail and the answer sheet has been added to the Historic Building Trails section under Children’s Trails. This trail has the addition of a 'Take Away' quiz.
Bespoke Trails
Bespoke trails have been developed for young people with learning difficulties. These differ in format as they have been customised in conjunction with teaching staff to provide the most appropriate presentation. So far one trail has been adapted for print on A3 size paper with a large font to make it easier to read and follow. A second trail comprises a series of flash cards and a special plan to help children with severe autism to find their way around their local church.
A new trail has been added to this section - a children's quiz based around the Place Farm Barn at West Horsley Place. The quiz was created was for children to have something to do while their carers had coffee in the courtyard.
Neighbourhood Trails
Neighbourhood trails are similar in format to village and town trails in being a self-guided trail but with no questions. These trails have been created by members who have discovered features of interest while walking their local areas during the Covid-19 lockdown. A suggestion is to host these trails on the local society website for all members to share.
Three new trails have been completed and added to the website, the first guiding walkers around the area of Blyth, a village situated on the old Great North Road, six miles north of Worksop, the second based on the Sime Gallery in Worplesdon, and the third being the Plymouth to Gunnislake Train Branch Line Trail in the Tamar Valley in Devon and Cornwall.
This trail can be viewed by scanning the QR Code on the poster in the QR Codes and Interactive Trails section.
The latest addition to this section is the Joe Grimaldi Clown Trail created for the 2021 Arts Society Artvent Calendar tracing Joe's life around London.
A second Train Branch Line Trail has just been finished - it highlights points of interest on the line from St Erth to St Ives in Cornwall. This trail can be viewed by scanning the QR Code on the poster in the QR Codes and Interactive Trails section.
Memory Trails
St Mary & St Nicholas, Leatherhead - this trail is different in format being presented as an 8-page booklet and is included in the Memory Trails section for reference.
St James’ Church, Weybridge – Memory Trail launch. There is a regular service at this church for people living with memory loss. At the launch children from the local school visited and chatted with those attending.
Other Places of Worship
A Help Sheet for the creation of Activity Sheets for Other Places of Worship has been added to the site. The latest addition is two Activity Sheets from the West Midlands Area featuring the Shri Venkateswara (Balaji) Temple and a Gurudwara.
Legals
Please look on the Members Area of The Arts Society website under Legal and Finance to view the Safeguarding Policy, Child Protection, and Copyright Guidance documents.
The Creative Commons Licence has now been applied to all the templates, and a copy of the Licence and an Advice Sheet added to the microsite - please see the relevant headings under the main Menu. Templates have been updated to a 2019 version with the CCL logo added. A revised Advice Sheet has now been issued detailing the meaning of each of the symbols comprising the CCL logo.
