After many months of dreaming, talking and building, the official launch day for the Association of British Botanical Artists is here. I write this with the countdown clock is showing 0 days to go until the 21st March. A date deliberately chosen to coincide with the first day of spring, a new association and a new season.
As with the founding of any new group it's not obvious what is going on underneath the surface - the ducks paddling / ice berg thing. The simple things take so much time.
We are also trialing some innovative ways of both presenting our members botanical artwork in the ABBA Gallery so we will be really interested in Members feedback. A new twist is "crowd sourcing" resources like courses, artists, groups and materials. This is where our members can directly add these to our website for the benefit of their fellow members.
ABBA TV is also something new where we again "crowd source" the best online videos about botanical art or other relevant videos that could be useful for members at any level.
For communication we have the simple ABBA email address, our Blog which is right on the front page and this forum. Only members can add to the forum but this is a voice for all our members so please feel free to use it.
One of our key founding principles was that ABBA members wanted to engage locally and to this end we have tried to provide the means for this to happen by via online tools and crucially, developing the idea of ABBA Champions who will act as the contact and facilitator of local initiatives. We encourage all our members to engage with these key people and if you would like to become a local champion please contact the ABBA Team. It would be great to have more than one local champion.
Since our members are so widely distributed we would love you to let the rest of the ABBA family know what you are doing so use your regional forum to promote your local initiatives and post on this forum for items about ABBA in general.
It's your ABBA - engage, enhance enjoy.
The ABBA Team