History of The Arts Society – Trent Valley

The Arts Society can trace its story back to 1965 and the formation of the Chiltern Antiques Group, founded by Patricia Fay and a pioneering group of young women eager to be educated about the arts. Their vision was to bring specialist lecturers to meetings and to arrange visits to exhibitions, historic houses and gardens.  It was immediately successful and just a few years later, in 1968, eleven such societies came together to form the National Association of Decorative & Fine Arts Societies (NADFAS).

In the 1970s NADFAS became a registered charity and underwent a period of rapid expansion with the creation of many new societies across the UK and abroad.  

After 50 years, the organisation needed to evolve to keep up with changing times in order to reach out to more people in more places and so, in 2017 following a major rebranding exercise, The Arts Society replaced NADFAS as our operating name. The Arts Society has become a leading arts education charity with a global network of around 350 local societies. It is an organisation for everyone who appreciates the arts in all their various forms.

TAS Trent Valley opened its doors in 2016, following the demise of the Rushcliffe evening group.  Grange Hall in Radcliffe-on-Trent was chosen as our venue, and the name Trent Valley agreed upon because it identified the society and where it belonged.  We now have around 250 members.  We have an interesting lecture programme, and organise social events, outings and study days, which are popular and well-attended.

Trent Valley has a thriving committee which meets once every 2 months to ensure the society is doing all it can for its members.

We are always looking for members to help occasionally in a variety of ways, or become more involved with committee work.  In particular, we appreciate help with collecting the lecturer from the station, taking the lecturer to lunch after the talk, and joining the coffee rota. If you are interested, please contact any Committee member.