EASTERN OPEN
Some of our artists and supporters have already noticed the absence of the Eastern Open from our programme this year and we wanted to explain. 2015 would have been the 46th occurrence of this annual exhibition for 7 counties of the Eastern Region and so it has been a difficult decision to cease offering the competition. However, over the past few years the take-up for the exhibition by artists has decreased, whilst the costs for running it have increased. Although Sponsors have been good enough to cover significant cash awards, these have gone directly to artists and have not helped to cover the costs of organising and running such a major competition. As an independent charitable trust, we have a duty to be cautious and the Eastern Open had become a drain on our resources. We shall review the situation for 2016 and apologise for the disappointment of those artists who have been loyal over many years.
