The Workers Educational Association is the UK’s oldest and largest provider of adult education courses in the voluntary sector. The Association was formed in 1903 and operates through local branches across the UK. The Bridport Branch will soon celebrate its 100th anniversary.
Through its specialist tutors the WEA provides a diverse programme of courses covering the arts, archaeology, and industrial history, to name but a few. Perhaps some of the most famous students to benefit from a WEA course were the Northumberland miners who attended an art appreciation course organised through the Ashington Branch in 1934. They soon abandoned the theory and began to paint prolifically attracting patronage and having their work acquired by prestigious collectors. Celebrated in the book and now a play, the “Pitmen Painters” continued to work in the mines during the day and painted in the evenings. A permanent exhibition of the paintings they considered to represent their best work is on display at the Woodhorn Museum in Ashington.
The Bridport Branch programme for 2013 / 14 offers courses on the Language of Art, the Arts and Crafts Movement, Modernism and European Cinema, and Goya and Wellington. Brochures will shortly be available in Bridport Library and the Arts Centre. Details can also be obtained from the WEA website www.wea-sw.org.uk or by phoning 01308 424390. New students are always welcome.
If the Branch is to continue to run courses, we need to recruit a new Secretary to start in November or sooner if possible. This is a role that could be shared and anyone interested or seeking further information should contact Fern Allum, the outgoing Secretary, on 01308 424390 or bridportwea@yahoo.co.uk. Alternatively you can phone our Chairman, Matthew Beeching, on 01308 421381, or contact Gill Keniston-Goble, our Learning Manager from the WEA, by email gkeniston-goble@wea.org.uk or phone 07920 072332.
