In 2004 Woodend Arts Association celebrated the tenth anniversary of its foundation. The Management Committee planned to commemorate the occasion by commissioning a short history by an independent professional historian, and offered a contract to Dr Joyce Walker of Aberdeen University. Sadly, her work on this was repeatedly delayed by her ill-health and other unavoidable problems, and early in 2005 Dr Walker reluctantly felt obliged to withdraw.
At this stage the Management Committee agreed that I should try to fill the gap. I am a professional historian, but not an independent one. My wife, Sheila, and I were both deeply involved in the Crathes 92 project which led to the formation of the Association, and subsequently I served for a time as Secretary to the Management Committee. We have also both been engaged in one way or another in several of the Association's artistic projects. So I cannot claim such detachment as might be expected to go with my professorial hat! But after Dr Walker's withdrawal I agreed to try to combine personal memories with historical perspective, supported by a fairly rapid review of the Association's archives, and by consultation with former colleagues. I hope that this story of WAA will interest many people in lower Deeside, and may also be useful to readers elsewhere in Scotland with interests in the arts especially to any who may be willing to face similar problems in developing structures for their support.
Woodend began, and has remained, as a community project. The Arts Centre could not have been created without the dozens of enthusiastic volunteers who gave their services, whether unskilled or highly skilled, to a project in which they had faith. Many of these are identified in this history, but it would have been impractical to name them all. As the responsible author I apologise to any who feel their own contribution has been omitted or under-valued.
I wish to record the gratitude of the Association to Dr Walker who generously made available notes and transcripts of the research she had already completed, and to Fiona and Mark Hope, for their careful reading and emendation of chapters 4 and 5, and for their encouragement throughout. I also owe a great debt to Sheila, whose insight and energy have been essential in this, as in all our joint enterprises.
John Hargreaves.
Banchory, October 2005
A printed version of this may be bought at the barn office for £5, discounted to £4 to Friends of WAA