Hi from Don and Joanne,

So, it’s officially Spring! Primroses, daffodils, new bleating lambs and birds in blue skies are here again. But if not quite yet, there’s always the Clydevalley Showcase ready, as ever, to nourish your senses! We have a photograph by Billy Quigley, a painting by Douglas Davies, an etched crystal vase by Mairi Howat, a fun/scary song by John Young, a poem about Brownsbank Cottage by Grace Sim and an essay by Tom Bryan, the new writer-in-residence at Brownsbank. Thank you to all of these contributors.

This is the time of year when groups hold their AGM and committee personnel change. Please, as usual, let us know if you have a new contact person for us and when your group takes a break? We have updated our events listings till the end of June, but some groups may already have mapped out their programme for the rest of the year.

The new Discussion Forum is in place and so far ten people have registered with the group. There have only been a few messages posted so far. Our idea for the Forum is that it gives people engaged in creative activities the opportunity to share ideas and to discuss anything at all to do with these activities. We thought a review of a concert or exhibition would be generally interesting. An appeal for more members for your group could bring results. An appeal for help with an idea for a creative project, could elicit support. But just register, by clicking on the Forum link, and post your own thoughts and ideas. Let’s get the Forum going.

You may have seen announcements that South Lanarkshire Council is compiling a new rural arts directory – Landward Arts. This is good news for the creative arts. We congratulate the council for taking on this project. Read more about it on Notice Board. We'll put up a link to the site on our links page.

We would be glad of any work you would like to send us to feature in Showcase, particularly short stories and poems. Please keep them coming. And all the best for Easter. Hopefully better weather will have arrived by then.

Joanne and Don