Hello fellow members.  At last I have got round to writing a piece for the Website to replace the letter from our last Secretary, Neil Micklewright.  I’m afraid I was not a member when Neil was in post so I can’t speak from my own experience but to all accounts and purposes, he did a very good job and our thanks must go to him for the time he spent on our behalf. My own introduction to marquetry came when I visited a show put on by the Guild of Essex Craftsmen several years ago and was drawn to the marquetry display.  Having always liked the touch and feel of wooden objects, from old church pews to modern turned objects, I was fascinated by the skill that went into making pictures and applied pieces with marquetry.  At the time I was heavily involved with the Girlguiding movement and co-ordinating the century celebrations for Essex so didn’t have enough time for taking on anything new but I went back to the show once that had been completed and was persuaded that ‘anyone can do it’.  I had my doubts about that but along I went to the Chelmsford Group meeting and found that within a short space of time, a reasonable result could be achieved.  I soon became hooked.

Janet Edwards Our Minutes. Sec

I am also one of those people that can’t just join a club or group and that’s it – I have to get involved  - so it wasn’t long before I was helping at the 60th Anniversary International Exhibition at Ingatestone Hall and taking on the role of secretary at the group. In 2013 I was asked to take the minutes at the Society’s AGM at Stoke and before that meeting had ended I had been elected as your Hon. Secretary.  The role has been very interesting so far;  I take the minutes at the committee meetings and receive enquiries from members and non-members alike through the website.

For those people that practice marquetry but have not joined the Society, I would recommend that they do so.  The annual subscription is very reasonable and apart from being able to enter the exhibition each year, they will receive a quarterly magazine containing a wealth of useful information and many pictures of the exhibition entries, which is in full colour and delivered right to their door. 

They will also be able to enter the members’ area of this website where they will find a comprehensive library of copyright free images suitable for marquetry.  Very good value for the money.
Please keep in touch with your thoughts, enquiries and general news.  By sharing what we do through the magazine, we all feel a little less remote and part of something special.

Janet Edwards – Minutes Sec.

And now meet your Web Secretary

A message of welcome from our friendly Web Sec

Copyright Information

Part 1: General Rules.

It is the policy of the Marquetry Society never to infringe any copyright holder's ownership rights in any way or form by knowingly displaying a copyright protected work on their web site, or in any of their publications, without the consent of the copyright holder.

If a copyright holder feels, however, that we may have compromised their position by inadvertently displaying a piece that may, or could, be viewed as possibly contravening their title of copyright over the work; would they please bring this to our attention by contacting us in the first instance via the e-mail links they will find on this web site.

We will then do our utmost to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, to the complete satisfaction of each party concerned. Any such item thus in dispute shall be removed from the web site while the infringement is being investigated and an appropriate notice shall be displayed in its place until the problem is amicably resolved.

Part 2: Our initial procedures to correctly attribute recognition to the originator of a design.

If any potentially displayable marquetry work gives us grounds to consider that it could (or may) possibly have been copied (in marquetry form) from the original work of another person or artist (in whatever form they had chosen to use) and it has not already been granted permission for use, then the following procedure will be applied by us.

Any works displayed on our website or in any of our publications which could (or may look like it has in our opinion) have potentially been copied in marquetry form and adapted to the marquetry format from a (or any) copyright holder's original work and, despite the marquetarian in question's best efforts to communicate with the said (or any) copyright holder in order to attain permission to reproduce the work in marquetry form, has failed to materialise a response from the (or any) copyright holder, be it that they are no longer contactable using standard procedures, we will do our utmost to attribute appropriately the correct information regarding the original artist or designer (in any form) to the marquetry work in question.

Either of the following wordings will be added to the text accompanying the work in question until the (or any) copyright holder contacts us with whatever appropriate wording they would prefer us to use ('unknown' in these two wordings being a holder word pending communication from the original artist or their representative).

Part 3: Definition of our exhibits as applied to copyright status.

None of the marquetry works displayed in our exhibition galleries are, or were ever intended to be produced or reproduced for commercial purposes or for profitable gain in any way whatsoever.

Each and every exhibit is hand crafted in the marquetry medium of wood veneers and is intended to be seen and displayed as each respective marquetarian’s interpretation (in the medium of marquetry) of a given or chosen subject as selected by the aforesaid marquetarian.

Every marquetry work displayed in our galleries is produced as a ‘one off’ and is intended to be ultimately retained in its creator’s own personal collection (‘one off’ in this description being a singular piece of work which is not profitably reproducible by commercially viable methods)

Each and every marquetry piece displayed in our galleries will have been made as a labour of love for our marquetry craft and not in any way intended for purposes of a commercial nature. Our exhibition and competition rules forbid the entry of commercial marquetry pieces.

The design chosen by each respective marquetarian will have been chosen as their humble interpretation of a chosen and favoured design to be crafted in the medium of marquetry.

No commercial or profitable or multiple reproductions in marquetry of any design will ever be knowingly displayed in our galleries. If ever such an exhibit was found to have been displayed in any of our galleries, despite our rigorous checks to avoid such things, and this was subsequently brought to our attention, we would immediately (within practical limitations) upon being contacted, remove the offending piece from display on our website and a suitable apology would be displayed in its place.

The Marquetry Society recognises and places great value on respecting copyright holders rights regarding their own work. We will not knowingly set out to cause any dispute and will do all we can to resolve any such issues as quickly as possible to everyone's satisfaction.

Web Site Settings

This web site has been optimised for viewing at 1280 x 800 pixel screen resolution. Other resolutions may expand or contract the content of the pages that you view on screen, however, the layout and general appearance should remain consistent.

The web site has also been optimised for maximum compatibility with the web browser Internet Explorer (using the 'Compatibility View' setting in the very latest versions). It will also operate quite satisfactorily with other popular browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, Safari, etc, but some of its functionality may be slightly compromised, such as "pop up comments" and unintended border color effects and/or dimensions. But, basically, it should still prove satisfactory in any browser. Please let us know if you experience any other problems with this site in the particular browser that you favor.