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FOREWORDBelow Florian Schweizer with Betty Fooks, Chairman of Benahavis DFAS, and Maria Angeles Mena, Councillor for Culture, at the unveiling of a community artworkTHE ART OF GIVINGNADFAS Chief Executive Florian Schweizer explains how NADFAS helps communities here and abroadGiving is at the heart of NADFAS. Ever since our fi rst Constitution in 1968 stipulated that NADFAS should ‘give aid to the preservation of our national artistic heritage for the benefi t of the public’, our members have played a vital and active part in the cultural life of the communities around them. Today, their contributions are as important as ever. This supplement looks at how NADFAS members have developed volunteering into what I want to call the ‘Art of Giving’.NADFAS members give in so many ways: they volunteer their time on committees and boards; they help on a regular basis with the logistics of our association’s education programme; they donate their time to the thousands of external projects we enable every year; they make available funding and expertise to hundreds of good causes; and, through their membership, they make a contribution to arts education across many countries. In the past, our Volunteering Supplements have focused on the four disciplines of Church Recording, Church Trails, Heritage Volunteering and Young Arts. But with so much more volunteering activity within NADFAS now taking place, we also want to recognise some of the other ways in which our members give.Selecting a few examples from the thousands of NADFAS projects and activities is not easy. Every hour given by a NADFAS volunteer matters: the pleasure of our monthly lectures would be lessened without the volunteers who help with the coffee and tea – or glass of wine. Many communities would not have a NADFAS Society if it was not for the efforts of the Society committees, in combination with the New Society Team and Society Support Team and their advisors, volunteers who spend many days and weeks helping others to set up new – and support existing – Societies. Every year we award hundreds of grants, with NADFAS members giving their expertise and time to select worthy causes in need of funding. In this issue we have picked a few projects and volunteers whose contributions and efforts represent the thousands of people who make a difference through volunteering with and for NADFAS. NADFAS Founder Patricia Fay thought it was important to see that members are given more opportunity to ‘do’ rather than ‘look’ – no doubt in 2016 there is a lot to do, and a lot gets done. Societies make this happen. Their members give a great deal of time to the arts and heritage sector so it can grow and fl ourish; we volunteer in churches, museums, historic houses and gardens to support their work. Through these activites and more we carry a message about why art is important to the wider world. ■ “We are extremely grateful to Benahavis DFAS and its Chairman Betty Fooks for their contribution to this wonderful artwork which can now be enjoyed by everyone in the town.” MARIA ANGELES MENA COUNCILLOR FOR CULTURE, BENAHAVIS TOWN HALL, SPAINTHE ART OF GIVING — 03