Hon. Chairman - Florrie Holland

Florrie has been the Chairman of the Southend Arts Council for a number of years and thoroughly enjoys her role as ambassador for the amateur arts groups of the Southend Borough. Southend on Sea is fortunate to have a thriving and diverse Arts scene and Florrie remains proud to play a part in this.

Florrie has been involved in local arts one way and another for over forty years. She has been a member of the Westcliff Operatic Society as well as the Southend Festival Chorus, but her first love is drama. She is currently a member of the Pier Players and appears regularly at the drama festival.

She has won numerous awards for her acting - the most recent being at the 2002 Thurrock Festival for Best Comedy Performance. Florrie in her capacity as Chairman of the Southend Arts Council is a member of the Southend Fund Committee, instigated to look after the interests of Arts in Southend Borough.

Hon. Secretary - Steve McCartney

Steve became Secretary a few years ago and is thoroughly enjoying the challenges presented by the post, he is often the central contact for enquiries and all things IT related. He is enthusiastic about the work of the Arts Council. As well as attending the regular committee meetings, he also edits the quarterly newsletter and manages the very busy website. More recently he has been compiling a more up to date Arts Organisation database resulting in the Arts Organisation booklet recently published.

Hon. Treasurer -Trevor Bason

Trevor returns to this post within the Arts Council having served in this role previously, the committee are pleased to have his considerable experience controlling the financial course of the Arts Council.

Written Word - Simon Woodward

Though having an interest in writing at school and dabbling a bit whilst he was working in London it wasn’t until 2004 when Simon Woodward’s interest really took off when he decided to write a book for his daughters as a Christmas present. 

From there everything escalated; finishing the book, sending it to a professional editing agency, being told it needed a lot of re-work, taking beginning and advanced creative writing courses through Southend’s Adult education college, re-writing the book, getting an agent, having the book published, becoming involved in Southend Book Fair, starting a writing group with course members, publishing four anthologies of short stories and poetry with Writers Anonymous writing group, completing a screen writing course and finally being given the opportunity to represent the Written Word on the Arts Council in 2010. 

The Arts Council does great work and Simon Woodward is hoping to expand knowledge of the council and its activities within the whole spectrum of artistic expression, to writers and authors within the borough of Southend.

Music -Mary Porter

Mary was born and grew up here in Southend on Sea. She has been married 42 years and has a grown up family. Her love of music has been life long. she has always supported music here in Southend.

Her particular interest is choral music. She sings in four local choirs including my church choir at St Mary's Prittlewell and was one of the first ladies to be admitted into the then all-male choir. She has recently retired as the Honorary Secretary to the Southend Festival Chorus where she had held the post for twenty years.

She has been attending concerts in various capacities from making tea to selling programmes for many years. In her capacity of music representative on the Southend Arts Council and she always endeavours to get to at least one performance of each Southend Arts Council member society each season.

Drama - Steve McCartney

Steve has been involved in Amateur Dramatics in Southend Borough for the past 19 years he started out with Trinity Players before later moving more ambitiously to Southend Shakespeare Company where he enjoyed acting and directing the classics.

He has served as both Chairman and Secretary of Lindisfarne Players since 1996 where he has played in numerous productions and directed the groups recent productions of 'Out Of Order', 'The Graduate' and 'The Talented Mr Ripley'.

He joined the committee of the Southend Arts Council in 2001 and he is currently working hard behind the scenes on the Arts Council web site and is also editor of the quarterly newsletter.

Visual Arts - Gina Warner

Gina has been interested in art since an early age, painting mainly for pleasure and the many commissions undertaken while working from home. Only taking art seriously after her family grew up, going on to study art at Southend Adult Education Centre, gaining an ‘A’ level Art in 1987.

She has won prizes for Best Painting Visual Arts 2005 and 2008, 1st prize at the Cliffs Pavilion Action Research exhibition in 2004, and received commendations for national competitions, and Best Painting 4 times locally. She is the representative for Visual Arts on Southend Arts Council.