Commitee Meeting Minutes

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Cecilian Society Committee Meeting 25/5/00

Present:

Apologies:

Special guests for one night only:

Correspondence

Susan has the form for signing over the chequebook to the new committee. Slight kerfuffle as the chequebook got lost at the dinner dance and was cancelled; the old one has since been found but of course is now useless. The new one has probably been delivered to 68 Hillhead St by now, but no-one has picked it up. Therefore we don’t currently have a chequebook, and even if we did no-one could competently sign cheques. Mark got an invoice for the radio mikes used in Oklahoma!, which hasn’t been paid as there was no chequebook. JP picked up two bank statements from 68 Hillhead Street. They were given to Sophie, who will give them to Lorna. Mark later revealed that he in fact still has the books and needs those statements to square them up, but he wasn’t listening at the time.

Contact Details for the committee were written down - names, addresses, phone numbers & email. The list will be put to some competent use, presumably a copy being distributed to each committee member. The list was also to include information re: the availability of each member over the summer. Ewan will put such details onto the website. Thursdays are generally a good day for committee meetings, as everybody turned up, so we’ll stick with them, despite the heinous clash with Eastenders.

Committee "mission brief"-type documents were to be compiled by the people holding each of the title offices on the committee last year. Somewhere between mentioning this and the start of the proper discussion thereof, Susan mentioned that Andy Walker had complained about something, but no-one was particularly surprised or interested.

Committee posts:

• Web Page / Publicity. This was done by Ian last year. It was agreed that people should WANT to visit our website regularly! Laura suggested a system similar to that of the Swimming Club, all of whom are addicted to the bulletin board on their website. This received a lukewarm response. The website should be used for publicising the society generally, specifically auditions and performances of shows. It was suggested that minutes of committee meetings should be put on the website; this was seen as a Good Thing. Similarly the Constitution of the Society WILL be placed on the website. No time frame therefor was set though.
  Further suggestions for use of the web site were:
  • Links to related useful websites (eg "Everything You’ve Ever Wanted To Know About Oklahoma!"; libretti for current productions, etc)
  • Committee details, NOT including photos of members, but possibly involving caricatures as drawn by Nicky, should she wish to (she did).
  • Societal history, especially Past Productions
  • Mention of the Honorary Members
  • Photos and links to other Cecilians’ pages, in particular that of David Doig
  • A guestbook? see Swimming Club, above.
  • later on, the suggestion of including a membership form and the wherewithal to submit it was mooted. An important issue was that of emailing the society. Who should be the point of contact? apparently we should have a "ucdf" address. Ian, Ewan and Nicky knew what that meant; Sam and Mark pretended to; and everybody else got bored, Laura vociferously so. Susan suggested that email be the preferred method for cast members notifying us that they won’t be able to come to rehearsals; no-one disagreed. Ian and Ewan submitted that it was bad to have actual email addresses on the web page as spam would be unavoidable; Johnny suggested a way round this which sounded ingenious to the technically uninitiated amongst us (ie me). Ewan suggested that "Stupid People" would then find it a problem to contact us. Ian said that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Anyway, Ian’s other job was Music Club Liaison. The Music Club are notoriously rubbish at Organisation, but Ian will attempt to whip them into shape in his capacity as a board member thereof. JP suggested that as well as the Music Club, closer links with STAG would be a good idea, as what they do is actually much closer to our objectives than those of the Music Club. It was agreed that in principle we should be closer to STAG, but nobody wanted to volunteer to actually do it. (and most of them didn’t even SEE that Catcher In The Rye play).

• University Affairs. This was JP’s job last year but sadly his great enthusiasm for it doesn’t seem to have rubbed off on those currently jostling for positions on the new committee. It involves booking rooms for rehearsals primarily, and contacting the University and the Unions when the need arises. The holder of the post should also be in charge of offering complimentary tickets to those who require them, and affiliating the Society to the SRC. At this point Mark pointed out that JP had also been in charge of room bookings; obviously he was still paying as much attention as last time. Other jobs done by JP (it’s getting confusing referring to myself in the 3rd person) included getting contracts & perusal material etc from Weinberger, MusicScope and the like (a job which didn’t seem to belong properly to anybody last year), and sorting out the office in 68 Hillhead Street and taking an inventory of our costumes etc. Other jobs which should fall under University Affairs include contacting GUST, the Guardian, SubCity etc for publicity purposes. It was complained by several people that GUST is crap and no-one EVER listens to SubCity, but it was submitted that we have a civic duty to involve ourselves in other societies and institutions of the University, and at the very worst if we go and do a 5-minute stint on GUST we should be able to flog some tickets to the cameraman. Also in JP’s notes, but not overtly referred to in the meeting, is the suggestion that if we want a STAG liaison then it really falls as part of the University Affairs brief. Also, there is an Idiot’s Guide To Contacting Glasgow University available from JP for the princely sum of... no pence.

• President. Sam has written some stuff down which he has discussed, and will discuss, with Ian.

• Company Manager. The key point here is that the Company Manager is a POINT OF CONTACT, between the production team and the cast, between the theatre and the production team, between the stage manager and the alto with a torn skirt. It is a producer-esque role. S/he also deals with hiring the Theatre and liaising therewith is a total pain, but very important. Randomly also must deal with catering during show week, presentations to the production team, etc. Should also be in charge of collecting scripts and sending them back, etc. The point of contact thing was repeated again and again by more or less everybody, including Mark, though it was unclear whether he thought it was important and warranted reiterating or simply hadn’t been listening the first time.

• Membership. Last year proved clearly that the membership person MUST be in Scotland in the period leading up to the Fresher’s Fayre! Our stall always attracts more new members than anyone else, but we have the capacity to make it spectacular very easily, and we really should. We must latch onto new members like leeches and ensure that they come to rehearsals. Contacting them is a bugger as at the Fayre they don’t have matric numbers yet. Armed with a list of 170 names, it is (unfortunately) the job of the Membership person to sit and work through the university email directory and find out what everyone’s address is. There is a long gap between the Fresher’s Fayre and the first meeting of the cast; various methods of combating resultant apathy were mooted. Robbie suggested following IO’s method of taking all the Freshers out for a meal during Fresher’s week; importantly this should NOT involve cliquey old members but should only be eg the committee genuinely trying to get to know new members. We have lost the current membership list, which will be problematic for our SRC grant. Nicky and Sarah will both search for it. The email distribution list could have fallen into any of the preceding categories, but as Nicky currently maintains it it was suggested that she continue to do so. This is dependent on her continued future internet access. VERY IMPORTANT: everybody MUST be a member during show week or they aren’t insured! Also, insurance tends to run out the week before the show so we must make sure we remember to renew it timeously.

• Social Convenor. This job had very high and very low points over the past year. Fresher’s week was a disaster. There was no club night, but then no new members ever come to it anyway. The Hallowe’en party was fairly good but again it is slightly intimidating to be invited to the house of a person you hardly know, dressed in funny clothes, when you’re sure that everyone who is there already WILL know each other. It was suggested that we could hire a room in a pub; several other Hallowe’en-related suggestions were made and indeed costumes were being planned before Ian realised we were getting severely OT and brought things to order. The St Andrew’s Night ceilidh was a resounding success (probably due to the non-involvement of someone’s house). The Casino night was good and enjoyed by the new members who did come, but again there wasn’t as big a turnout as might have been hoped. Burns’ night ceilidh was pish; it was unwisely planned to clash with most of the exams in the University. Show week social events were generally good, except for the fact that we lost money on the curry night. The Dinner Dance was excellent. Last year’s end-of-year event was rubbish, so this year’s had better be good. Susan suggested that we should try new ideas - suggestions included a Talent show and, laudably from Robbie, going to karaoke after rehearsals! Especially on Sundays when Jim’s is hoaching due to Unplugged. Ewan suggested we should consider some non-pub venues for the non-pub-going members of the society, though he produced no evidence that such members exist. The main thrust of the social conversation which became a Society-generally discussion is that we must be at great pains not to be cliquey. Someone (I think it was Laura or Anne) suggested that a reunion for old members should take place a few days before the first rehearsal, so all the "we did a show last year, it was great, you’ve cut your hair, I went to Ibiza" stuff is out of the way and we can all spend the first rehearsal Getting To Know You. Getting to know all about you. Getting to like you; getting to hope you like me. No-one suggested the singing of selections from The King And I, but I think it could only be a good thing. Another suggestion was that the first rehearsal be actively NOT a rehearsal but a big warm-up game etc. The danger with this was held to be that people who are actually there to Act, Sing or Dance will get pissed off and leave, and then when we start doing proper work the remaining wasters will all drop out, leaving us with a cast of 10. Nicky suggested a 3-legged pub crawl, at which point the "specific ideas" part of the discussion was held over till the next meeting. Susan has contact details etc for pubs, clubs, the Ticket Centre, etc which she will give to the new Social convenor.

• Vice President. This person should deal with the Honorary members, sending them 4 newsletters a year, and Christmas cards, and inviting them to the dinner dance. Associate members don’t currently exist, but we keep saying "we should do something about that". Lisa also became the Society Press Officer last year; was she the most appropriate person for that job? V-P must "be" the President if the actual Prez is unavailable.

  Sam suggested at this point that the next meeting or one very soon MUST involve discussion of the Honorary President (who has wanted to retire for several years now) and plans for 2002 (the 50th anniversary).

  Lisa spent several minutes telling Susan other salient V-P-related points, to which we all listened attentively.

• Treasurer deals with money. Sam suggested that we should have the sign-over forms for the chequebook AT the AGM so it can be done immediately. Susan said that any new signatories who DON’T have a Bank of Scotland account have to bring ID with them. We don’t know what the Society’s official address is: the Bank currently use 68 Hillhead St, though we’re planning to change it to be the home address of the current Treasurer, but what about other things?

• Advertising - in Gregor’s absence, this was briefly mentioned. This must be thought of well in advance of the show as our productions tend to be toward the very end of the financial year when advertising budgets are all spent. It also tends to involve organising postering and flyering, though perhaps this should be a separate job.

Laura suggested that no-one should pay any attention any more when Ewan mentions the fact that he doesn’t want more men in the society, as everybody else does and he’s just being horny.

Sarah randomly interjected that the Crawfurd is crap and we should try to get the Mitchell instead.

The new committee has sorted out posts between them as follows:
President: Ian
Secretary: Gregor
Vice-President: Susan
Treasurer: Lorna
Web editor: Ewan
Advertising: Johnny (God bless him)
Membership: Anne and Sophie
Social: Tony and Mark
Publicity: No-one As Yet (not sure if it is a separate job anyway)
Company Manager: Nicky
University Affairs: no-one (JP until he goes to Spain, but someone else should really be finding out what the job entails)

People still without jobs were: Sam and Laura. Laura wants to be Nicky’s Assistant Company Manager, though the need for such a post was deemed debatable by Robbie and Ian. Sam doesn’t seem to want an actual job.

The next meeting will be OPEN to ALL members, and will involve extensive (yay) discussion of Spring, Summer/Autumn and possibly Winter shows.

Robbie presented the committee with several suggestions for the future, as he is going away forever.

• Summer shows are financially viable "training grounds" for those without experience who want to direct, MD, etc. Suggested budget of <£1500. Creativity is to be encouraged; minimalism is the new more. Specific suggestion of rehearsing principals over the summer and adding in a chorus of new and returning members, rehearsed over a week or so to perform in week 1. But again the possibility of doing shows which require a smaller cast is a good one.
• "good" bands are over-rated. Spending a little less on players who are less far up their own backsides will probably be a good thing, and certainly a cheaper option. Even approaching school and youth orchestras (particularly in Glasgow, Ayrshire and North Lanarkshire) would be a good idea, and might even be free! WE MUST REMEMBER TO THANK THE BAND. Pre-recorded music was suggested as a viable alternative to live band; the look on Ian’s face was priceless.
• The Crawfurd is the best we can afford, but we should be thinking about more creative venues - Cottiers, Gilmorehill, etc.
• Fundraising- the show is currently our sole source of income, which is not good. Jumble sales, sponsored events, provided they actually happen - the jelly-wrestling non-event of the social calendar has entered Cecilian legend, and takes its rightful place beside The Pajama Game Story, The Time Fraser Dropped A Light On Someone’s Head, Or A Curtain Depending Who You Speak To, or similar age-old tales. More importantly, a decent Patron scheme, Associate Member scheme, etc. Lottery grants?
• Honorary members, esp President, should be high-profile and active. Patrons could be famous people who can lend their name or past members who give their time or money. Preferably money.
• Being progressive is good; especially if it means doing more shows like Forbidden Planet and less G&S.

Bye, Robbie! we will miss you.

The meeting officially closed at 20:45. It was unofficially reconvened in the pub, where the Reason For Existence Of The Society was discussed, the Merits Of A Summer Show / Autumn Show / Weekend Show / Panto etc all mentioned. Susan was very active in defence of those with little experience who wished to gain such experience of direction etc and suggested that weekend shows etc were an ideal place to do this; similarly they offered a chance eg for people who are normally in the chorus to do costume, for stage hands to dance, etc.

p.s. There will be a barbeque sometime near the end of June, to be organised by Tony, probably at Loch Lomond? but with JP's house as a back-up plan.