Friends of Bedlam AGM - Saturday 25th August 2007, Cloisters Bar Edinburgh
Present:
Al Broom (FoB Chair), Richard Lace (FoB Treasurer), Jo Deponio (FoB Committee), Chris Fleming (FoB Committee), Rachel Fleming, Steve Fryatt, Dave Larkin, Bex Stackhouse, Richard Hogg, Vic Tills, Cat Smith, Lucy Jackson (EUTC President)
Apologies:
Nat Adzic (decorating her wedding cake), Graeme Timms (at the rugby)
Meeting opened 5.15pm
Previous Minutes:
The minutes of the 2006 AGM were approved as an accurate account of meeting.
Matters Arising:
Did a poster ever go up in Bedlam ? - No, the Chair attended EUTC company meetings to promote FoB and funding.
Chairs Report:
Year of somewhat stagnation. Didn’t hold London gathering despite getting venue together. Need secondary networking in London to make work. Decision to make London gathering bi-annual.
Newsletter not published due to ChrisC and Al not getting it together.
- There are 529 patrons on mailing list – up from 483 last year
- Show database lists 839 shows – up from 831. Need to archive current EUTC shows
- Database tracks 3521 individuals tracked – up from 3445
Not a large no. of requests for funding from EUTC. £225 for bench drill and £300 requested for van hire for NSDF show but not yet awarded. EUTC members present confirm that funding was found from other sources
Need new motivation, new people. A crisis would help!
Chat on improving things under AOCB
Treasurers Report:
Haven’t spent anything this year £825 in FoB Bank account. Approx. £5,500 in alumni account. Amounts owing to Chris Cooke, Al Broom & Joanne Deponio
Direct debits started 3 years ago with Dev & Alumni will now expire. Need to be better at renewing memberships and recruiting from students graduated more than 1 year ago. Re-start issuing flyers to leaving students. Get email list from EUTC to target. Could also target visiting fringe companies for corporate memberships
Secretary’s Report:
We don’t have one and we need one!
EUTC Report
EUTC President Lucy Jackson – 2 shows went to NSDF and won awards. Mainterm audiences not as hoped but action being taken next year. Good Freshers Week with lots of enthusiastic new members Membership approx. 250. Need to keep people throughout the year, beyond Freshers Week.
Would be nice to do more productions outside Bedlam. Chair – anything FoB can do to help? Lucy – not yet but will let you know. Concern re. building works next door for lunchtime performances. Provisionally moved lunchtimes to evenings. Couple of ‘lunchtimes’ may not happen due to variety of reasons. Could put more freshers slots in. Offer to Lucy to talk to previous business managers re. how budgets and relationships have worked in previous years.
Election of Committee members
Chair thanks all Committee members for their work over the last year. Graeme Timms, Richard Lace, Joanne Deponio and Natalie Nazdic due to stand down after two years. Graeme and Natalie are not seeking re-election. 4 2-year positions available in addition to 1-year secretary position (to ensure not 5 standing down in 2 years).
Cat Smith, Dave Larking and Bex Stackhouse nominated for elections onto committee. Richard Lace and Joanne Deponio expressed desire to be re-elected.
Suspension of section 5.2 of the constitution (relating to using single-transferrable-voting to elect committee members) proposed by Chair and accepted by meeting
All nominated persons elected onto Committee and welcomed by Chair. As per constitution, the first committtee meeting after the AGM will define roles and responsibilities.
AOCB
1. Job descriptions for FoB committee:- Treasurer – relations with Alumni, liaise with secretary re. memberships, keep book of FoB accounts, track bank statements
- Secretary – contact new patrons to thank for joining, add new members to website, liaise with Treasurer re. membership contributions.
- Chair – everything else! Visiting EUTC meetings, monthly mailshot, push forward with London meetings and gathering. Need to delegate more...
Al and ChrisF will speak to Steve Fryatt and Dave Illsley re. joint communications
3. Relationship with Dev & Alumni needs resurrected
4. Membership needs looked at:
Need to go through current membership database and establish who is paying, who has paid and those registered who have never paid. Suggestion to just get together for a couple of hours and blast database. Cat, Rachel may be available to help committee. Could either do Sunday afternoon or before monthly Tuesday meeting.
5. Fringe company corporate memberships
6. Creative industries funding
European funding must be available to maximise creative and entrepreneurship opportunities within EUTC
7. Relationship between FoB and EUTC – Ideas…
- FoB funding could be used to increase profile within EUTC eg. Sponsor big show like the Panto, provide mulled wine.
- FoB could use EUTC parties to engage and spread the word
- EUTC may start monthly newsletter which FoB could receive and/or feed into.
- Cat and Richard volunteer to attend more company meetings – first to be held Monday 10 Sept.
- Suggestion that a list of Bedlamites who are willing to accept emails from current EUTC members to offer support or advice is created.
- Propose discussion between FoB and EUTC to progress idea of bringing ‘interesting’ ex-bedlamites back for workshop, or similar.
8. FoB funding to EUTC:
- Funding for shows outwith Bedlam previously declared.
- FoB could fund every lunchtime where the production team are staging a show for the first time or are in new roles.
- FoB could fund every freshers lunchtime slot
- FoB would welcome proposal from EUTC where FoB would support first-time teams. £400 has been put aside by FoB. Would help EUTC grow membership, encourage sustained involvement etc.
DONM
AGM - Saturday 23 August 2008, Cloisters Bar Edinburgh, 5pm.
Meeting closed 18.45
