AGM - Minutes - 16/06/17

for anyone in the orchestra or choir to air views and find out about stuff
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BrotherWetlands
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Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2014 1:35 pm

AGM - Minutes - 16/06/17

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Bristol Fantasy Orchestra AGM - 16th June 2017

Welcome to the group from Jesse and presentation of awards.
Review of the Year since our last AGM; Discussion of our favourite gigs and suggestions for moving forward - “It would be nice to do the Wardrobe Gig (04.06.17) ensemble tunes with the whole orchestra” - agreed by all who played.

FINANCES with STAN!
Regarding payment from the gigs we’ve played, we’re a bit behind but the printed figures don’t include The Wardrobe and Kingsweston House.
For the first time, we have a surplus for rehearsal payments! Due to asking people to pay for a whole term (rather than on the day) and encouraging Standing Orders.
Discussion of the Membership List - currently 77 members @ £20 a year (£10 if they join in the 2nd half of the year). People go onto the membership list after attending their first rehearsal and are asked to join and pay after their second.
Steve Choir is still the Membership Secretary but Jesse says that he’s been doing most of it this year.
There’s roughly £1,500.00 in the kitty.
Stan invites anyone willing to do an audit of his figures. Steph and Nick expressed an interest (but only with the guarantee of wine).
Stan suggests a £500 Destitution Buffer, agreed by the group. That leaves us £1K to spend on something (kit/fancy-dress/a van/individual lessons/recording an album/subsidising gigs/upgrading the website?). Stan says no to website investment; he’s planning something with Jon Rolfe - see below.
We have joined Making Music in order to qualify for Public Liabilities Insurance.
This will also qualify us for tax relief if we establish a “Fantasy Orchestra Performance Ltd” company, hired by the Orchestra for gigs. Accounting is a bit more complicated and it costs around £20 to establish but it may have benefits in the long-run.

PROMOTIONS
Twitter - Nick R. is maintaining the account but we have a pretty small followship and not many members actually use it, so few retweets.
Regarding the website blurb - Is it to entice new members or to bag gigs?
Press pack - overall feeling is that we need to keep it updated with upcoming gigs, recent photos and videos. Nick is doing his best to maintain the video/audio/photo archive but it’s slow work and the various file formats can be a pain. It would be nice to get audience members to send us their videos - do we need an orchestra banner at gigs with contact/twitter/email/joining details? Jonny expressed an interest in making one.
Agreement that membership takes care of itself (people joining make up for those that leave) - maybe print off a couple of hundred business cards? - but having a “package” to give to festivals/journos would be great.
Several people praised Maeve’s press pack that got us the Green Man Festival gig. Camille put one together to try and get us a Shambala Festival set but she felt that it fell a bit flat. We discussed how best to word our submissions.
Martin is a journalist. Suggested having a Press Package with featured band members and their “Stories”.
Shall we dedicate a slice of budget for posters/fliers for the gigs that we’re promoting ourselves?
The Evening Post is a tough nut to crack. We were all impressed with the BBC West crew who filmed the Bear Pit Flash Mob - can we stay in touch with them?
Jesse has paid for Facebook Promoted Ads for our gigs.
Steph has been doing Headfirst Bristol posts.
Nick feels that the current Wordpress website needs an upgrade, even with it on the new server. Very slow uploads.
Stan feels that there are too many separate “platforms” to check for gig/rehearsal schedules; Facebook (Band page and Event page)/the forum/the score directory/via email.
He’s chatted to Jon Rolfe about developing a Fantasy App that sends notifications to member’s phones via their preferred platform. Could be expanded to include fans too. They need feedback from the group as to content. They’re sitting down in the Autumn to work on it.
Camille doesn’t like that the public can see our Group Facebook messages. Jesse will change the settings to a “Study Group” to solve this.

COMMITTEE POSTS (changes in brackets)

MUSICAL DIRECTOR - Jesse
ORCHESTRA LEADER - Dave Insua-Cao
CHOIR LEADER - Georgina
TREASURER - Stan
CHAIR - Kathleen (was Lisa Muller)
MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY (Orchestra) - Jonnie Raynes
MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY (Choir) - Ruth Coleman/Georgina
PRESS OFFICER - Martin Urmson
SOCIAL OFFICERS - Ruth Coleman/Camille (was Banga)
ARCHIVIST - Nick Riddle
EMAIL COORDINATOR - Steph
REHEARSAL BOOKINGS (Orchestra) - Ole Rudd
REHEARSAL BOOKINGS (Choir) - Camille

ANY OTHER BUSINESS

Dave suggested if any members would like to take any grades, either on their first instrument or an unfamiliar one. We could do it as a charity drive; “sponsor me £5 to take my Grade 8”.
More suggestions of Orchestra & Choir joint rehearsals; first Tuesday rehearsal of the month? George feels that, given the number of gigs we have coming up and the amount of new material, there would be less benefit for the choir given that they can’t get as much done in a joint rehearsal.
Steve suggested that the choir come to our Monday Mivart Street rehearsals instead, then having their normal Tuesday meet-up the next day. George likes the idea but worries that many wouldn’t be able to do both in one week.

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