Minutes: 19th October 2009

STaG Board Meeting

19^th October 2009

In attendance: H. Sloan, A. Blundell, R. Jones, S. Gregson, P. Mannion, M. J. O’Neill, L. Fenwick, T. MacKay, J. Dyer, K. Nesbitt, F. Andrew, A. Ralston, E. Burchhardt, T. Eaton.

Welcome everyone, esp. the First Years!

Agenda

1. Proposals
2. First Year Responsibilities
3. New Talent Nights De-brief
4. Community
5. Peribanez
6. STaG Nights
7. Website
8. Executive Meeting
9. AOB

1. Proposal

Brett Myres proposed Noel Coward’s play Present Laughter for the Studio. After much deliberation, it was agreed that Present Laughter will be performed in the Studio. A. Blundell will act as the Board Representative, and will make sure that the production flows smoothly. P. Mannion will write up the Board’s feedback for Brett in the coming week.

2. First Year Responsibilities

The First Year Ordinary Board Members and Ordinary Board Member were assigned responsibilities for the coming academic year. T. Eaton will explore different channels to find sponsorship, as STaG has not had a sponsor for a while now. E. Burckhardt will be responsible for arranging workshops and seeking out workshops that our members might be interested in. It was agreed that A. Ralston should also have some responsibilities too, and it was suggested that this could be communicating with other universities.

3. New Talent Nights De-brief

H. Sloan felt it was important to have a New Talent Nights De-brief to reflect on the positives and negatives of New Talent Nights and obtaining new members. The general opinion was that it had done well, but there were various problems and grievances that were flagged up:

• There was not enough social cohesion between casts. To remedy this, perhaps there could be a group warm-up, more emphasis on the After-show party, designated backstage area, run-through of the running order on the night.
• The technical benefits of Qudos were great, but the acoustics of the space need to be addressed.
• It was hard to keep Freshers to stick around after the evening had concluded. The small projects were useful for organising, but not for bonding between groups.
• The way in which we frame and present the society on these social nights is important. We need to appear professional. There should have been more board members on hand throughout both nights to make sure that people are supported and enjoying themselves at STaG events.
• We need to be careful that people have a similar kind of STaG experience and keep more of a check on directors to make sure that rehearsals are not too chaotic and that people have fun. We need to make sure we present a good image.
• It was suggested there could be more of a theme – have plays picked, then find people to direct them. We need to have people involved sooner, and we need to make sure we are picking the directors that know how STaG works. We need to make sure that the STaG directors are supported throughout the process.
• There needs to be a bigger team involved in planning the New Talent Nights, as the amount of work involved cannot be underestimated. More help should have been asked for.
• It might be a good idea to plan New Talent Nights before people go on summer break.
• It was suggested that we should still consider the GUU as a venue, due to our financial viability at the moment.

Overall the Nights made £100 profit on the doors, and the membership fees are still to be counted.

These criticisms should all being taken into account when the new Board begin to plan New Talent Nights. H. Sloan will type up some advice for the future Board.

4. Community

The community project is starting this week, and L. Fenwick stated that everything was going great!

5. Peribanez

There is a fundraiser on Thursday 22^nd October to raise funds for Peribanez. The bake sale on Friday made £58.48. The production is going as planned as well.

6. STaG Nights

To quote R. Jones, ‘bit of rock and a hard place’ in terms of finding casts for the last final plays of STaG Nights. However, the majority of plays have been cast. The committee are still continuing to meet and organise the festival. H. Sloan reminded R. Jones to explain to directors that they are only allowed 6 hrs in the STaG Room a week. Email policy is being over-looked to help for plays to find casts, but this policy will try to be observed at all other times.

7. Website

H. Sloan wished to check-in with the Publicity Committee, regarding the status of the Website. M. J. O’Neill admits that he will need to be more authoritarian with delegating things to his committee. A group to ‘found’ the website will hopefully be found by this week, and this can be started.

8. Executive Meeting

An executive meeting has been arranged for 5pm, 1^st November at A. Blundell’s house. [12 Kelvingrove St, 2/1]

9. AOB

J. Dyer – wants to make it clear that there will be a clean-up after Peribanez, so please let her know when you are available that week.

A. Blundell – suggested for next year’s STaG Nights that there could be more of a build up for the auditions.

T. MacKay – wanted to know if we still want to pursue buying lights for the society. It was agreed that we do.

K. Nesbitt – is meeting with someone from GU Amnesty International to arrange a time that we could perform with them at an event. Hopefully, a piece of new writing will be performed at said event.

P. Mannion – asked whether we should think about making/buying more t-shirts. E. Burckhardt is going to look into making the t-shirts.

M. J. O’Neill – highlighted the problem of there being too many newsflashes and emails going to the Faculty Departments. This issue needs to be address.

SNACK ROTA – Tamsyn [Juice], Hilary [Food]…

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