Minutes 06th February 2012

STaG Board Meeting 06/02/2012 In attendance: S. Gregson, G. Bennett-Lurie, H. Allan, I. McArthur, Erik Igelstrom, C. Goldstone, D. Di Rollo H. Bolwell, A. Rutherford, W. Foote, L. Taylor, C. Felstead, D. Keenan, C. Beaumont Apologies: L. Monkman Agenda 1) New Works 2) Theatre Trip & Social 3) Cinders 4) The Girl with Red Hair Post Mortem 5) STaG Ball 6) Board Event 7) Found Spaces/General Discussion 1) New Works The plans for the cabaret night are well under way – the bar will be stocked, cocktails will be made and acts will be performing (with some coercion from L. Taylor). The STaG room will be decorated from half 5 with material and fairy lights. Posters and flyers have arrived (and look great), a rota will be made for people to do postering/flyering sessions around campus and the city centre. The board and the casts will do this if possible. There have already been some bookings which should increase once the advertising campaign steps up over the next week. L. Taylor will send out plans for the get in and the tech and dress rehearsals – the get in will be on Sunday evening from 19:30. The after party and announcement night emails will be sent out soon. The judges will arrive at 19:15 so L. Taylor can meet and greet as well as answering any questions they may have. She will request they do not talk about the plays until the end of the week. The budget is going ok so far with only one play requesting more money. Memberising is in progress. The SRC gave us £300 towards the event which is brilliant and they also suggested we apply for funds for the Fringe. A door doodle will be sent out this week. 2) Theatre Trip & Social The theatre trip date will be confirmed once D. Keenan has found the cheapest date for student tickets. The pub quiz will be on the 24th and people should suggest topics to D. Keenan via email. Hoodies will be sold at the social and people will be advised to bring £20 with them if they want one. 3) Cinders A fundraising manager has been found – a meeting will take place on Thursday. The first act has been blocked and a music meeting has been held. Singing rehearsals are in line and a band has been confirmed. A creative team meeting will take place on Tuesday. The trailer will be filmed on the 23rd/24th February so costume can be found by then. Cast issues have been addressed. Character development workshops will be held. Social events have been planned for the cast and crew which is good and people seem to be enjoying themselves. 4) GWRH Post Mortem The board congratulated Mabli and Zoe for their excellent work. The show did very well – selling out each night and making a profit of approximately £120/130. Mabli raised her concerns about not finding a venue until the last minute, she felt this could have been avoided by moving the proposal date so there was more time to look for a suitable space. Whilst the Flying Duck was suitable for the promenade style performance it wasn’t the sort of space originally requested by the directors. Here, issues regarding the concept of Found Spaces were raised (see point 7). The budget went over the orignal estimate by about £2 (after this more money had been applied for so overall, the spending was in budget) however Zoe felt there could have been more control over the spending despite the fact this was a very small expense. It was good not to have to worry as they felt they had an ample budget but perhaps this contributed to the relaxed atmosphere. The publicity budget was seen as slightly too low and so the publicity officer should attend budget meetings in future. Mabli felt they had adequate rehearsal time and enjoyed the process overall. 5) STaG Ball A committee will be formed so plans can get underway. D. Keenan will book the GUU for shortly after exams finish – most likely the 21st May. It was advised he books a band as soon as possible as well as a photographer and the bar for the GUU. 6) Board Event This will take place on the 3rd March and the theme is tapas fun. Food ideas will be emailed around. 7) Found Spaces/General Discussion Time constraints of found spaces mean that perhaps venues should be located prior to the rehearsal period. The issue was raised that if non-board members approach spaces it may cause annoyance however, the directors need to have some responsibility for their piece. The space must be viable and creative direction is needed. Proposal deadlines were deemed necessary as otherwise people do not propose. However, the idea was raised of displaying the STaG calendar for the membership – perhaps on the website – so they are aware of when deadlines are coming up and thus have more time to plan out their proposal. The viability of the space should be looked into before accepting the proposal – this will require more discussion and contact between the board and the directors. It should not have to get to the stage where we feel we are settling for a space. It was suggested that a portfolio of previously used spaces (and viable spaces) should be put on the website so people have an idea of what is and is not possible. Found spaces has an experimental quality that not many other STaG productions have and this needs to be preserved. The question was raised whether STaG is reaching a point of saturation – there are too many people interested in seeing small plays so everything is selling out – larger spaces need to be found. This was then counteracted by the fact that larger spaces are expensive and perhaps STaG cannot afford them. There is often low interest in proposals and small scale productions often do not receive a large audition turn out. The issue of putting on more theatre vs quality theatre was raised but heated discussion meant a decision was never reached.