Minutes of a meeting of the committee held on the 25th October 2017

Present:

Cliff Tucker, Ann Buckley, Sally Struthers, Lynn Brown, Mike Goddard, Chris Upchurch and Jean Williams.

Minutes:

The minutes of the meeting held on the 20th September 2017 were approved.

Recruitment Campaign:

Nothing to report. Lynn has noticed though that the recruitment poster has been removed from the village shop noticeboard and she is going to let them have another copy to put up.

Treasurer's Report:

Sally reported that we have total funds of £3,486.75 and felt that we should be aware that our finances will be affected by the fact that we will only be having one show each year. This is the year when on our previous schedule we would have had a second show in November.

Treasurer's Report:

Sally reported that we have total funds of £3,424.16. The outstanding subscription has been paid and all the money for the Village Club Quiz has been received and paid out to the Village Club. Sally has also paid for refreshments and a few items for The Works.

Christmas in Clatford:

Ann reported that David Grey and Geoff have confirmed that they would like to join us for CinC and also that she has asked Margaret but not yet had confirmation from her. Cliff and Ann have prepared the poster which was circulated to the committee. David Benwell has submitted it to the Parish Mag for the November and December magazines. Ann has a list of people who will be available for the event and will now begin to allocate readings. Following a discussion at a Friday night meeting it was agreed that no one was concerned that we should change the words which Alan had been anxious about in the Father Christmas song.

Theatre Trip to White Christmas 16th November and Village Club Quiz 25th November:

Ann is going to organise the drivers and lifts for everyone. There are two tickets available if anyone else would like to go. Kim is interested but has not yet confirmed whether or not she will be able to come. Ann is going to ask Anne Blake on Friday if she is interested as she did express originally that she may like to come. The arrangements for the quiz are in hand.

Flint House Loft:

The new staircase has been installed and the gap in the floor where we used to have our ladder has been filled in. It is now much easier to access our things but we still do not know yet what space the Grahams will need to store their daughter’s furniture and it could be that if they require more space we will have to do some more clearing out. Sally advised us that the present tenants are moving out of the house so there will be some changes but we don’t know if they will affect us.

Four by Four – Stage Plays and Radio Plays:

Alan has advised Cliff that he feels that we can take this off the agenda as he has not heard from Tony Vale. (Alan has subsequently advised that he has now heard from Tony Vale and the ball is currently back in his court to make suggestions.)

Dates for 2019:

Ann will circulate the dates she has prepared to the committee so that they can see if they have any comments. It is generally in line with the schedule for this year. Concern was expressed about whether Kate is clear about the dates which we have booked, especially that we ensure she is aware of how “show fortnight” works. And that she is aware that we also have use of the snooker room from technical weekend until we have cleared up after the show. Ann will arrange to go and have a chat with her to go over the details with her.

The Works – 8/9/10th March 2018:

Rehearsals: It was felt that generally rehearsals are progressing well. We all felt that Shân has a very definite picture in her head of how she wants the play to be portrayed and is finding it a little bit frustrating how difficult it is to get us to portray our characters how she sees them. We felt generally it is quite usual for CADS to put their own take on how they see the character they are playing. Hopefully we will end up meeting somewhere between Shân’s vision for the play and each cast member’s interpretation of their character. We all agreed that Shân has worked extremely hard to get to this point with the rehearsals and that everyone is doing their best to portray their character as near to her vision as possible. We believe that Shân is intending to rehearse the second half on Friday evening and then the following Friday (3rd) make sure we are all costumed up and ready for the filming on the 5th. Technical and Filming – Cliff has had a meeting with Shân and discussed the schedule for filming all of the necessary shots. All of the workers will require their own mug. The schedule which Shân has prepared also includes any props which will be required, i.e. stage cigarettes. Sally thinks that we have some stage cigarettes from a previous performance and we are going to ask if anyone knows where they are. However, Sally went on line at the meeting and found that they can be purchased at a very reasonable price so she is going to order some as we will need them for the actual performance as well. We discussed what cameras we will use. We do, of course, have CADS own camera and Mike will bring his own camera and has tripods which he will bring as well. Mike will also take some still photographs. We also discussed whether we will need any extra lighting and Chris is going to bring the lights he has just in case. It was thought that lighting may not be so important as the film will be black and white. Stage Management – Chris has ideas of how the stage will be set up but a technical meeting will need to be held after Christmas so everyone is clear on the details. He has considered further whether the stage curtains will be folded right back to take up as little of the face of stage as possible and is now reconsidering as we may use them at the start and end of the show. Chris advised that he has asked Annie, Kim and Tommie to design the gyroscopic flange sprocket machine for the stage. Costume/Props – We have still not sourced two matching 1960s suitcases but Ann and Alwyn are keeping a watch for something suitable. It may be necessary to buy some but we would be able to sell them again after the show and recoup all or most of the money spent. The gyroscopic flange sprockets Ann has made are thought to be suitable and Ann has now made two perfect ones and two which are bent out of shape. Alwyn wants Mike to have braces but he thought it might not be necessary as he will be wearing a white lab type coat. The gremlin outfits are a bit of a concern but Tommie has said she has made some progress on them and will discuss with Shân on Friday. It was thought that the basis for them could be black underwear or maybe a black onesie. Performance and Tickets, Publicity/Poster/Tickets/Programme, Front of House – We felt that it was time to start thinking about a design for the poster. David Benwell knows the schedule for the magazine which means that we will need a brief resumé to be available for the middle of December for the January magazine and the poster ready for the middle of January for the February and March magazine. Nothing further to report at this stage. Catering/Bar: Sally will be away for the show but is thinking along the lines that she will be able to prepare something in advance to be heated up on the evenings (possibly chilli and baked potato or rice if we were able to borrow the rice cooking machine followed by maybe a cornetto for the pudding).

Any Other Business:

Cliff showed us the new website he is designing and asked that we all looked at it and let him have any comments. We discussed a name and thought possibly ClatfordAmDram. Cliff mentioned that traditionally the director of any show joined the committee. It was felt that Shân has a very busy diary but that we should ask her if she wants to join the committee meetings leading up to the show or possibly that we discuss the show at the beginning of each meeting so that she could then leave and not need to be there for the whole of the meeting. Or alternatively that she just give us a report for each meeting on anything she would like us to discuss.

Date of Next Meeting:

Wednesday 29th November 2017 at West View 7.30 pm.