Exec Meeting @ 2012-05-13 14:15:00
Sunday 13/05/12 (Summer week 4) 14:15 B2.02
Summary of Relevant Points:
The new constitution has been ratified.
Ticket selling is now open to the public.
Only special events will be advertised to a select group of the public.
A portable air conditioning unit has been bought.
The next meeting is provisionally Thursday 31st May at 3pm.
The Outdoor Screening clothing is expected mid-week 6.
The DM locker has been moved to the other side of the fridges in the office.
1. Welcome and Apologies for Absence
Present : Mike Lee (chair), Tim Green (minute-keeper), Ed McCutcheon, James
McLachlan, Enrik Nako, Harry Austin, Clarissa Gillingham, Rob Maas, Richard
Townsend
Apologies : Scott Griffiths
2. Exec and Financial Update
The NatWest change over is still causing some problems which have not yet been completely solved. The safe installation will be taking place on Wednesday (16th May).
The Chief Projectionist has been creating procedures to monitor the temperature in the projection suite.
The Chief Duty Manager has been investigating the changes that will need to be made to the banking procedures for Duty Managers in line with the relevant banking changes.
Our Technical Officer has quotes for all of the equipment for the Outdoor Screening. There will no longer any need to go to Nottingham to collect the electrical and sound equipment.
The Publicity and Marketing Officers will be meeting on Wednesday (16th May) to discuss consistency between the two committees.
Our IT Officer has been looking into tabulating all of the server and website bugs, so that the fixing of each can be more readily organised.
The Vice President has been attempting to pull the RBS ESSA Video out of a bag, with little success so far. Otherwise he has been organising socials.
The Films Officer has been updating the draft schedule on the forums. At the programming meeting, the contents of reserve list and the running order of the AllNighter will be reviewed.
3. Presidential Update
The new constitution has now been ratified by the SU. This needs to be updated on the website. The Supporting Documents now need to be completed.
This year's sponsorship pack has been sent to the exec thread for editing, and will be sent out soon.
The Salix fund application is on-going. A contractor will be visiting on Wednesday to create a quote for conventional air conditioning, to compete with the evaporative cooling quote that the society already has. This is to be discussed later in the meeting.
4. Ask the Exec
James and Ed will be unable to attend this event.
The format of the event was decided as follows: the exec will sit on the stage and open questions to the floor. A quick update on the activities of the exec will follow.
Ed had some reservations about whether the event will be used to air grievances with exec members. It was noted that this will not be a forum for such activities, and is also not a substitute for the official methods of contacting individual exec members.
Due to the importance and the size of the contents of the joint publicity-marketing meeting, it was decided to move the Ask the
Exec event back by 30 minutes, in order to give this to the joint meeting.
5. Licensing Update
Mike informed exec that communication with Space Management as to where the license can be displayed is still on going.
The new license allows WSC to advertise and sell tickets to the public. The following agenda point was a discussion on the full implications and realisations of this licensing change.
6. Ticketing and Advertising Policy
James brought forward some points that were discussed at the previous Front of House committee meeting. Our license states: 'Where customers appear under the BBFC recommendation for films, they will be challenged for identification and not admitted if theya re [sic] underage.' The policing of this will be up to the Front of House Team. It was asked whether patrons would have to be asked for proof of age prior to appropriately certified screenings (due to not all students being 18).
Ed stated that our EPOS system could be adapted so that the age of any patron will flag up when they come to buy a ticket, additionally a counter check against the certificate of the film could be implemented. Duty Managers could be made to tick a box acknowledging that they are aware of the certificate of the film.
James then raised some points about ticket selling to the public. If the society were to open ticket selling up to the general public certain problems that the FoH teams experiences may be exacerbated by the fact that some customers will not have university IDs.
This could also put the society in direct competition with the Arts Centre. It was mentioned that we are the university's film society and should act as such.
It was agreed that if ticket selling was opened up to the public this would not be advertised, and otherwise, no advertising of any form would be created to target the public.
James then stated that there are some screenings that we may well want to open to the public, advertising them to a select group such as Arthouse films, 70mm showings and classics such as Metropolis. These would be advertised through the BFFS and specialised 70mm websites.
The question of whether we would require non university-members to email prior to attending a screening was raised. It was thought that this would be unnecessary unless they intended to come en-masse.
It was then stated by James that if ticket selling to the public were to be agreed, then the society would need to make it clear that right to admission is always reserved. It was agreed that placing this under the schedule on the website was sufficient.
The following motion was proposed: That the restriction that non university-members can only attend screenings as a guest of a university member be removed. The motion passed with eight in favour and one against. It was stressed that, though the motion had passed, this would not be advertised.
It was then decided, following on from the previous motion, that the ticket type 'External Guest' be renamed 'External'. It will be for the Front of House committee to decide whether external tickets will be sold over DM override.
(The meeting was adjourned for a short break.)
7. Projection Suite cooling Update
A quote for a conventional air conditioning unit is being obtained. If the Salix fund fails and the air conditioning quote is within budget, we will then seriously consider the quote.
A portable air conditioning unit has been bought. This was £50 (incl. VAT) from Ebay, including a two year warranty. This will be collected at some point this week by Andrew Maddison. As to whether it is effective - the society will have to see.
(At this point the exec wished Andy a Happy Birthday!)
8. Conferences and Vacations
A proposal was brought before the exec: that WSC approaches Warwick Conferences to see whether film screenings run by WSC could become a service that they could offer to their clients. It was also proposed that screenings during the vacations for the Postgraduate Society could be held.
It was agreed that logistically the following caveats would have to be met: that each screening would have at least a single qualified projectionist and a separate qualified Duty Manager.
From this itself an issue arises: no non-exec crew would have keys during the summer. Other issues would exist: a film would have to be sourced (not all requested films would be available), it was thought that the current film pricing structure would be inappropriate for such a showing (investigations into an appropriate structure would have to take place).
Shipping charges for the films would be £134 per screening, if only one screening happened a month.
It was conceded that crew could not be paid at all for working at such a screening. Any mark-up on the event would go directly to the society coffers.
It was also noted that providing such a service was not in line with the aims and objectives of the society as laid out in the constitution. There were also concerns that this would make the society too commercial.
In summary, without charging for the use of equipment or time, such a screening would cost in the region of £280.
It was agreed that the time and effort put into such a screening would outweigh the potential benefits, and so no further inquiries will be made on this subject.
As to screenings with the Postgraduate Society, it was agreed that no proactive contact would be made, but, the exec would be happy to discuss the issue if it were contacted by them.
9. Time and Date of Next Meeting
A provisional date for the next meeting was decided as 3pm on Thursday of week 6 (31st May).
10. Other Business
After being requested to update the constitution on the website with the latest version, Richard inquired as to whether the version on Google Docs was the fully ratified version.
(A short break was held)
Tim apologised for not having the previous meeting minutes complete.
Tim requested feedback about the rooms that he had been booking for exec meetings. The general consensus was that larger rooms were preferred.
Ed informed the attendees that the Outdoor Screening Clothing order is expected to be arriving on either Tuesday or Wednesday week 6.
Tim inquired about the appropriate level of the announcement for exec meetings, it was advised that a public news article on the website and a forums page was sufficient.
The meeting then moved to the Exec Office, where a discussion on the location of the new safe and the re-location of the Duty Manager's Locker was held. It was decided that the Duty Manager's Locker should be removed so that its location could be used for the Safe installation, which would be taking place on Wednesday 16th May. If the Duty Manager's Locker survived the removal then it would be relocated to the other end of the fridges.
This was done immediately by our Tech Officer. The DM locker survived and so was then relocated.
Meeting Ended at 16:26