Exec Meeting @ 2018-11-21 14:00:00
Minutes of the Warwick Student Cinema (WSC) Executive Committee meeting held on 21st November 2018
14:00
MB0.08 (Mathematical Sciences)
Present: Irene Mercader (President - Chair), Casper Davidson (Vice-President – Minutes for points 1-5) points 1-6 & 11vii onwards, Benji Levine (IT Officer), Matthew Davies (Marketing Officer), Hilla Hamidi (Events and Socials Coordinator), Nicky Leathard (Publicity Officer), Anna Solecki (Publicity Officer), Alice Glasgow (Films Officer), Josh Bullin (Films Officer), Taylor Wilkes (Treasurer), Iain Walker (Chief Duty Manager – Minutes for points 6 onwards), Kieran Hall (Chief Projectionist) point 2 onwards, Todd Olive (External Relations Officer) point 3 onwards, Alex Pointon (Technical Officer) point 4 onwards
Also present: Rachel Tan, Ellie Yang, Reece Goodall (point 7 onwards)
1. Welcome and Apologies
No apologies were necessary as all exec were in attendance.
2. Updates from Different Teams
Front of House – Jamie Rolinski qualified and one of the TDMs left the scheme. Another TDM is expected to qualify soon. 2 more TDMs have been taken on and are in the process of getting buddies. More TDMs are expected to be taken on in the coming months. The rotas are also quite full.
Projection – There are 5 new Trainee Projectionists, all of whom are regularly signing up to shows. The 70mm screening of 2001: A Space Odyssey was very successful and more 35mm projectionists could be trained soon. Fortunately, nothing is very broken at the moment.
Publicity – The new Spring schedule is coming together, and there have been some sign-ups to do titles for it. More members of the publicity team are being encouraged to sign-up and produce images for the photo frame too.
Marketing – Since the last exec meeting, MD has met with more new team members and there is plenty of enthusiasm to make new trailers.
IT – Of those who came to the 18 initial one-to-one trainee meetings, 11 have met BL since and 5 or 6 are now working on specific projects, which is great to see. Fortunately, lots of IT things are not broken at the moment either.
Films – The new schedule for term 2 is being put together now, following a successful programming meeting last week. Unfortunately, requests for 35mm prints aren’t going very well because we are told they don’t exist by our booking agent, even though we have other evidence that they do still exist. We may have to deal directly with the distributors instead of our booking agent to find these 35mm prints. However it is often harder to chase up the distributors than our booking agent as we don’t have the contacts that our agent has within distributors.
3. Publicity Table A0
After the A0 poster above our publicity table was found fallen off the wall and the wall was noted to be damaged (pre-dating our poster), CD got in touch with estates to request if we could put up a frame on the wall, in which we could put our poster. A member of the university estates team told us to request an asbestos check and in order to comply with fire regulations, they recommended purchasing a noticeboard from them and getting them to put it up for us. Their noticeboards were quite expensive, but after further communication, we were donated a free A0 noticeboard from the SU. There was some concern that other people would use the noticeboard for their own purposes and stick their own posters on top of ours. The exec resolved to ask estates if a snap frame we found on Amazon would be likely to meet their fire regulations – CD shall send off an email shortly.
4. Term 2 Schedule
AG & JB are currently torn between a Disney/Pixar Allnighter or a more generic animation Allnighter. The current plan is for this Allnighter to be in the weekend of week 3 and to have a Lord of the Rings (LOTR) Allnighter in the weekend of week 7. IW and KH shall ask their respective teams if they’d be happy to crew two Allnighters in the term. It was discussed that moving our ‘normal’ Allnighter to week 3 is an advantage, because recent term 2 week 7 Allnighters haven’t always performed as well as expected because it is so late in the term and a lot of students have a lot of work around then. A Lord of the Rings Allnighter would still draw fans of the films regardless of when it was put, so this could fit well in week 7. The Films Officers don’t personally really want the LOTR Allnighter, but there is demand for it among the society and it has been 3 years since the last one in Spring 2016. Back then, our ‘Pyjama Party’ Allnighter in week 3 got an attendance of ~100 and the LOTR Allnighter in week 7 got an attendance greater than 200, so we may expect next term’s Allnighters to perform to a similar level – the LOTR Allnighter is also very cheap, so is nearly guaranteed to earn a surplus. Also it would be good to have the formal exec handover at the Allnighter in week 7. There was concern raised that an Allnighter can take a lot of work and put the whole exec under a lot of pressure, illustrated by the Harry Potter (HP) Marathon. AG noted that both planned term 2 Allnighters would take less work than the HP Marathon because they would be more relaxed and the necessary work could be spread over several weeks. The current draft list of films for an animation Allnighter includes Ralph Breaks the Internet, Toy Story (35mm), Mulan, My Neighbour Totoro, Shrek/Shrek 2 and a mystery film. The aim of the Films Officers is to send off the draft schedule to our booking agent this week and will try to address the issue with getting 35mm prints.
The exec also discussed potentially reintroducing Monday screenings in some form – potentially as a single Sunday screening and a single Monday screening. The Front of House committee expressed support for this idea, so stewarding and DMing this would be fine. The Films Officers are not planning to reintroduce Monday screenings in their current draft schedule and it would be one more film to worry about for publicity, marketing, getting DCPs & film prints which could put too much pressure on the exec and other society members. It was noted that we do already show plenty of films for a student cinema. It’s also very useful to have two free evenings a week to schedule socials or impromptu collaborations with other societies.
The Publicity Officers asked whether it would be worth putting Sundays back on the beginning of the schedule posters instead of the end, to match the website. It was debated whether the double box across Saturday and Sunday does look good to highlight Allnighters. There has been some anecdotal information that some people have arrived on the wrong day for our films and this may be due to our poster starting on a Tuesday at the moment, but this is difficult to prove. Starting the week on a Sunday would allow us to fit in a Sunday arrivals weekend film on the schedule poster – although we haven’t decided that there definitely will be a Free for Everyone screening on that Sunday and there could be issues with explaining which week a particular Sunday is on. There shall be an email vote to decide on this shortly.
5. Term 2 Publicity
There are still 4 boxes of A2s left so it may perhaps be worth ordering fewer A2s next term. In the past, we used to have both folded A2s and rolled A2s, and since we stopped doing this, there has been a decrease in the amount of A2s being given away. Also, there have been occasions where there have been very few rolled A2s left in the bucket. To address this, we could have a rolling A2s event, where we roll A2s and watch a film or something like that. It could be a mistake to order significantly fewer A2s as having too many is better than having far too few and there isn’t a massive difference in price. We can also save on printing costs by order flat loyalty cards instead of folded ones.
6. Welfare
As our current Welfare Officer, IM attended a training session at the SU for welfare officers, to discover that the SU doesn’t have a clear definition of what the role is or should be and there was a consensus that it is not a role that a single person can undertake. There is a lot of stress in FilmSoc so we need a welfare system that helps people when they need it. There are 3 potential solutions:
- Someone on the exec has the role of Welfare Officer in addition to their own role (we have tried this but no exec role seems to be able to take on this extra responsibility)
- We create a standalone role of Welfare Officer (although this would leave an imbalance on the exec as there would be less to do in this role compared to other exec roles)
- Everyone on the exec becomes a welfare officer and they would all be required to go to the relevant SU training session (this is IM’s preferred option).
It was discussed that more welfare training can only be a good thing and those on the exec with team-leading roles already assume the responsibilities of looking out for the welfare of their teams. Having a single Welfare Officer could put too much pressure on them and we wouldn’t want that role to become an unpaid counsellor. The best option would probably be allowing all exec members to attend the SU welfare training on a non-compulsory basis and the whole exec would have the responsibility of looking after the welfare of everyone else. IM shall send out an email with a draft amendment to the constitution to this effect.
7. Film Studies Society
A few weeks ago, Model UN Society had a collaboration with Film Studies Society, but called them FilmSoc, which is our name and in our constitution. After a conversation with the SU Societies Officer, we are faced with either the option of a private chat with Film Studies Society to talk over the issue or a more formal complaint which would set off grievance procedures within the SU or even the University. We do not know what a private chat would achieve, but a formal procedure may backfire and have unintended consequences. Previous formal decisions from the SU clearly haven’t solved the issue and a decision handed down by the University wouldn’t solve the issue beyond this year. An informal discussion between the presidents of each society could be useful instead, although even this could be taking taken the wrong way. Film Studies Society could see our escalation of the issue as petty or an overreaction and it was noted that we have had a good relationship with the society in the past, illustrated by our joint socials. The issue of Film Studies membership being sold by mistake at the tills of the societies fair could be solved by making sure we communicate to the staff on tills exactly what we are called within POS. It could be worth letting the issue blow over (and it has somewhat blown over already) and leaving it to the next exec to make a decision on what to do next. We won’t have a private chat with them, but IM will feedback the thoughts of the exec to the Societies Officer.
8. External Relations Report
PPE Society approached us with a request to show They Shall Not Grow Old on Monday January 21st. There were complications with getting the license for this, but these have been overcome. The event will be free to attend and will be run jointly by PPE and WSC, and will also include a panel session.
We were also approached by the History Department to have a termly event with us, limited to History students and the department will pay for the license. This is currently planned for Monday of week 4 in term 2 – the film will be the 1976 film Pressure.
A collaboration with PhysSoc to show The Martian next term is confirmed.
PolSoc are having a collaboration with us to watch A Muppets Christmas Carol and are enthusiastic to have more collaborations with us in future.
The ‘Potential Advantage’ project from WBS contacted us and they would like 20 physical complimentary tickets. We could mock something up that would be recorded as Loyalty Cards on tills or have a specific ticket type for them, so we can record how many have been redeemed.
TO will be representing the society in a Warwick Strictly Come Dancing event.
We were also contacted by Age UK to do a Christmas screening and following a meeting with TO, it is clear L3 would not be a suitable location as there would be lots of audience members with disabilities and the L3 lecture seats wouldn’t be appropriate for them. It could be done in Film & TV instead and we just show a Bluray there as a private screening. Andrew Maddison shall be contacted about sorting this out.
We helped a drama society putting on the play Woyzeck with showing their trailer and TO is looking into working more closely with all drama societies in future.
9. Upcoming Events and Socials
A trip to the HP Studios has been organised but not that many people will be going – restricting the event to crew in future might allow for a more successful event. HH is looking into a Paris trip and it may be worth talking to STA to sort out a group trip. There will be a trip to the Birmingham Christmas Market next week and a Christmas Meal the following week. There will be a private screening of Twilight this evening and there will be a trip to Odeon’s Screen Unseen next week. Potential socials next term include a ‘dessert crawl’, a trip to an escape room and another Pop circle.
10. TADONM
This will be decided over email.
11. AOB’s
i) TW: The hoodie order closes on Sunday – make sure to order your hoodie before then.
ii) AG: Everyone is invited to the Twilight screening in the evening.
iii) Jamie Rolinski was ratified as a Duty Manager (13 for, 0 abstain, 0 against).
iv) Anjana Radhakrishnan was given lifetime crew status (12 for, 1 abstain, 0 against).
v) IW: Ticketing info should be replaced on tickets with a link to our online terms and conditions.
vi) TO: For the charity screening of Rent, we should be covered by the SU’s LGBTUA+ Officer submission.
vii) AG: Lumos still needs to be paid for the HP Marathon – TW is sorting this out.
viii) AP: We got through 15,000+ beermats in the last term by only going to two pubs. The design is good and one audience member coming pays for 80 beermats. The exec voted to order a further 20,000 beermats at a cost of up to £600 (14 for, 0 abstain, 0 against).
ix) KH: There is a new aeropress coffee maker in the office which makes very good coffee.
x) BL: It may be worth getting rid of latecomer ticket prices because the advantages of them seem to be far outweighed by the disadvantages. It is difficult to find out membership status after tills have been closed, but many DMs don’t actually sell latecomer tickets as it is up to their discretion at the moment. An email thread should be created to discuss changes to our latecomer ticket policy and perhaps implement a change once IW has asked the DMs for their opinions.
Meeting ended at: 15:59