Exec Meeting @ 2019-01-23 14:00:00
Minutes of the Warwick Student Cinema (WSC) Executive Committee meeting held on Wednesday 23rd January
14:00
S0.10 (Social Sciences)
Present: Irene Mercader (President; Chair), Casper Davidson (Vice-President; minutes), Iain Walker (Chief Duty Manager), Taylor Wilkes (Treasurer), Benji Levine (IT Officer), Nicky Leathard (Publicity Officer), Anna Solecki (Publicity Officer), Kieran Hall (Chief Projectionist), Josh Bullin (Films Officer) until point 2 and from point 5, Todd Olive (External Relations Officer) from point 5, and Alex Pointon (Technical Officer) until 10ii.
Also present: Reece Goodall, Richard Kirk, Antoinette Clare
1. Welcome & Apologies
Apologies were received from Matthew Davies, Alice Glasgow and Hilla Hamidi
2. Updates from Different Teams
DMs – We have four TDMs and the rotas are nicely filled.
Projection – We have lots of films and some empty rota slots
Publicity – Saturday’s publicity run was successful covering all of Jack Martin, Arthur Vick, Whitefields, Rootes, Claycroft and Heronbank were covered with a combination of AllNighter publicity and our term publicity. It was discussed whether it’s worth contacting the SU Street Team to distribute our publicity to the accommodations we didn’t cover. It would cost £50 per item of publicity. It was decided that it’s not worth doing for loyalty cards, but we’d do it for A4s and folded A2s. The exec voted to spend up to £100 on this (8 for, 0 against, 2 abstain). It was also reiterated that apologies should be sent if exec members are not able to come to the pub run.
Marketing – IM has been doing some marketing work as MD is busy with academic commitments.
IT – Five people came to the IT meeting last week. At least one person is interested in running for IT Officer and another 2 may run together. Some more people are interested in getting involved with IT so the trainee scheme may expand further.
3. Welfare Constitution Amendment
IM and RG have written the welfare amendments to the, requiring everyone to attend welfare training provided by the SU and to ensure the President or another exec member assumes the responsibilities of the Welfare Officer for the SU’s purposes. It was agreed that we make the former section more open ended to not just include the SU’s welfare training, but broader training that the SU provides about making the society more welcoming for underrepresented groups. This shall be discussed further via email and then voted on at the AGM.
4. Meet the Exec and Elections
The Meet the Exec meeting is in L3 from 4pm today. The AGM and Elections are on Wednesday of Week 5. It was discussed whether free pizza should be offered to encourage crew to attend. There were issues raised about whether we want to spend money to encourage members who are not involved in the crew of the society to vote and whether we were comfortable with spending money to encourage people to vote in the first place, effectively paying them to vote. As we had already approved offering free films to non-crew members, it was felt that offering the pizza would help attract crew who already get free films to the elections. The exec voted to approve spending up to the cost of 12 pizzas to give out at elections (7 for, 1 against, 1 abstain).
5. External Relations
The future of the role of External Relations Officer (ERO) was discussed as it had been in existence for 2 years and was due for review. It was explained that the role was initially created to take pressure off the President who was in charge of getting sponsorships and society collaborations alongside the Chief Duty Manager and the Films Officer. The three holders of the role (RK, IM and TO) explained that they all struggled to get any sponsorship despite contacting dozens of companies each and found organising collaborations and special screenings becoming the main part of their role. The Exec recognises the value of putting time and effort into collaborations, both in visitor numbers and reputation across the University. There is also the issue that sponsorship is only easy to seek at the end of the financial year for many companies and this clashes with the new term of the exec so the ERO doesn’t have the time to settle into the role before applying for sponsorships. Before the role was created, a group of crew members in the society teamed together to contact different companies and together their individual workloads were relatively small and they managed to contact many companies, so it was considered that we reintroduce a sponsorship committee made up all the exec members. Other societies have managed to get sponsorship, so it was suggested that a range of perspectives offered by the committee would help us to get sponsorship. At the same time, the Vice-President has had many responsibilities stripped since the role was created and it was agreed it has a relatively small workload compared to many of the other roles on the exec. A plan was proposed to abolish the role of External Relations Officer, hand over collaborations for films that are already on our schedule to the Vice-President and collaborations for films not yet on the schedule to the Films Officer, hand over responsibility for creating and maintaining the sponsorship pack to the Marketing Officer and the Publicity Officer and create a Sponsorship Committee which the Vice-President would chair. The exec went over the roles and responsibilities of the ERO and reallocated them as such – these changes shall be emailed out by CD and the relevant amendments to the constitution added to the AGM.
6. AllNighter
The publicity has been distributed and meals booked for crew. Ticket sales have been below expectations so far. The crew tickets are available to buy as well. The DM and Projectionist rotas are sorted. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off arrived as a 35mm film, which shall be projected as such as we don’t have the DCP. It was agreed we need to publicise the AllNighter further on Facebook.
7. Key Agreement
For a screening last week, the projectionist was running late so the trainee projectionist couldn’t set up the speakers or get into the proj box. To avoid this in future, a spare key in case of emergencies was suggested. However it was pointed out that if the trainee was alone, they wouldn’t be able to show the film anyway so even if they had a key, nothing would have changed in this scenario. There is also an issue of health and safety and unauthorised people going into the proj box unsupervised. It was decided not to have a spare key available.
8. Upcoming Events and Socials
The AllNighter meals will take place on Saturday and Sunday and there is a Screen Unseen trip on Monday. In a fortnight, there will be a meal after election. TO is starring in the SU’s Strictly Come Dancing, which takes place on Monday of Week 5 in the Copper Rooms at 7:30pm. Tickets are available for this on the SU website.
9. TADONM
This shall be decided via email.
10. AOB's
i) IW: Please could everyone read the proposed changes to the FAQs.
ii) IW: The exec voted to allow people who buy just one ticket to Groundhog Day to attend both screenings and for people who buy just one ticket to Halloween on Friday to attend both screenings (10 for, 0 against, 0 abstain).
iii) TO: More collaborations are planned over coming weeks, which shall be fully explained via email.
iv) KH: Pressure should be in the dump.
v) RK: People who attend exec meetings should be included in the approval of meeting minutes. CD shall ensure this is done.
vi) RG: Don’t ask very in-jokey questions at Meet the Exec meeting as we want people to run and feel included in the society.
Meeting ended at: 15:42