Minutes of the Meeting of the Cantamus Parents and Friends Committee
Held on Friday, 30th November, 2007
In Sherwood Hall School, Mansfield
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Present: |
Margaret Vince |
Hilary McCaughey (Chair) |
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Mary Martin |
Julie Revill (Treasurer) |
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Sheila Haslam |
Sue Taylor (Deputy Chairman) |
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Brian Vardy |
Julie Cooper (Secretary) |
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Jadzia Carlin |
Pam Stevenson |
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Marek Kuczynski |
Anne Adams |
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Sylvana Stenson
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Michael Stenson |
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Lisa Roberts |
Neil Houldsworth |
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Angela Parkes |
David Parkes |
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Gary Taylor-Ward |
Lisa Taylor-Ward |
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Jane Holmes |
Caroline Baldwin |
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Alison Britten |
Jeannette Austin |
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Julia Lowe |
Ann Woods |
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Shona Astbury |
Mary Burton |
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Rose Bowskill |
Alan Bowskill |
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Rachel Adams |
Eileen Bentley |
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Bev Ward |
Sophie Barker |
Apologies:
Steve and Haley Hocking
Minutes of the Last Meeting
Agreed
Introduction
The Chairman began the
meeting by welcoming and thanking everyone for attending.
It was noted how encouraging it was to see so many new faces, in
particular, because next year is going to be such a big year in the Cantamus
history, but also because of the impending Christmas concerts, and all the help
that will be required. There
are many exciting concerts and opportunities planned for next year, and a sheet
outlining commitments will be sent home with the girls today, the Chairman
informed members after giving a brief overview.
It was explained how any offers of help are most welcome, no matter how
small. The Secretary introduced the
Committee to attendees.
Christmas Concerts
The first concert we
require some help for will be on Sunday, 16th December, at the Palace
Theatre Mansfield. We will be
selling raffle tickets, programmes and CDs.
Offers of help came from Julie Cooper, Pam Stevenson, Gary Taylor-Ward,
Mary Martin, and Lisa Roberts.
The next big event after
that will be Friday, 21st December, at Southwell Minster.
Margaret Vince offered to help Sue Taylor with the girls’ dresses.
Sue Taylor at this point said it was relevant, in order to give parents
reassurance, to mention that anyone who helped when the girls were dressing at
concerts were CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) checked.
Sheila Haslam said it was
not appropriate to hold a raffle at the Minster.
We agreed that programmes and CDs only should be sold at this venue.
Help was offered by Julie Cooper, Rachel Adams, Pam Stevenson, Brian
Vardy, Bev Wardle, Lisa and Gary-Taylor.
The Royal Concert Hall,
Nottingham, concert on Sunday, 23rd December, will present a
marvellous selling opportunity for us.
We have sold 1,800 tickets so far.
It will be extremely busy and we have the opportunity to sell programmes
that have been printed for us free of charge on the three levels of the theatre.
This will require 2 or 3 sellers on each floor to cover both the doors on
each level. Offers of help
came from Neil Houldsworth, Sophie Barker, Lisa Roberts, Bev Ward, Jadzia
Carlin, Jane Holmes, and Caroline Baldwin.
Because of the numbers of
people involved we discussed other fund-raising opportunities at this event.
A tombola (possibly bottles/wine) was considered, and Sheila Haslam will
make enquiries as to whether this would be permissible.
All the offers of help are
greatly appreciated. If any other
attendees of the meeting feel they may be able to contribute in some small way,
if only to relieve another helper for a short period, either before, during, or
after a concert, please do not
hesitate to contact Sheila Haslam who is co-ordinating this programme.
Could all
volunteers please confirm their
availability to help by contacting Sheila Haslam e-mail
sheilahaslam@ntlworld.com.
Many apologies if we have
left some names out of this list but so many of you were willing to help that we
were quite overwhelmed by the number of names.
We require a license for
selling raffle tickets and our license is due to expire on 30th
December. Hilary will apply for a
new one.
Sue Taylor asked for help
in connection with moving the platform the girls sing on at the end of the
night. This is a heavy job for Geoff
Thompson and Ivan Haslam, who usually remove the platform, load, and then unload
it into storage at the end of many concerts.
An extra pair of hands just to help dismantle and load into the van at
the end of the Royal Concert Hall and the Palace Theatre concerts would be
greatly appreciated. Again, could
volunteers please contact Sheila Haslam to confirm their offer?
In respect to help at these theatres, back-stage helpers must be named
prior to the event because of the security aspect.
Sheila informed us that
both the Royal Concert Hall and the Palace Theatre will be videoed, and copies
will be available for sale after.
Sheila will be pleased to take any prior orders you wish to make.
Funding of New Dresses for Main Choir
Hilary said that next year
is the 40th Anniversary year, and promises to be an extremely
exciting and busy year. The girls
have a hectic schedule including many important concerts and a trip to Spain.
The two main anniversary concerts will be on 6th September at
the Royal Concert Hall, and 16th November at the Palace Theatre.
We have again provisionally booked the Royal Concert Hall for Christmas.
2009 will also see the girls hopefully going on a tour of Australia,
dependent upon funding. It was put
forward to the Committee that this would be a good time to consider replacing
the pale blue Ghost dresses with something more practical.
The present outfit has many shortfalls in that there are no more
replacements, there are now too many variations, and many girls are unhappy with
their outfit, but an alternative has been difficult to provide.
The red dresses have been and continue to be a success, so it was
suggested that something along the lines of that design in a similar shade of
the blue Ghost dresses would be suitable.
Although we are planning to have the dresses made to a similar design for
each girl we currently have a designer working on a range of over tops so that
each girl will be able to show their individuality with these and diamante
jewellery.
We presently have £15K in
our account and wonder whether the Parents Committee would be happy for the
funding of the new dresses, approximately £3k, to come out of that money.
Hilary asked for a show of hands, and it was generally agreed to be a
good idea. Some parents made the
point that they had quite recently purchased a dress for their daughter, but
understood the situation, and agreed that it was an issue that needed dealing
with as it is a problem the choir as a whole are faced with, and that this
wouldn’t immediately come in to effect anyway.
Hilary thanked Jadzia for the considerable amount of time she has spent
researching fabrics, etc.
Hilary said the Council
will be approached to provide £500 towards funding of the dresses.
Sue Taylor kindly
requested that when girls are performing, could they please ensure that the
dresses are hung on hangers that ensure that the straps of the dresses do not
slip off, and thereby save many hours of repressing.
It is very important that all dresses are named.
We are hoping to launch
fund-raising for Australia in January 2008.
We need to raise a total of £50K for the whole choir to go to Australia,
a considerable sum. We felt as a
Committee we could not possibly raise that amount of money.
A more achievable target for us to be working towards would be £15K.
We anticipate raising this amount for this particular trip will be more
difficult than we found the drive to raise funds for the Olympics, in that
supporters may not be as excited by or sympathetic to this cause. However we
were all fully on board with the fund raising cause.
At the next meeting on 11th
January, we will be looking for people to take on/help with small fund-raising
projects to try and raise some money.
Any suggestions will be most welcome, and it would be appreciated if
parents could between now and the next meeting give some consideration to
fund-raising. Any suggestions, no
matter how low-key or high-profile will be most welcome.
Newsletter
Marek said he had had an
idea for the Cantamus newsletter. He
could put the newsletter on the website for us. This will remain hidden and only
be accessed by going to the Home page, hovering the cursor just under the
"Updated..." line, (below the "N" in "November") and clicking there will take
you to a page that will include any new information relevant to choir members,
e.g. changes to rehearsal times, etc.
A cut-off date for changes to rehearsals will be agreed with Miss Cook
and members of staff and members will be informed of this.
Dates of Future Meetings in 2008
7 pm, Friday, 11th
January
7 pm, Friday, 22nd
February
7 pm, Friday, 7th
March
7 pm, Friday, 18th
April
Distribution:
Anne Adams
Rachel Adams
Shona Astbury
Jeannette Austin
Caroline Baldwin
Dave Barker
Sophie Barker
Eileen Bentley
Alan Bowskill
Rose Bowskill
Alison Britten
Mary Burton
Jadzia Carlin
Pam Cook
Sheila Haslam
Graham Hills
Haley Hocking
Steve Hocking
Jane Holmes
Neil Houldsworth
Marek Kuczynski
Julie Lowe
Mary Martin
Hilary McCaughey
Angela Parkes
David Parkes
Tina Papadopoulos
Julie Revill
Lisa Roberts
Sylvana Stenson
Michael Stenson
Pam Stevenson
Sue Taylor
Gary Taylor-Ward
Lisa Taylor-Ward
Ann Woods
Pam Stevenson
Brian Vardy
Margaret Vince
Bev Ward
Minutes prepared by:
Julie Cooper