SOUTHWARK AND SOUTH LONDON SOCIETY OF ORGANISTS
MINUTES OF MEETING HELD SUNDAY 26TH JULY 2015 AT 1.30PM
1. WELCOME AND APOLOGIES
Nicky welcomed SamzuAgbaje and Richard Pilliner who have just joined as members of the committee.
Present: Martin Callingham, RichardPilliner, Andrew Chadney, SamzuAgbaje, Nicky Jones.
Apologies: Marilyn Harper, Peter Ramell, John Mitchell.
2. MINUTES OF LAST MEETING AND MATTERS ARISING
The minutes of the last meeting were approved and there were no matters arising.
3. COMMITTEE VACANCIES
The committee vacancies have now been filled by SamzuAgbaje and Richard Pilliner, respectively.
4. FINANCE
As Peter was unable to attend the meeting, he helpfully sent an email with a number of points as follows:-
”Arrangements on the bank account have been somewhat complicated but are getting resolved. On seeking to transfer signatories it transpired that the previous account (set up some long time ago - well before Anne's time) was a personal account only, and not really suitable for a society; and also that Lloyds had not made an earlier change to signatories. We therefore decided that it would be best to set up a new account (and I have been very grateful for Anne's advice on this). Attempts to set up a new account with Lloyds proved unsuccessful, so I have now set up a new account with HSBC, specifically for a society. We are now finalising the arrangements for adding signatories. Once this is done we will transfer the funds to the HSBC account and close the Lloyds account. We should therefore soon have arrangement set up.
This arrangement is not ideal - we will need to ask members with standing orders to transfer arrangements to the new account when ready - but does seem the best in the circumstances.
Arrangements for making payments from the Lloyds account are not straightforward (and I have made a couple of payments from my account for later reimbursement) but I am maintaining transactions while the new account is set up.
Just also to report that:
- the hire charge for the booking of Holy Trinity Clapham for 7 November has been made
- the donation of £25 to the National Pipe Organ Register for this year has been made, and I have informed them that we will also be making a similar donation in each of the next four years [ie five years in total]; as agreed at the last meeting.
- the invoice we received for website services by Lancaster's has been paid
At the event in Dulwich in May we handed out a number of membership forms and we have certainly had one member joining as a result.”
Finally, the committee discussed the question of adverts on the website. Whilst SSLSO paid up members can put information up for free, a suggestion was made that adverts from non members might attract a cost of say £10 but this idea would need further discussion.
5. WEBSITE
Martin provided an overview of the website for committee members and in particular for new members of the committee.
He circulated a hard copy of the website’s front page and said that in future, this will only show events for the current month.
Martin also circulated the notifications page, explaining that this is a calendar of notified events. There is also a page for general topics which is more about general organ related events. Samzu’s kind offer to review these notification pages together with Martin was gratefully accepted.
There was also some discussion of the way the Bromley newsletter is organized.
Finally, Martin gave an update on contributions to the “my church” page.
Harry Bramma has already recorded for September and Nicky said he might be able to offer a piece by Dupre played at St Swithun’s for October. Samzu would hope to offer Tulse Hill Methodist Church and Richard could offer St John’s, Shirley.
Finally, Martin said that Harry had drawn his attention to the archived information on the site.
6. FEEDBACK FROM RECENT EVENTS
Martin said that the very successful “come and join us event” on May 9th had already been written up. In the context of this event the point was made that we should be trying to reach more young potential organists.
7. FUTURE STRATEGY AND PLANS FOR EVENTS
The committee discussed the improvisation workshop on 12th September and the event on hand registration to be held on 7th November. Arrangements for these events have been made and will be double checked in case any finer points have been missed. Arrangements for the annual dinner on 4th November need firming up but are virtually complete.
As regards future events, there is the possibility of visiting Hunter Organs in Clapham and locally and it was agreed that Harry Bramma would be able to advise on this. Richard would be happy to organize a visit to the Frobenius(of Denmark) organ at St John’s,Shirley and perhaps to St Matthews, Park Hill in East Croydon.
It was also agreed that another repertoire evening would be very worthwhile.
Martin also suggested a course on the structure/format of religious services.
Turning to strategy, Samzu asked about the society’s target group. Richard suggested the need to target pianists of a reasonable standard and wondered whether there is a way of reaching such people, for example by contacting piano/music schools? It was agreed that the society is not just about religious
aspects and that there is also a legitimate focus on more secular aspects and on the organ as a concert instrument . Some of the pieces at previous composite concerts have been more secular than religious in tone.
Nicky wondered aboutthe optimum size of the Society and the related issue of what we are doing and might wish to do/develop.
Richard made the point that people come not just for the events themselves but to make connections with others.
Samzu wondered about criteria for joining. It was remarked that anyone can join and that potential members do not need to be organists.
Andrew thought that there must be quite a number of organists in South London who are not members of the SSLSO and they could perhaps be approached personally by letter or email?
Clearly people who join need places to practice and some members of the committee wondered if this is becoming harder.
Martin and Richard agreed to think about a website page on the subject of new joiners.
Martin felt that we should be striving to be more active in the Society when possible. It was suggested that other members might be able to contribute to discussions about strategy and Wolf Van Silver’s name was mentioned.
8. ANY OTHER BUSINESS
None
9. DATE AND TIME OF NEXT MEETING
The next meeting will be held on Sunday 11th October at 1.30pm.
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