UN Music Club - Committee Meeting 28th April 2016 Draft minutes
Venue & time: WHO: meeting room L.203 Building L 12h15-13h30
Present
Kazuaki MIYAGISHIMA,NadiyaDzyubynska , Patrice Piguet , Michael Wiener,
Wade Bowers,
Absent (excused): Karin Kaminker , Isabelle Lorang, NelMamangun
Invited : Massimiliano La Marca Club member, President of ILO Music Club
On copy: Alex Ezana, Honorary President
Quorum must be majority (=5) With 5 members present, the quorum is obtained.
President of the Meeting: Kazuaki MIYAGISHIMA,
Secretary of the Meeting: Patrice Piguet (replacing Secretary, excused)
Adoptiom of Agenda:The Proposed Agenda was adopted with addition of an item 10 which was a recap of item 8.8 of the previous meeting, left inconclusive due to lack of enough time to discuss (Clavinova, drum kit)
Item 1 Setting a date for General Assembly (GA). The Doodle poll amongst the committee members had indicated that there was no date to ascertain participation of all Committee members and that the dateallowing maximum participation of Committee members was11th May. The committee decided to convene the GA on 11 May.
Item 2 Choir: Subsidy –The committee noted that a revised request had been received from the Choir section, following a preliminary discussion on this matter at the previous meeting under Item 7. The matter had been deferred to this meeting. The final revised requestof Choir representative to the Club amounted to 2380CHF. This is to cover expenses of rehearsals and concerts,January–June 2016 for which a total amount of 3150.-CHF had been foreseen for payment to Conductor Kirsty Griffith and a pianist. Through internal arrangements, the amount was reconciled to 2380 CHF. An amount of 154 CHF having been ‘transferred’ from the previous period, an amount of 2380 CHF was requested by the Choir. It was noted that the membership fees paid by members of the Choir, which amounted to 2490 CHF, exceeded the amount of the subsidy requested. In this connexion, the members examined the Treasurer’s interim report for liquidity.The request was accepted.
Subsequently, the Vice-President warned that expenditure trends had to be cautiously analysed and foreseen in future, more than ever. Owing to the new situation created by the Staff Council’s refusal to provide funding as long as not enough UNOG members of the music club were dues paying members of the Staff Council presented a new challenge. The situation for the Choir in the second half of 2016 needed attention, since a large portion of the 2016 membership fees had now been absorbed.
Item 3 Hon President’s (Alex Ezana) messageThe message referred to a) discussion of the Choir proposal to set its own rules of association; b) Monitoring of Percussion Classes; c) Expenditures.
The committee noted that since the message was received, the minutes of the concerned committee meeting had been adopted and certain issues mentioned had been resolved. It was decided to upload both the letter and email attachment to the documents pertaining to the report, in the minutes section of the website, so that it could be read in conjunction with the already adopted minutes of the committee.
a)Choir proposal: Creating a Choir association within the UN Music Club Noting that Mr Ezana’s comments related to the details of the Choirs proposal (Note: the latter is temporarily withheld until modifications of the Statutes are accepted by the GA) and provided the full history and background as well as the recommendations, which could be of interest for the Choir in finalising its revised proposal, it was decided to post the Mr Ezana’s comments on the Committee page of the website. The message also contained some corrections of the text.
b)Monitoring of the Percussion classes The Committee noted that Mr Ezena was requesting to be relieved of certain tasks. One member suggested that the Committee could ask Alex Ezana which tasks he would be interested in pursuing, however the Committee also agreed that the request made by Alex Ezana to be relieved of monitoring tasks was quite unequivocal and agreed to follow up on it. The Committee would remain very open to any proposals by Alex Ezana.
c)Expenditures It would seem that the question of a ‘crisis’ in the Clubs finances was a misunderstanding, probably related to the fact that it had proven impossible to obtain funding for the planned recordings and some equipment purchase proposals. The attached Financial statement supplied by the Treasurer for this meeting would clarify the situation. The Committee decided that no further action was needed on this item.
Item 4 Collection of fees and expanding the Club’s membership
It was agreed that fees would remain at the level already established, however it was now possible for new UNOG members to be exonerated on an upon-request basis, provided they would pay the fees to the Staff Council. The Vice-President reminded members of the project to publicize the flier (see item 6) aiming at recruiting new members, especially in UNOG.
Item 5 International Jazz-day(refer to 30th April : unmusicclub.com/events) The question of seeking a hypothetical payment of 200 CHF from the Club in case UN Plage restaurant were to cancel an agreed payment to Hon Member pianist Jean-Yves Poupin if the weather were bad is proving unnecessary as at the time of the meeting. The weather forecast was good enough to guarantee that the concert would take place. Indeed the restaurant had full reservations already. No action place. Indeed the restaurant had full reservations already. No action required
Item 6 Music Club Flier. All sections had now provided their text. Patrice would draft something for the Percussion classes. It was suggested the graphist at ITU, member of the Club, could contribute a professional page-layout. The flier would now have to be finalized and discussed at the GA for comments, suggestions, etc.
Item 7 Draft minutes of Autumn 2015 meetings and Review of items left unresolved at 2 previous meetings:
-Reminder of a decision taken by the GA that has not been carried out: Procedure concerningaccess to the Club's UBS account (changes in signature, control procedures etc. (Para 3. Report of 22.10. meeting). It was decided to take this action at the latest after the election of a President at the next GA.
-Payment proposal to Julio d’Santiago Percussion show (para 10 , report 17 Nov meet) was not accepted, given opposition by some members who considered that any expenses should be agreed on before an event takes place and that post-factum payment would set un undesirable precedence.
Item 8 Modification of Request for funding to Staff Council presented in December. Requirement for new bass amplifier can be withdrawn, repaired by a Club member. The Committee took note and asked a message of thanks be transmitted to Nicolas Stauble who repaired the bass amplifier.
Item 9 Modifications in the website: Patrice explained the following modifications:
a) Placement of all documents, agendas, reports of the Committee as well as placement of all documents related to finance of the General Assembly in password protected access. The report of the GA would remain public. The passwords were given to each head of section. The principle is that all members should be entitled to consult the documentation at all times.
b) Club members’ addresses into a separate password protected access.
The website had recently been upgraded with the new version of its underlying software, Prestashop. The website was still being maintained by Patrice’s son Jérémie at no charge.
Item 10 Carry-over from previous meeting, owing to lack of time to discuss. The Committee looked at a proposal to formulate a request to purchase two pieces of equipment which had been put by Alex Ezana at the disposal of the Club for many years and intensively used: 1 Clavinova piano and 1 drum set Yamaha. Since Alex Ezana had not stood for re-election of President of the Club in 2015 and as he had moved away from Geneva, the instruments had no purpose for him. Since the instruments had been loaned at no charge to the Club for many years, they have undergone a clear devaluation. Further to a lengthy discussion on the feasibility of a purchase which would imply the notion that a fee would be paid for past use (like a retroactive rental), a majority of members decided against the formulation of such a request, for various reasons of principle. Instead the Committee suggested that the Club and specially the Committee members could consider offering services to Alex Ezana, by identifying private buyers through any method acceptable to Mr Alex Ezana, e.g. circulating information to all members of the Club, advertising on e-bay. Committee members would volunteer to show the instruments, carry out the sales transaction etc and to forward proceeds to Alex Ezana, if sales were achieved. A final decision would be taken after receiving a response from Alex Ezana.