Whitehall Committee Meeting
20 November 2008, 6.15pm, COI
Present
Ken Holmes
Sam Foley
Rose Chandler
Kate Goulden
Malcolm Todd
Martin Humphreys
Laurie Grace
Ruth Eastman
Graham Hand
Miranda Douce
Katherine Howes
Jonathan Williams
Apologies
Liz Walton
Richard Grafen
Rachel Salisbury
Paul Spicer
Matters arising from minutes of previous meeting
It is now confirmed that the recording sessions will take place in St Alban’s, Holborn. The committee recorded its thanks to Monica D for her extensive hard work in making this possible.
Future repertoire
The programme for the concert at the Banqueting House on 6 April has now been fixed. That for the concert at SJSS on 10 July has yet to be finalised.
There are problems concerning the projected Missa Solemnis with Birmingham Bach Choir on 24 October 2009. We have recently learnt that Symphony Hall was against us doing this work as they were promoting another performance of it this autumn; we also learnt that the attendance for this was poor. The attitude of the Hall management aside, we cannot risk the loss of poor attendance at what would be an expensive concert. The committee discussed other possible repertoire for a joint concert. A number of later 19th century or 20th century works were mentioned but it was noted that the Birmingham choir would be reluctant to do these as it was outside their preferred repertoire. An alternative would be to move the joint concert to London but it is difficult to find a venue that would be large enough yet affordable.
It was agreed to keep the 24 October Symphony Hall booking for the time being and to review the matter at the next committee meeting on 11 January 2009.Action Sam.
Ritz Carols
Problems with the Ritz carol books were discussed. They keep going missing and have to be replaced, they are in many cases difficult to read and we are not happy about performing from photocopies. It was suggested therefore that we instead use 100 Carols for Choirs, which everybody has. Although this would mean losing some popular carols that are not in the latter, it was agreed that the advantages of such a change outweighed the disadvantages. It was agreed also that we would purchase a spiral-bound edition of 100 Carols for use by the conductor and that we would use the recently-purchased conductor’s stand for our Ritz performances if needed.
Ladies Concert Dress
This item follows on from the AGM where motions for black trousers as an alternative to black skirts and for white shirts in place of black were separately put forward. The decision at the AGM was to put it to a formal vote with the choir. After discussion, with particular emphasis on maintaining a smart, formal appearance at concerts, the committee decided that for practicality this change may be appropriate and thus to define the details. The committee is not in favour of white shirts for the ladies because of the less formal impression it gives and the difficulty of guaranteeing the same white “colour”.
Action: ladies of the Committee to work up a definition of the new concert dress option for the next meeting. Once Committee are agreed to wording, Sam to propose to the Choir, for brief discussion and vote, at a rehearsal next term.
Finances
The projected deficit for the year is now £3,200 against the original budget of £2,100, due mainly to a smaller attendance at the Come & Sing (£500) and lower subscriptions (£500). This still leaves a reasonable balance in the GF, although we would not wish it to dip much lower. Regarding the Come & Sing, the committee reviewed reasons for the lower attendance (28 choir members, 64 outside singers) including the programme choice, time of year and venue. A central London venue would be much more expensive, requiring at least an additional 50 external singers to offset the extra cost. Sam wil encourage Paul to “promote” the Come and Sing idea more, and ask the choir to give positive and negative feedback, via the part reps, as we need to understand what affects attendance before planning a future event.Action part reps and Sam.
Website
Search engines such as Google pick up the first paragraph on our website which leads on our origins in the Second World war and is therefore a bit retrospective so could we re-write the home page to put a more stimulating paragraph at the top (Action Ruth). Some of the photos are now out of date, especially the banner photo from the RCM. Tamsin will update some pictures with the new ones from the Banqueting House but we still need a new formal picture of the choir in a concert setting.
Photos of the Choir were discussed generally, and are agreed to be sub-optimal, as ever; Laurie will enquire about using his contact at COI again for the November concert, to try to secure a better group shot. [Action subsequently completed; lady in question now charges for her time, so budget constraints do not allow this at the moment. An option to keep in mind for the recording].
The committee recorded formal thanks to Tamsin for her work in keeping the website up to date.
Rehearsal programme after Christmas
For the rehearsals immediately after Christmas we will work on the Brahms Requiem before the break and the recording music after the break at each rehearsal until the recording. Auditions for new members will need therefore to be before (or possibly during, depending on the availability of the School Room) the rehearsal from 6:00 to 6:30 on weeks 3 and 4 of the spring term.Action Kate and Sam, plus Monica D.
It was agreed that any new members joining in the new year would be offered a small reduction in their subs to reflect the fact that they can only attend half the rehearsal for the first 5 weeks, due to the recording project. Action Ken.
Any other business
It is getting harder to get volunteers for programme selling at concerts. We could offer a free ticket as an incentive or we could consider including the cost of the programme in the ticket price. A topic to return to.
We need to decide on the licence option for the recording at the next meeting.
Future meeting Dates
Monday 12 January 2009
Thursday 12 March 2009
Thursday 7 May 2009 (note change)
Thursday 18 June 2009
SGM
Tuesday 10 March 2009
AGM
Tuesday 14 July 2009
(Minutes MT/JW)