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4. Chairpersons Report
(Lyndsey Kite: text reproduced below)
Hello and welcome to our 26th
AGM of the Cissbury Players and thank you all for coming.
What a year we have had, what with it being our 25th anniversary year.
We listened to your comments last year about having more social
activities offered and I hope you will agree that we fulfilled your
wishes. My thanks must go to Clare-Louise for taking on the role (a
thankless task at times!) of social secretary and for putting forward a
wonderful variety of social events even though not all of her ideas came
to fruition, but this was not due to her lack of commitment to the job.
It has been a great year for welcoming new members with five new
recruits joining the fold.
We kicked off the year in April with Curtain Up On Murder produced by
Mike Liassides. This welcomed the first of our new members, Zahir
White, who has not been given a break since as he also acted in our next
two productions.
July brought us Death by Fatal Murder produced by Mary Frost and was the
third in the Inspector Pratt series, and those of you who saw it will
now realise Pratt by name, Pratt by nature, played, I must say with ease
by Dave Holden! This play welcomed the next two new members, Mike
McCaffrey in his first acting role since leaving school and Damien
Puttick, now fondly known as Damo, who assisted backstage.
Our final production of the year was put on in November and with Mike
taking the reins as producer you may well think it would have murder or
death in the title! However he decided to step out of his comfort zone
and do something completely different and he gave us The Importance of
Being Earnest and what a way to celebrate our 25th year. Not only did
it welcome our final two new members Martin Lardner and Nick Roughton
but the three remaining founder members, Mary Frost, Gareth Jones and
Pam Jezzard also took part. We cannot put this play to bed however
without mentioning Ann Burfoot, although not a founder member as she
joined the group two whole plays after it began! It enabled Ann to
realise her life long ambition to play Lady Bracknell and boy did she
put in a performance.
Subscriptions have been kept the same for the forthcoming year, so that
is £20 for members and £15 for patrons.
As always rehearsal costs continue to be a big expense for us, so can I
please remind people when they attend rehearsals to pay their 50p, even
if you are just dropping by to see how things are going and regardless
of whether you have a drink or not, it all helps towards the costs.
I would like to thank all of the committee members for their time,
support and help throughout the year. Particular thanks to Mike for all
his work on the website and numerous other tasks he does that are just
too many to mention!
Finally as we close on our 25th year I hope we can continue to grow and
be as successful over the next 25 years and we can begin by supporting
our first production of the year Run For Your Wife, which is being
produced by Clare-Louise, her first attempt at producing with us.
Thank you all again. |
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6. Secretary’s Report
(Mike Liassides: text reproduced
below)
It has been a lively year on Committee and I
would like to thank all of the Committee members for their
participation, especially those who have been kind enough to host
meetings and provide us with refreshments. Special thanks must go to
Lyndsey for stepping in as Chair, despite originally wishing to have a
year's rest, and to Claire-Louise for bringing new ideas to the Social
Secretary role.
I would remind all group members that they are welcome to see the
minutes of any or all of the Committee meetings, if they are interested
in knowing what has been discussed or planned on behalf of the group.
Some of this information is, of course, circulated in the newsletters
that are sent out whenever there is enough news to fill one!
Speaking of newsletters, as part of our general drive to improve
presentation and publicity, those have been going out in colour and with
pictures recently – hopefully making them look a little nicer. That has
led to a decision to buy a colour laser printer for the group, so we can
do the same for posters and programmes.
In the same general area, we invested in some printed banners to
advertise the shows and thanks go to Stuart and Pam for agreeing to
display them. Next time we'll try to remember to put the other one at
the Village Hall, too.
Membership cards and booklets have been successfully introduced and will
be continuing for this year. If anyone has any suggestions for
improvements to either, please let us know.
Likewise, the group website. This year it has largely just been kept up
to date, and a few new sections added for the technical side of things.
I do intend to introduce some more, covering other aspects of the group,
but always welcome suggestions for anything anybody else would like to
see. Or at least, I probably would, if anybody had ever made any – so I
have to assume it's quite complete as it is. I would still like to put
in a links page to other sites that group members find interesting (not
necessarily to do with drama) so if anybody has any regular
non-pornographic favourites, please let me know. And if people could
remember to take cameras along to social events, that would be helpful
when it comes to writing them up.
Leading on into social events, last year's minutes show that not
everyone was happy with the social calendar. In 2008, we asked members
to tell the committee what they wanted put on there, and had almost no
suggestions. In 2009, after the AGM, Clare drew up a long list of
suggested activities, most of which were carried through. She is already
working on the 2010 schedule and if anyone has any ideas concerning
that, it would be a good idea to mention them.
I will, just briefly, add a slight grumble of my own, which is that
getting responses from the group to any such requests can be hard work.
It's not as if we bombard members with constant questions, but when we
do ask anything there are a number of people who reply quickly and a
much larger number who don't. Even if you're not interested in whatever
the subject was, it doesn't take a great deal of effort to reply and say
so – at least we then know where we stand. No reply tells us nothing
useful, so please be a little more helpful than that!
Back to social, then.
In May, we participated in a couple of murder mystery evenings on behalf
of local charities. Under rather different conditions than our usual
staging, we improvised through a fairly tricky script that left most of
the audience confused but happy. Good work by everybody involved, and we
were even thanked in print afterwards.
That led on to us doing the same sort of thing at a private birthday
party, the host of which was kind enough to make a donation to the group
which eventually subsidised everyone's Christmas meal – and gave us the
idea of making that a centrepiece of the year's Patron's afternoon.
In July, as we do every year, we had a game stall at the Findon Village
fete. This year was rustic vegetable machine year, rather like the human
fruit machine we've done before. A bad day for weather, unfortunately,
which kept people away in their droves.
Also in July, Tim and Linda hosted a barbeque afternoon, which was
well-attended and enjoyed by all. Thanks go to them for putting on the
do.
August saw the semi-annual treasure hunt, comprehensively organised by
Ann and John and consisting of a little driving, some walking and a pub
tea. Eventual winners were Gareth and assorted family members.
For September, and for the first time, the group was at the Findon Sheep
Fair. Clare put on a display of group history, sent people out in
costume to mingle with the crowds and generally did as much as possible
to raise the group profile. Some membership enquiries (and a new member,
Martin) followed on from that.
September was also the Patrons afternoon, themed, as already noted,
around a murder mystery performed on stage. A goodly number of patrons
attended and seemed to enjoy themselves guessing whodunnit and being
served a variety of delicious refreshments.
October had a skittles evening at the Black Horse pub, with competition
and buffet. Once again, it was Gareth's team who took the top step of
the podium, but everybody who attended had a fun evening out.
The traditional Christmas card exchange was held in December,
unsurprisingly. Thanks go to Lyndsey, who generously provided an open
house, mulled wine and a selection of food.
Final event of the year was, as usual, the Christmas meal. This year,
the majority decision was to try the Silk Road in Littlehampton which
offered a variety of traditional Turkish cooking, a belly-dancer and a
disco. Despite being a tricky to find place, and some people having
reservations about the cuisine, it proved to be a good choice with a
friendly atmosphere. No names will be mentioned, but the quality of
dancing was – variable. As was the degree of interest in the belly
dancer's cleavage.
Special thanks to Clare as Social secretary for organising most of the
above.
The dates of our next productions will be:
15 - 17 April 2010
15 - 17 July 2010
18 - 20 November 2010
Finally, I would also like to add thanks to Peter, for continuing as our
representative on the Findon Village Hall committee, and to Dave for
likewise holding the Publicity officer job. |
7. Findon Village Hall
Report
New item, presented by Peter Lewis,
who sits on the FVH Committee and the Hall Steering Committee.
Plans for the new or extended hall are
underway, after meetings with the Parish Council and the Rural Sussex
Action group. In principle a rates precept has been agreed to fund 50%
of the cost, with the remainder being met by the Hall. The Hall
estimates required funding £250, 000, which would give a total budget of
£500, 000, and has approximately £110, 000 at the moment. It is
anticipated that the new building will be an extension rather than a
replacement, as that attracts no VAT.
Questionnaires have been issued to all hall users and the top items
required are a stage and a badminton court. The Steering Committee have
visited other new halls and discovered that a common issue is allowing
insufficient storage space: this will, hopefully, be avoided.
A first draft design concept is likely to be obtained through open
competition amongst architecture students at local universities, with
this expected in the next 3 – 4 months. |
