Vivace Voices Committee Meeting – 11th September 2024

 
Present – H Archer (mins), S Hennell, R Fitz-Desorgher, A Moore (Chair), Goldson, C Askar, K Patten, I Westley

Apologies - J Howe

1. Minutes of last meeting

Action - HA to resend mins from 17th April.
 

2. Financial report and fees

2. • The report was audited, but this will be the last time AM’s husband can do them. Hard copies were handed round at the meeting. We have a £15,094 balance, which is very healthy. Reasons for this are

     • Fees have gone up

     • More members

     • Craft stall

   • We raised £2,962 for charity last year, after deduction of the concert expenses. The donation to Daisy’s Dream was increased by Greenham Trust.

   • Hire for St Catherine’s for rehearsals is going up but is still very reasonable.

   • Cantemus paid for the hire of our keyboard but didn’t use it, so it was AGREED that may have it free for one use during this year.

   • Fees – suggested we carry on with £55 per term – AGREED. Important to mention at AGM how reasonable this is.

   • Musical Director fee – AGREED to increase to £100 per rehearsal from now.(IW left the room while this was discussed and voted on).

   • Tea/Coffee – suggestion to increase this to £2.50 per term - AGREED.
      

3. Choir copies of music (IW)
   We have 2 pieces that are owned by the choir, perhaps we should buy something else to build up a library. IW suggested Stabat Mater – Pergolesi. AGREED to purchase 40 copies. Action - IW to order 40 copies of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, AW to mark them as property of VV.

4. Review of last concert

• All agreed that it was a great success.

• Everyone is happy to advertise to friends as the choir is so good.

• Catering – we didn’t have enough food, especially sandwiches. AGREED that we will have a category for sandwiches on catering list for next concert to encourage members to contribute these.

• The Raffle was very popular and raised a lot of money.
  R F-D explained the advantages of including a QR code on the programme linking to appropriate donation site. AGREED to trial for Christmas Concert.

• Venues are still difficult to manage because of the volume of audience. Not easy to solve - we’ve talked about this after every concert! It’s lovely to use St Catherines but as a venue it’s not good. Is there a limit to number of people in each venue? Action - SH to check limits to numbers allowed in a venue before a concert.

• IW felt there was plenty of practise time. St Stephen’s Basildon is not a very easy venue to sing in, and the logistics of arranging the choir, key board etc are awkward. Some choir members were unhappy about having to manage steps. Agreed that we need to plan more in advance in future. Action – AM to ensure that a Seating plan is done in advance for the choir before the next concert.

• For the Christmas Concert at St Mary’s Burghfield, the room for catering will be available.

5. Spring concert, venue and date
   Sue H has investigated St John’s Mortimer as a potential venue. Parking is too difficult, so sadly it’s not suitable. The timings of our concerts make this a difficult problem to overcome. English Martyrs is a good venue, but the Priest insists on sacred music only. Also discussed maybe using Bradfield college. Action - SH will investigate English Martyrs and Bradfield College as potential venues for Spring concert 1st and 2nd April (rehearsal and concert).

6. Care home visit
   IW suggested reviving singing at care homes, which we had done previously but stopped due to Covid. The choir is too large for us all to go, so we’d need smaller groups. Discussion about how to manage numbers, what days to choose. AGREED to plan a care home visit before half term 22nd, 23rd or 24th October. Action - SH to investigate venues for care home visit, also check if there’s a keyboard.

7. Website
   RF-D has done a lot of work on the website

• tidying up and investigating how it had been set up. 2 people still had editorial rights, who should not have had, RF-D has now removed them. 

• some broken links, some of the formatting was wrong, needed correcting so it can be viewed on different devices. 

Some of the other work she’s done includes

• Created “landing” page – Welcome page to visitors.

• Corrected typos/spellings.

• Some old news removed

• Some private documents now hidden.

• Members area now private

• Facility to add functionality. Links to music will be shared, both YouTube and Spotify

• Hyperlinked emails for committee members where agreed

• Links to allow us to put things automatically into calendars.

RF-D is interested in exploring how to make payments electronically using QR codes, for instance. Thanks to RF-D, all members will look at the website and give feedback.

8. AOB

• HA asked that all email titles start with “Vivace Voices” to help those who have a high volume of emails.

• The Constitution needs to be reviewed – carry forward. Action – AM to include Constitution review for next meeting

• Action - Charity for Christmas to be confirmed/agreed

9. Date and time of next meeting

TBC. Action – date and time for next meeting to be agreed.

10. ACTIONS

• HA to resend mins from 17th April

• IW to order 40 copies of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, AW to mark them as property of VV. SH to check limits to numbers allowed in a venue before a concert.

• AM to ensure that a Seating plan is done in advance for the choir before the next concert. 

• SH will investigate English Martyrs and Bradfield College as potential venues for Spring concert 1st and 2nd April (rehearsal and concert).

• SH to investigate venues for care home visit, also check if there’s a keyboard.

• AM to include Constitution review for next meeting.

• Committee - Charity for Christmas to be confirmed/agreed

• Committee - date and time for next meeting to be agreed.