SeaGreen Singers

GM St Columba's 7.30pm

Monday, 25th March, 2019

Financial report Mar 2019 for term up to Xmas 2018

Hall Hire
Subs received between 3/9/18 5/12/18: £459.60
paid out (hall hire, Xmas box for SW) £565

We have made a loss of about £100 on this term. The surplus built up will cover this, though not if the new hire charges for the hall are found to be accurate.

Current balance stands on 24/3/2018 with hall hire for jan to easter not yet paid) : £871.

Since January 2019 we have been receiving invoices automatically each month from St Columba's using a new accounting system (we have never had an invoice previously). They are calculated at double the rate we paid before Xmas i.e. we are being asked to pay £51 instead of £25 per evening of 90 minutes. I have queried whether this is intentional but have had no response to date.

Film of Hidden History by A.J. Smith-Palmer
Deposit of 50% paid towards final cost: £250
Receipts received towards total cost (£500): £300

Note on Web site
Tom Skitt has kindly offered to help improve the clarity of the website. During our discussions we have considered some changes which involve expenditure. A short outline of the current position follows.

We (or rather I) own www.seagreensingers.com which is the home page you go on when using that address. It is a small page of 1,32 Mb and just 20 files. It is free. If the size went above 10 Mb we would have to pay, usually by a monthly hire charge. As an example of the size of typical files we use on the site, one Mp3 music file takes roughly 1 Mb, one photo about half a Mb so we would use up all our free space by having 5 Mp3 music files and 10 or 20 scores on it. We have a lot more than this

The way I have got round this without paying any charges is by take advantage of an offer by my brother to use space on the SWP web server to 'host' space on their site by linking all our content (e.g. scores, music, photos,information) to pages stored on their website at
http://sgs.lpi.org.uk/seagreensingers/......
All of the links from our home page currently go to sites on our 'sgs.lpi.org.uk' address e.g http://sgs.lpi.org.uk/seagreensingers/songbookntl.htm which is the address for the songs page.

When the SWP site got a new Web master recently when my brother died we had a short closure of the website and they agreed to carry on hosting the site. However there is always the potential for the SWP to withdraw the offer of hosting the site or someone inadvertently pulling the plug.

Our proposal is that we should pay for space on a commercial server site. Our current server offers a basic scheme paying £3.50/month for 3 separate websites (we probably only need one) and 15000Mb (15Gb) storage.This should cover our needs for the future given that I have not pruned anything from the site - e.g. we still have all the files for the 'Events' show we did many years ago at the Northern wall. Our current space requirements are: for recorded Mp3 music files 2,200 Mb (2.2Gb) and for music scores 2.1 Mb

This would add about £15 a year to our costs.

Agenda for meeting this Monday March 25th 2019 at St Columba's Hall 7.30
1. Approval of Notes of GM 9th September 2018
2. Treasurers report
4. Musical Directors report
4A Website and SGS domain
5. Gigs, future of Levellers Day: discuss finding out if there is to be the usual ceremony in the graveyard, if so who is organising it so that for next year in the absence of any body e.g. Union, Trades Council etc ask vicar if we can take over running something in the church or Warwick Hall if possible and announce it in advance as an event.
6. In the spirit of Hidden Histories prepare programmes/presentations which can be ready at the drop of a hat to be presented on themes like Climate change (possibly getting outside people to present something like the woman from the recent XR meeting who did a 10minute presentation of the science behind CC and would probably share her slides if asked or do the talk.); Racism; Refugees; etc.
6. Street choir festival: advance notice.
7 . Any other business
8. Date of next meeting.

Agenda and Notes from meeting September 9th 2018
at Mike’s house 15.30 10 Hurst Rise Rd OX2 9HQ

1. Approval of Minutes from GM 25th September 2017
2. Treasurers report
4. Musical Directors report
5. report from Hazel sounding-out earlier start of practices.
6. choir name, logo, and shirt
7 . Any other business
8. Date of next meeting.

Notes GM 25 September 2017

1 Present: Sarah L, Anne D, Eliane , Hazel, Sarah W. Sue, Jacques, Ali, Gill Apologies: Sarah B., Angela, Bridget, Mike, Ruby, Fran.

2 Approval of Minutes from GM 19th March 2017 Agreed a true record

3 Treasurer’s report for summer term Circulated prior to meeting. Paid: room hire for summer term £175 and Fee to Liz for levellers day £130. Current balance £372.36
does not include 6 outstanding subs from summer term. Room rent increasing. Mike will confirm what is agreed with church and suggested subs rate for autumn term. Meeting thanked Mike and wished him well with his recovering health.

4 Report on Secretarial roles Noted that Hazel and Mike can authorize postings to SGS list by those not currently on the list.

5 Musical Director’s report Sarah W. away for most of the summer term. She thought we sang well and had good involvement with the audience at the Jo Cox event in Abingdon. Asked for feedback on sessions with Liz for Levellers Day performance. Group felt Liz fully engaged with us and was good at keeping as to task as well as stopping the chatter. She reminded us about our agreed rule about taking part in a gig. Need to attend the two practices prior to the gig . It can be difficult for other choir members if someone joins gig without being part of preparation. If people are not able to make those two practices but want to do the gig, please talk to Sarah. Need to recruit new members. Agreed to hold an Open evening on Monday 4th December.This will be a taster session for potential new members, to combine end of term social evening and an introduction to political songs Sarah W. will plan content. Hazel will draft and circulate publicity material and liaise with Sarah. All of us need to help publicise the event. Sue will link with Mike re room bookings (Half term 23rd October)

6.Rehearsal times and security arrangements No problems reported.re security. Hazel suggested changing sessions to run 7.30-9 pm. Majority of group present would be happy with this. Hazel will solicit views of wider group by e -mail. Sue will liaise with Mike to check if any earlier bookings for the room would prevent us changing start time.

7.Songbook, core songs and copyright Gill and Sarah met to discuss possibility of having core songbook printed and concluded that for reasons of cost as well as need to keep updating we should stay with present system. Mike will continue to update website. Sarah will say in advance what we will be rehearsing so we can each print off words and music from website to bring to rehearsals. Song sheets/booklets of words can be created and printed off for particular gigs/demos/events Eliane will check with Don re source of folders he found for Peace concert so we can use them for Hidden History Performance Copyright issue noted by Ali. He has not had time to follow this up but will do so before next GM

8.Gigs planned so far - Autumn Term City Farm, Cornwallis Road 7th October We are offering 15 minutes sing along 12.45 -1 Whole event begins at 11.30.All welcome. Sarah preparing song sheet. One world Fair 18 Nov. NB Venue this year is Wesley Memorial Church, New Inn Hall Street. Green Fair 2nd December Town Spring Term England’s Hidden History Saturday 17th March 2018 Friends Meeting House, evening. Sarah L urged group to respond to invitations from Campaign Choirs network to sing at demos and peace events.

9.England’s Hidden History Sue circulated tentative list of songs and report on progress so far towards a performance that will incorporate songs, prose and poetry in a similar fashion to the peace concert. Sue will liaise over cost of hire of room likely to be around £70 for 2 hours. Agreed the project needs a steady group of committed and enthusiastic singers. It is hoped that some previous active member of the choir will join us for this project. Sarah W. Bridget Sue and Gill will continue to meet to plan programme and will keep everyone aware of progress

10 Choir name, logo and shirt Agreed to postpone discussion until next GM when more members were present

10 Date of Next Meeting. Provisionally set for 18th March at Sue and Ali’s 34 Chestnut avenue OX3 9JH Possibility of summer party/meeting in June. Meeting ended at 8 pm