CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY

Present Zoe-Laura Bridel (C1), Stephen Cleobury, Lucy Colwell (C1), Simon Fairclough (WWW), Ashley Grote (Ass Con) Maggie Heywood (Secretary), Dora Kemp (Treasurer), Gordon Lawrence (Librarian), Rhiannon Mayon-White (C2), Richard Neill, Beth Thompson (publicity), Jonathan Vaughn (Conductor C2, ZE)

The Secretary welcomed everyone to the committee, asking everyone to introduce themselves to the committee, there being a number of new faces. Simon Fairclough proposed that Maggie be asked to take the chair. This was unopposed so Maggie took the chair and Jonathan assumed the role of secretary for the purposes of minute taking for this meeting.

Simon raised the issue of certain members present not technically being members of the CUMS committee due to the motion of confidence being defeated at the GM the previous night. Despite this, Maggie had invited the ensemble representatives to attend the meeting in order that there might be a good student representation at this meeting. Dora said that Liz Gloyn, the Chorus rep, considers herself to have resigned from her post.

Minutes of the last meeting. On page 2, Dan Hyde's name is misspelt. It should be noted that at certain points in the meeting, Gordon Lawrence, Rhiannon Mayon-White and Richard Andrewes left.

c) “Student” Elected Representatives. Since these were members of the committee in which the society expressed no confidence, they should, in light of recent events and the society's heightened awareness of procedural matters, seek a refreshing of their mandate as representatives of the various ensembles.

e) Vice-Presidents who may if they wish ask to be co-opted to the committee. It was difficult to say whether the vice-presidents who were on the committee in which the society expressed no confidence have now lost their positions and need to seek co-option once more, and we shall see whether they get in contact with Maggie over the next few days. This matter was left unresolved.

Maggie asked Stephen to leave the room while the committee discussed the appointment of the conductor. Rhiannon raised concerns about CUMS2's attendance at the recent general meetings and whether it was appropriate for this decision to be made without knowledge of their views. However it was agreed that this was old ground and CUMS2 had had ample notice of these meetings and thus opportunity to make their views known.

Stephen was invited to re-enter the room. He said a few words thanking the committee for asking him to continue and for their confidence in his ability. He welcomed the departure from the status quo ante and is delighted that there will now be an opportunity to hear the views of the committee, particularly the student representatives, and to suggest some ideas of his own about the future. He hoped, for example, that it would be possible to resume the practice of inviting guest conductors for individual projects - a practice which had dwindled because of lack of funds. He hoped also to become more involved in all the performing sections of the Society. There have been allegations that Stephen does not want students involved in the running of the society. These are unfounded. However students benefit from the continuity of senior members, in particular Maggie. The present

system is designed to enable a continuing realignment of balance between junior and senior members, depending on the strengths of the students involved, so if there are gaps in students' administrative skills then these parts of the administration can be picked up by senior members of the committee (usually Maggie).

The chairman of the CUMS committee is an appointment made by the committee from amongst its members; it is not made by the whole society. As mentioned above, we are able to co-opt up to seven members (possibly including some vice-presidents), and it may be appropriate to co-opt one of these with the post of chairman in mind. A lengthy discussion ensued. Ashley suggested that it would be preferable to have a performing member of the society, but Rhiannon thought someone neutral, not attached to any particular ensemble might be better. Simon suggested that it should be someone high in the university hierarchy, but with an approachable demeanour. Beth suggested that he should take an active interest in the work of all the groups, attending rehearsals and concerts. Stephen said that it was important that this was done at the invitation of the ensemble's own committee to make the chairman feel more welcome. Richard said that the most important thing was that the chairman be involved in the day to day work of the society. The discussion ranged far beyond that of appointment of chairman, and other issues raised are below.

a) Approachability of committee. As an extension to the idea that the chairman be seen to be taking an active interest in the work of all the CUMS ensembles, it was agreed that the whole committee needs to be approachable. Beth said that it would help if good photographs were on the website so these people were recognisable, and Simon added that their email addresses should also be there. This was agreed. Gordon is also going to look into setting up a soc-cums-committee list to aid ease of communication between members of the committee.

b) Number of vice-presidents. Simon suggested that the number of vice-presidents be increased to reflect more accurately the number allowed by the constitution. Stephen mentioned the name of Duncan Robinson in this context, adding that the vice-presidents should be an experienced group which the committee can call upon for advice from time to time when it is felt necessary.

c) Expansion of ensemble committees. Maggie suggested that we increase the size of the orchestra committees, so that the running may be distributed more widely. These committees should have at least four members, perhaps more, and the members should have named positions mirroring the positions in the central committee, such as librarian, secretary, social secretary, publicity, programme editing and so on. Maggie suggested that at least two of these people should attend central committee meetings. Simon thought that there may be a constitutional problem with this, but a look around the table showed that there were two representatives from CUMS1 present at the meeting.

d) Revision of the constitution. Stephen said that the events of the past few months have shown us there are many things the CUMS constitution, approved on January this year, is either unclear on or completely silent. He suggested that the new chairman should seek to set up a working party to draw up changes to the constitution.

e) Interaction of Cambridge residents and students. Dora raised the issue of strengthening links between members of the ensembles from the town and the university. Stephen clarified the issue of “student” committees. They are not in fact student committees but committees made up from members of the group, so can include people from the town.

f) Co-option. Stephen suggested that, when co-opting members to the CUMS committee, it should be discussed at a committee meeting to which the proposed co-option should not be invited, s/he should be invited to the following meeting: This will aid the accountability of the committee. He added that we should seek people with specific skills such as a lawyer who might help with the revision of the constitution and someone with financial expertise who would be able to assist Dora in her new role. It was agreed that we should have an extra meeting at the start of next term to discuss proposed co-options, but at the present time it was agreed to co-opt Daniel Hyde and Dr John Barber to the committee.

There is a problem with the date and venue for the CUMS1 concert since Stephen, who did not know whether he would be CUMS conductor in the Lent Term, is not now free on March 6th. As a result there are also no soloists booked at the present time, but they will be found from the student population. It was agreed to let Maggie and Stephen liaise about this, and King's and West Road will both be approached. Several issues were raised during this discussion:

a) Budgeting Process. Stephen said that the budgeting process for CUMS concerts needs improving as in the past he has been fixing soloists with no idea of the scale of possible fees. The policy will be a matter for the committee, but the detailed planning must be done by the treasurer: Dora has not yet had a reply from Professor Johnstone about handing over responsibility as treasurer.

b) Programme notes. Liz Thompson has resigned from the posts of programme editor and box office manager. Stephen suggested that given our position in Cambridge, we could approach experts to write programme notes for us, finding experts from the university in given fields so that our notes may use the latest research and be of the highest possible quality. The music faculty representative perhaps could help with finding the most appropriate people to write the notes.

c) Ticketing. Currently without a box office manager, CUMS needs someone to be responsible for the box office. It entails liaising with the box office and ticketing on the day, so is not overly onerous.

d) Poster design. If we can do the poster design in house then we can save money, recent design has been done commercially. Dora offered to train people to do poster and programme design.

8) Fundraising Stephen asked Maggie to leave the room. He said that the committee needed to look into raising Maggie's stipend, as had been agreed at the meeting of 31st October. Given the current level of stipend, it will not be possible to replace Maggie when she needs to retire (the same is also true of the post of conductor). We agreed and Maggie was invited to re-enter the room. We will not need a lot more money, but some fundraising will be necessary in order to raise her stipend. Simon suggested that a working party be formed to look into fundraising, including, perhaps a senior member experienced in these matters (a new co-option perhaps). Dora suggested replacing the status of “associate member” and form a “Friends of CUMS”, which would be a lot of work, but worth the effort. We could contact old members of the society who might be interested in becoming a “friend” as George Brown at the Music Faculty has a database of all CUMS members from the last twenty years. It was agreed that before the end of term, an email should go out to the current membership to see if anyone has some financial contacts.

9) Dinner. It was agreed to open up the planned CUMS Chorus dinner at the start of next term to the whole membership. The members of the committee are to look into possible venues and report back to Beth who will liaise in finding the best venue, trying to keep it down to £20. We are aiming for either Friday 23rd or Saturday 24th January.

10) Action plan. Ashley said that he normally doesn't know what he is meant to be doing before the next meeting, so the committee formulated an action plan so everyone knows exactly what is required - Richard is going on an expedition to Antarctica so communication with him will be somewhat hampered over the next few weeks.

The next meeting will be on 20th January 2004 at 1.15pm in the Saltmarsh Room, King's College (venue tbc), followed by one on 30th January 2004 at 1.15pm in the Dirac Room, St John's College.