CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY

Present John Barber, Stephen Cleobury (Conductor), Simon Fairclough (WWW), Ashley Grote (Ass Con) Maggie Heywood (Secretary), Dora Kemp (Treasurer), Rhiannon Mayon-White (C2), Richard Neill (Instrument Manager), Vicky Skinner (ZE), Beth Thompson (Chorus), Jonathan Vaughn (Conductor C2, ZE)

The Secretary welcomed everyone to the meeting. There still being no chairman, Simon proposed that Maggie be asked to take the chair. This was unopposed so Maggie took the chair with Jonathan assuming the role of secretary for the purposes of taking minutes at this meeting.

a) Item 1 (e) deals with the issue of vice-presidents following the vote at the General Meeting of 27th November. Maggie has heard from Richard Andrewes who considers himself no longer on the CUMS committee but still a vice president of the society. There has been no contact with Roger Parker, but we assume that his status is the same.

3) Co-options and Chairman A yellow paper was tabled giving details of suggestions for co-options to the CUMS committee, naming six possible co-options to the CUMS committee. Stephen suggested that it would be wise not to co-opt them all as this would fill our permitted allocation and Dora added that they were mostly from the chorus and we need to keep a balance in the committee. In November, Duncan Robinson was approached by Tim Brown and said that he would be prepared to fill the currently vacant chairmanship but we do not know whether there has been any more contact. There was much discussion about the sorts of people we want on the committee and their possible roles and skills, including ways of interacting the student committees with the main committee. Maggie suggested a “big meeting” where all the student committees and the main committee could meet to discuss ideas. Stephen said that it would be perhaps easier if this were done in smaller groups with the executive officers arranging meetings of their namesakes. The possible role of “recruitment officer” was also suggested as a possible addition to the CUMS constitution. Richard said that it is important that those standing for election to the ensemble committees outline their plans, even if they run unopposed. Stephen pointed out that this wide ranging discussion was not in fact on the agenda.

The committee resolved to make a formal invitation to Duncan Robinson to be co-opted on to the CUMS committee in order to chair it. It also resolved to co-opt Jo Whitehead and Caroline Goulder, both of the chorus, and Tim Brown to the committee.

4) Faculty Board Representative The position of Faculty Board Representative was created in 2000 after a long period of deteriorating relations between CUMS and the faculty board. After the general meeting of 27th November it was assumed that Peter Tregear had stood down as faculty rep, but correspondence between Martin Ennis, the chair of the faculty board, and Maggie has revealed that Peter does not consider this to be the case. This could cause constitutional problems as the constitution explicitly states that the faculty board appoints its representative, but under any circumstances the faculty board would need to reappoint its representative. It was suggested that Maggie should seek a meeting with Martin Ennis in order to set out the committee's reasons for its feeling that the committee feels unable to strike up a working relationship.

5) Dates and procedures for concerto and conducting competitions These need arranging soon. Stephen set out the procedure for the two competitions. The concerto candidates present a twelve minute recital to Stephen and one other examiner. The conducting auditions are in front of CUMS2 with the orchestra receiving score sheets to rate individual candidates, but on occasion there has been too many candidates and an elimination round has been needed for narrowing the field. There have been complaints from some of the concerto candidates in previous years that they have not received any feedback. Stephen said that the reason for this is that the workload would become too great for the two examiners, introducing a third may make it possible. The committee gave Stephen and Maggie approval to proceed with the arrangements as in previous years, but agreed that a better degree of transparency would be sensible, perhaps by putting the procedures on the website, as some of the complaints have been brought about by ignorance. It was also agreed to review the situation after the event.

6) AOB There is to be no top table at dinner. Rather than introducing themselves publicly, the committee is to have name cards for easy identification. Stephen suggested putting together some money for pre-dinner drinks from individuals' donations and from the CUMS account, Dora said that this could probably be found. We shall also invite members of the society to provide post-dinner entertainment if they so wish.