FREELANCERS MAKE THEATRE WORK MEETING: FRIDAY 11st JUNE
Chair: Peter McKintosh
Minutes: Josie Underwood
Present: Peter McKintosh, Josie Underwood, Paule Constable, Ella Taylor, Al Cope, Tom Piper, Kelsie Acton, Prema Mehta, Steven Hoggett, Jake Orr, Athena Stevens, Susan Kempster, Jess Murrian, Shankho Chaudhuri
Apologies: Leigh Toney, Paul Carey Jones, Mimi Doulton, Beth Steel
Leaving early: Ella Taylor
Updates and reports
Website and email hosting
We have just finished a 12 month package from wix, but we now have to commit to a further 2 months with wix before we can do a change over due to an inputting error when making the wix account.
We have a few images left that have been named (all white, majority male) but we have 200+ images left that we do not have named. We hope to put up the images that are unnamed and say that we don’t know who they are and ask for our social media reach to name these images.
ACTION POINTS:
- Help Al word the call out for unnamed images
March for the Arts
Met with Becky, Liz and Caitlin. 88 page document – Liverpool based, ACE funded, not just theatre but Arts as a whole. Freelancers worker agreement which has turned in to a guidance. They are asking people to sign up.
They are currently working on setting up Artsfreelancers.com. They have put together guidance (mainly for organisations) on engaging freelancers. There are areas that they don’t cover that FMTW does. The make up of the MftA was 6 freelance artists, 8 people from organisations. Hiring, contracts, diversity, inclusion and accessibility (separate entities). Great meeting, exciting to be in the room with them.
AC – The local nature of their project is scalable and has made their work achievable in a short period of time. We also have spoken about a further relationship with MftA
SH – The main concern we have had is the title of the project, as it may be a barrier to those who it needs to connect with.
DCMS
AS and CO had a last minute meeting with DSMS. The problem with the cultural recovery fund is that right now it is not allowed to be used to created new work, we as a whole need to be able to create new work that responds to the current world we were living in. There were demands for restrictions to be lifted for theatres, there were some saying that they were going to open up on the 21st – seemed reckless, immoral, industry starts with the buck and not with any form of duty or care to artists or the public. It seemed that many had absolutely no back up plan if the reopening gets delayed. DCMS had a willingness to admit that they don’t know what will happen with the lifting of restrictions in the next week.
The purpose of the meeting was to lobby DCMS and make it clear what the theatre industry currently needs.
Process Working Group Meeting
Pre-first meeting 4th June, brief warm up for how we might approach thinking about how the process group might work, and how we might communicate with the wider group.
Internal group practice, accountability, process audit, areas for new focus (eg, internal FMTW communication, sustainability of volunteers, onboarding volunteers, institutional memory, fit for purpose methods of working).
Ideas discussed; Smaller meetings are often more productive, opportunities for us all to get to know each other in the personal, how do we become more proactive and less reactive.
Currently setting the next meeting time for next meeting.
PC – In terms of what that group is it would be a good thing to keep the wider group up-to-date, but acknowledge that that this might be dependent on capacity.
PM – interested to be involved also in strategy group.
SH – The strategy group had a very similar conversation.
PM – a smaller group of people don’t need a chair as there is an organic process that
SC – Process group should be about mechanisms of the machine, and the strategy group is the direction of travel.
SH – Strategy is the outward looking group of the two working groups.
PM – Would we be able to prioritise the strategy and process meetings over the Friday meetings.
SK –
SH – shocking that there are a large number of people in terms of who don’t know what is happening with FMTW, and it would be great to have
Fundraising
Al has updated the website so that we can take one off and regular donations (starting from £5 per month upwards).
Thursday 10th Beth, Al and Jake had a meeting with NT fundraising team, incredibly helpful and forthcoming. Things discussed in the meeting:
- Limitations that we have as an organisation because we don’t have charitable status. Benefits and negatives with becoming a charity, and what is involved in doing this. Opportunities to use other
- Foundations we might be able to apply for, with explicit suggestions on funders that are interested in funding freelancers.
- What do we need to fundraise. When we are asking for funds we are identifying a need in the freelance community, and how funds would help us to address these needs – this is something that needs to go hand in hand with the strategy group.
- Why us, why now?
- Future meeting with Vicci Hayward. She is very well connected and the NT advised on how we should approach this meetings, in terms that she could broker relationships with funders.
- We should be returning to people that have previously supported us.
- Is there a social media campaign that we could run – ways to support FMTW, one of those being donating.
- Adverts in productions/via producers?
- Campaign from the beginning when we emailed; leaning on our celebrity friends to advocate for FMTW
ACTION POINT:
- Email campaign to supporters “A year on” asking for their support
AOB
- Newsletter to be moved to a fortnightly or even ‘as-and-when’ we have news to share.
- SK – FMTW creatives crediting letter has been edited and is to be shared with the group
ACTION POINT:
- Next newsletter to include Athena’s speech for Future of Theatre conference and the March for the Arts document
- SK to send out the letter about crediting creative teams.
ACTION POINTS RECAP
- Help Al word the call out for unnamed images
- Email campaign to supporters “A year on” asking for their support
- Next newsletter to include Athena’s speech for Future of Theatre conference and the March for the Arts document
- SK to send out the letter about crediting creative teams.
Upcoming Friday Meetings:
18th June Chair – Peter McK Minutes – Josie Underwood
25th June Chair – Leigh Toney Minutes – Josie Underwood
2nd July Chair – TBC Minutes – Josie Underwood
9th July Chair – TBC Minutes – Josie Underwood