FMTW Meeting Minutes 16th June 2022
Chair: Peter McKintosh
Minutes: Alistair Cope
Attendees: Alistair Cope, Peter McKintosh, Jake Orr, Paul Carey Jones, Emma Jayne Park, Freddie Crossley.
Apologies: Josie Underwood
- Welcome & introductions
The anti racism statement was read out and values 7 and 9.
We talked about how we are feeling at the mo. It was a mixed bag. Glass half full, glass half empty stuff.
A small meeting today so we finished at 10:45. Although it was small, it was action driven so we have some things that need to be looked at. It was also agreed that next week’s session would be action driven too but a little more structured.
- Agenda points
Update about the big 12 meeting.
It was a good meeting with some positives and the conversation is ongoing. There is still an air of ‘freelancers having to do the work.’ They are interested in funding projects not the ‘keep the lights on’ funding.
Al said that is was great to be in a room armed with all the work we had done over the last few weeks. To be able to glive clear aims and (some) actions.
They discussed funding a couple of freelancers (from their own orgs/community) to sit in the FMTW space, rather like the Freelance Task Force model. EJ fed back on how the taskforce was run and why it perhaps didn’t continue. There was agreement that this perhaps is not the way forward although finding funds to cover people’s costs to be in the room is a good thing.
Productions are constant twice as much as they were 12 months ago (Freddie rightly commented that the cost of EVERYTHING is doubling, not just production materials)
Funding idea from Freddie: fund us to be in rooms to see what is working and what is not. RSC Freelance Board, Stratford East, March For The Arts etc.
Peter: How do we engage the ‘them and us’ issue. Future labs worked. Has anything else (that FMTW have done). Should we be looking at doing it again?
Newsletter: could we use Paule’s presentation (that was delivered at the Big 12 meeting) to form the next newsletter?
Can we use the Tony’s to demonstrate who amazing and talented our industry is with little/no support from the Government.
Ideas for newsletters: Paule’s powerpoint
The Tony’s
The Cost of living and the doubling of production costs. What could/should the industry do to support freelancers.
Stratford East and projects that are working.
MP’s letter:
Neither have been updated since December and it is something we can easily do. Paul is going to look at the wording of the Working In Europe letter as though not much has changed, the wording needs to be updated.
The main MP’s letter also needs a redraft as it is still Omicron centric. We should now change it to reflect the current state of the world and the cost of living crisis.
- Action points (11.15-11.20)
Newsletter – Bat Signal with ideas
Update MPs letter. (Paul to update Working In Europe one, Bat Signal for general MP’s letter)
- AOB (11.20-11.30)