Minutes: 2002-2003/2002-07-08

Minutes of the RockSoc Committee meeting

8th July 2002

 

Present: Baz, Elizabeth, Oliver, Emma, Oli, Peter

 

Meeting opened: 2101

 

1) Minutes for approval

Hangovers caused some confusion between Oliver and Oli in last week's

minutes; Oliver kindly pointed these out and they have been corrected.

Amazingly, no other typos or factual errors were found in the minutes.

Either they weren't trying or I managed to produce some substantially

correct minutes. I suspect the former.

 

Baz looked harder and spotted one more correction. He intends to visit 118

public houses and not 113 as recorded last week. Baz then proudly expressed

his desire to drink in bars like All Bar One and Pure. The assembled company

tried to tell him that it was nothing to be proud of. Jimmer was reminded of

an occasion on which he went to Bar 8. The fact that JIMMER WENT TO BAR 8

should be recorded prominently for all posterity.

 

Emma was noted to be a bit over excitable this week because she is

teething.

 

The minutes were approved.

 

2) Treasurer's report

We have received a cheque for L13.48 from the Junction in full and final

payment.

 

RockSoc has written a cheque for L105 to Andy Hudson for Graspop.

 

Oliver asked Andy Hudson if he had receipts for this expenditure on the

Graspop trip. Andy H said that he did. Baz asked if Andy could give these,

and also any receipts from last year, to him.

 

We abhor Baz, jukeboxes, and their combined works.

 

Oli asked that I should minute that he disagrees in principle with Andrew

WK's trousers.

 

Elizabeth asked if the treasurer could tell the committee the exact state of

the RockSoc bank account. Oliver promised to get an up to date statement,

and inform the committee of the position next week.

 

ACTION: Oliver to tell the committee what our assets are at the next

meeting.

 

3) WUS

There is a potentially serious financial situation with regard to WUS. It

now being summer, numbers at WUS are falling off. The situation is not

helped by the fact that there have been 2 cancelled WUS's recently, which

may have lost us a lot of customers. Last week's WUS made a loss of L70.

There are 5 more WUS's during the Vac. RockSoc cannot sustain this level of

loss.

 

The committee agreed that stopping WUS during the long Vac would be a bad

idea, because 1) consistency is important in clubnights; people forget about

them if they are cancelled for 3 months, or may be unsure about whether they

have restarted. 2) this may cause us to lose the venue, because the landlord

may reasonably not be prepared to deal with a promoter who leaves his club

dark for 6 weeks a year.

 

Andy Hudson was asked for his advice, which was as follows:

 

1) We should raise the price by a small amount, at least over the summer.

 

2) We should speak to the management about the possibility of getting a

discount on the hire price of the venue for the duration of the summer while

numbers are low. We did this at the Q, and obtained a concession whereby we

would pay a lower flat fee, plus 25p for every person through the door.

 

3) Doing a lot of clear flyering and postering.

 

4) Ben should speak to new faces at WUS and introduce himself to make them

feel welcome. He should also ask what they want from WUS and if they are

getting it.

 

The committee resolved to do the following:

 

A) To raise the price of WUS by 50p to L2.50 members, L3.50 non- members.

In favour: 6 Against:0 Abstaining:0 (Ben has expressed the fact that he is

an favour too)

This change to take effect immediately.

 

B) Ben will speak to the Kambar about this.

 

C) Some new flyers need to be made. These need to be easily printable, as we

cannot afford professional printing. It was agreed that they should be a

bold black and white design. Emma suggested multilingual flyers for foreign

students.

Elizabeth suggested that the names of bands who are played at WUS should be

put on the flyer, so as to give people a clear feeling of what we mean. It

was felt that this might backfire ,as people might take it to be a guarantee

that they would hear these bands every WUS and be disappointed. Instead, it

was suggested that genres which are played at WUS should be listed.

 

Kit suggested that the new flyers should make explicit the policy of

requests, and that people can bring their own CDs for this purpose. There

was a general consensus against using this fact in advertising because a)

Andy pointed out that people might think that it implied their selection was

_guaranteed_ to be played and get pissed off when it wasn't. b) Elizabeth

and Emma pointed out that for many of the kind of people we are trying to

reach, who may be more familiar with other subcultures like dance and pop

than the metal underground, requests may well be considered unprofessional,

suggesting that it's not a 'real' club, just people playing their records in

a hired room.

 

However, it was felt that to was a good idea to continue the policy of

playing requests, and that a sheet of paper should be provided in the DJ

booth so that DJs can record requests for the reference of later DJs who may

have more appropriate sets for them.

 

Emma will produce these new flyers and mail them to -committee. Baz will

print them, and also some posters, for distribution to the members next

meeting to get publicity done. Oli will put the flyers on the website so

that people can print them out.

 

Other publicity should include the new AdHoc (which is called RealCity) and

another magazine for whom contact details were mailed to -committee

yesterday. Elizabeth will contact these. Baz will contact Terrorizer.

 

D) Ben should chat to less familiar faces about what they want from WUS.

Someone suggested handing out surveys, but Andy pointed out that 1) this

annoys people, who don't want to do this sort of thing on a night out 2)

it's rather impersonal 3) almost by definition it produces a very biased

result, because only the ones who don't like something ever fill them in.

 

It was mentioned that last summer the numbers didn't drop over the summer,

for the first time in ages. This was probably because there were a lot of

non-student people at WUS, especially 6th formers waiting to go to

University. Flyering might get these people back again.

 

Oliver pointed out that the music played in he 'commercial' slot was very

out of date. Elizabeth pointed out that this was because nu-metal had

largely vanished from the singles charts and play lists in the last 6

months, and to remain in date we would have to shift the emphasis to heavy

indie (Puddle of Mudd, Nickelback) or to bands like The Hives, The Strokes

and The Doves, which would shift the emphasis very much away from metal and

significantly change the character of WUS.

 

Baz has been paid back the money he leant the WUS box.

 

ACTION: Emma to make some flyers.

Baz to print hem

Oli to put them on the website so others can print them.

Elizabeth to put adverts in some magazines.

Baz to put WUS in Terrorizer

Ben to negotiate with the Kambar and speak to some customers.

 

4) Societies Syndicate

The figures have been sent to the Societies Syndicate. They have not yet

replied. It is possible that they are replying to Emma's herpes account.

Oliver will chase them on Wednesday, and Emma will mail them too.

 

Emma's e-mail contact needs changing on the website.

 

ACTION: Oliver and Emma both to pester the Societies Syndicate

Oli to change Emma's contact details on the website.

 

5) Festivals

Graspop went well, although some rowdy Belgians dislocated Thrusting Tim's

leg with the aid of a large flag.

 

4 Wacken tickets have arrived this week. The fifth is presumably on its way.

 

At present 7 people have expressed interest in the Bulldog Bash. Unless they

all actually turn up, this sounds like a job for Ian's car; if they do then

a minibus will have to be investigated. Emma said that Woolworth's sell

cheap tents. Logically, this caused Oliver to express an interest in the

Bulldog Bash.

 

Emma will mail -announce about Whitby.

 

Bloodstock- Oli asked the committee to prod him. Emma borrows the

Secretary's pen and started prodding Oli. While he was distracted, Oliver

jabbed him in the ribs hard and he squeaked a bit.

 

Oliver was chastised for not having bought the new album by Bal Sagoth. Oli

said that the jukebox seemed to need attention; Oliver added 'With s

sledgehammer'.

 

Oli wishes it to be minuted that he can drink 2 whole pints of Old Bob

without falling down, but Jimmer claims that 2 pints make him ill. Oli said

'Ha Ha'. Oliver said that he can drink 5. Emma drank some vodka and giggled

for some reason.

 

ACTION: Emma to mail -announce about Whitby.

 

6) Fresher's week

CUSU need paying. The treasurer said 'Ha ha!'. We will consider how we are

going to do this next week.

 

7) Boat Race bookings.

Emma needs to see them about this. She will do so this week.

 

Oliver asked that he be actioned to sort out his marriage. Richard said that

he could confirm that this is often found to be an ongoing process. Matt

wants to take over one of the bookings.

 

ACTION: Elizabeth to mail Matt when the bookings are.

Emma to speak to the Boat Race.

Oliver to sort out his wedding.

 

8) Abhorring Jimmer's trousers

In favour: 6 Against:0 Abstaining:0

 

Jester proposed an amendment whereby the word 'trousers' was eliminated from

the motion.

 

This committee also abhores Bedford.

 

And National Express Coaches.

 

9) CD library

The committee said 'Ha Bloody Ha'.

Andy said that he would deliver this to Emma's some time soon.

 

10) Webstuff

Past events for 2001 need doing, as do photos fro the Maybrawl.

Oli pestered me to mail him corrected versions of the minutes; Elise needs

pestering for some more of hers.

 

11) AOB

Jester asked if he could borrow the decks for Saturday. He wrote the

committee a cheque to guarantee against loss or damage. Jester will have to

arrange to collect the decks from Baz's house.

 

Meeting closed 2138

 

My goodness what a serious lot we were this week.