News

Welcome to Hilary 2012

Welcome to TAFF! I hope the information you need is here – if not, emailing either one of the committee or the mailing list will get you an answer.

Enjoy the term!

Term Card

Minutes

TAFF Committee – Hilary Term 2012 Meeting 1 – Madding Crowd, Monday 16th Jan

Preliminary Agenda:
Stash – James and Shivani have a crisis
TAFF Dinner
Treasurer Handover
Workshop
Next Committee
AOB

Present – all committee except Jacob and Anna
James Barber present as outgoing treasurer

Meeting was opened

Stash Crisis – Shivani apparently made a mathematical error during stash buying, forgot about VAT – resulting in an £82 deficit. But! James had simultaneously noted that TAFF’s accounts had not properly taken account of interest, so it turns out TAFF has an extra … £71.50 in its account. So only £9 needs to be raised. As well as simply just writing it off, we could potentially raise the price of existing stash a bit. The committee decided that doing both these things seemed to be best. After a discussion of economics, it was decided that henceforth hoodies would cost £20, and polo shirts £12. Sarah G suggested Shivani could bring/advertise stash at TAFF socials or get-outs.

David Ralf, University Drama Officer, entered, bearing mail. Matt noted this mail, being accounts related, should be forwarded to the Treasurer (now Jay Anslow of University College) rather than the Secretary. Tom endorsed this.

TAFF Dinner – Shivani confirmed that Christ Church was the best option for a venue, and that she had re-signed the contract with them. The question before the committee now was how much to charge for tickets, and how much to subsidize. The cheapest menu from ChCh will cost £26 per head (it was noted that including VAT this number became £31) James Barber approved. It was asked how much the meal had cost in previous years. £27 had been the cost of the year before last’s dinner. Matt suggested raising a subsidy through a mix of charging alumni slightly more, and TAFF’s own money. Alumni could pay the full price ticket (at present calculations, a full price ticket with acceptable wine allocation was approx. £35) James suggested that a £25-30 price range ought to be our target for students. This meant TAFF would need to provide an approximately £10 subsidy: assuming all attendees (there are 40 places available) were students, this would be at most a £400 subsidy. Matt Wills noted that he needed to hold tickets for Derek and Penny of Henley Theatre Services, and requested that Tom remind him of this.

Treasurer Handover – James noted that the handover was almost complete, he had the last few forms that would create Jay as the new signatory of the TAFF account; it was heavily hinted at by James that Jay might wish to renew TAFF’s internet banking capabilities.

Workshop – The coming Friday would be an introductory workshop at the BT. Matt and Tom would be hosting; James, Matt F and Geoff all volunteered to help out. Shivani suggested holding a separate workshop for directors and producers explaining how to use TAFF to find techies. Tom should send an announcement email to the list.

Next Committee – The elections should be held a week before the AGM. It was suggested that non-graduating members of the committee might consider whether they wanted to be on next year! If not, people should definitely be on the lookout for those who might be interested.

AOB – Sarah G noted that the Hothouse getin was on 29th January, Sunday of 3rd. People should help out! Sarah G also requested that OUDS Treasurer Stephen Poole be mandated[1] to include footnotes in every email he sent to the TAFF list in future.

The hunt for a replacement for Mark Roberts as Senior Member continued, Dave Ralf mentioned that he might have some leads. Shivani mentioned she had a friend who might now be eligible for Senior Member status. She should ask him.

The meeting closed.

Action Points:

Price of stash to be raised: £20 hoodies, £12 polo shirts.
Shivani to advertise/bring stash to events and get outs.
Dinner subsidy to amount to roughly £400, at approximately £10 a head for current students.
Tom to remind Matt to hold tickets for Derek and Penny.
Workshop to be announced, committee members to help with it.
Search for next committee to begin. Elections to be finalized in time for AGM.
Dave Ralf and Shivani to investigate Senior Members.
[1]Stephen Poole to use more footnotes.

Upcoming Workshop

Freshers’ Workshops 2009

Wednesday 14th October
11am – 1pm: Theatre Lighting – with Tim Boyd, Technical Manager at Oxford Playhouse.

Friday 16th October
3pm: “What to Do if Your Technician gets hit by a bus” technical theatre for directors, actors, producers etc – with members of taff, the OU society for theatre technicians