BRISTOL MEDIA February 2010 Board Meeting – Chair’s Notes

Board Meeting held on 4th February 2010 at Goldbrick House

Financial Update

We read through the Accounts to end of January. Some of the income has been deferred across the year to which it relates which improves accuracy.

There are still outstanding debtors but a major push will be given to this to bring the figure down.

Activity Update

Now that we have several streams of event activity for each sector, it makes sense for everyone planning an event in their sub-sector to use a standardised form that covers all the aspects including venue and catering etc. Smaller events such as the IPA event can be managed easily but time given in-kind should be included in the budget. Larger events may require more resource but we have contacts now with production people who may be made available. Paul will write a draft for agreement at the next Board.

We now have a single planning Calendar of Events which updates regularly, and this will form the basis of the discussions at Board meetings.

It was also agreed that more activity means that we will look for a part time ‘Membership Co-ordinator’ working 2 hours a day across the week who can answer phone calls and respond quickly to members’ emails.

Marketing and Advertising Group: The IPA Seminar held at McCann Erickson was attended by approximately 40 people with excellent feedback via a Survey Monkey sent out afterwards.

Events for the Marketing and Advertising sector will be held quarterly hosted by different members and always followed up with surveys. This was discussed and it was agreed that a simple feedback survey should be part of every event.

Television Sub Group: Lynn Sinclair has offered to take on some of the co-ordinating work – she has a contract with Anne Scorer and the BBC Anchor team, and joining up the TV sector is part of that, so there are good synergies. Lynn will write up the sub-sector meetings and look after a calendar of events. One of the major events coming up is the New Tools New Ways of Working session 23-25 March. This is the first BBC/Anchor Meet the Indies event and will be managed and marketed via the BM website. This series of workshops will run from 23rd-25th March at BBC Bristol, Watershed and Goldbrick House. Some are BBC internal business, but 7 of the 9 sessions are open to both BBC Employees and Indies/freelancers.

We are meeting with the regional representative from BAFTA next week to discuss the possibility of holding regular regional screenings.

Animation Sub-Group:

We discussed the possibility of a Bristol delegation visiting FMX, considered the best Animation festival in Europe. We are now engaged with Vicky Brophy from Wonky who runs an Animation networking group in Bristol and pulling together a Steering Group. We’ll have a report on what might be achieved from a Bristol Media visit to FMX for the next Board.

Training Survey: The results from the Training Survey are due on 5th February.

Leadership & Management Update: We agreed to build a microsite and produce flyers to help generate interest in the initiative. It was thought that our current Web Design company would not have time to do this work and there is not enough time to put it to tender, so we agreed to approach Open Communications who have done free work for Bristol Media before. The cost for all this work would be approximately £10k.

Talent Retention: Two round table dinners had been held and the database is now live on the homepage of the website and is beginning to be populated, particularly by individuals and freelancers.