Artists Facilities Meeting - Wednesday 11st of November

Working group and other such Forest meeting minutes
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élodie
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Artists Facilities Meeting - Wednesday 11st of November

Post by élodie » Mon Nov 09, 2009 6:14 pm

Hi everyone !

The next Artists Facilities Meeting will be this Wednesday at 7 pm in the Action Room.

This will be my last one... so it's important to have a lot of people to find new bottom liners...

See you soon !

Elodie :D

ChaoticReality
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Re: Artists Facilities Meeting - Wednesday 11st of November

Post by ChaoticReality » Wed Nov 11, 2009 9:06 pm

Here are the minutes:


AF WG 11 Nov Minutes

Present: Mike, Simon, Alex L, Julie, Fanny, Jamie, Axelle, Stephen KM, Ken, Elodie, Al, Gandolf, Gareth NM, Kata, Sam

Agenda:
1) Update from last meeting
2) Darkroom
3) Workshop
4) Cave
5) Silk Screen
6) Tech team
7) Balconies

1) Most of the action points from last meeting have been completed except the stage fix (Ken. To be done on building day 22/11) and finding a new bottom liner for the Cave (Nix. Not sure?)

2) Stephen: We should post on BB to make sure someone from the Darkroom is present at the next AFWG meeting or sends a report to the group. AP: Mike to do this
<Martin L Enters>
Martin L: Darkroom is BACK! Lucea is bottom liner. Various problems have been fixed, lots of people want to help because we are in darkroom season.
Stephen: Is anyone going to be running workshops etc?
Martin: Yes. Pete Murray might run workshops. Has taught photography for 30 years. We're also going to mail old darkroom users and see if they will come back and help. Next thing will be to start advertising.
Gandolf: How do people gain access to the Darkroom?
Martin: What's supposed to happen is that anyone who wants to use it should have an induction session first. Used to be me and Daniel, will now be Me, Lucia, et al. darkroom@theforest should redirect to these people.
AP: Mike to setup the mail forward
Gandolf: Are we just to trust people who ask for the darkroom key?
Martin: The plan is that only inducted users will know to ask for the key in the kitchen.
Ken/Gandolf: Key gives access to workshop as well and causes potential access issues as people will have access to the tools etc.
Simon: Maybe a sign in sheet?
Stephen: With first and last names so we can contact people.
Martin: As long as the kitchen crew are cool with this. Could be confusing for vollies to have to check etc.
Stephen: So suggestion is a book in the kitchen with names and numbers for inducted people so vollies can check.
<Nix enters>

Could there be a simpler system for keys?
Nix Electronic key fob? Solved by pre-payment system?
Martin Ling: Never been a problem
Nix - worse problem is keys being lost... best, by all agreement list is the best
Darkroom group to do list for signing out key, should be all good, bb group all good.
ACTION - list of people who are inducted to be done by Lucia (please)
There has not been a problem before because not enough people use it, eg double bookings - no problem.
Eledi - question - can the stuff that was put out from darkroom be thrown out
ML: - yes
Nix: Someone should sign in, should be good, with time.
Martin Ling: Cool, will do, wll speak to Lucia.


3) Fanny: I've started organising it a few weeks ago, not finished yet. Started cleaning the tools and throwing out broken ones. Still some bigs tasks to do like sort the screws. Can someone with motivation help me? I spoke to Lynne and she said that Workshop use has to be after H&S training.
Stephen: Nix was working on this I think
Julie: Is the cupboard lock fixed?
Fanny: It's too broken.
Jamie: Where can we acquire cheap/free tools for the workshop?
Gandolf: I go to car boot sales and can get stuff cheap there. How much can we spend/what do we want?
Jamie: It would be stuff like screwdrivers
Simon: Maybe we could make a shopping list
Fanny: I've made one already and it's stuck to the workshop door.
Gandolf: If there's a list and a guarantee of payment, I can do it next Sunday (22/11) maybe with a vollie as well.
Mike: Someone should ask admins how much money we can spend and then we can work out what's feasible to purchase
Gandolf: Maybe we should ask around Forest to see if we can get some donations
Julie: Can we put a request thread on Freecycle?
Gandolf: We have to offer something first, I think.
Mike: Maybe we could just watch/look for stuff we need and then request it.
AP: Fanny will put the list on the BB and ask for donations. Simon will liase with putting list in other places.
Fanny: We could maybe put some of the unwanted stuff on Freecycle? The generator?
Various: Don't get rid of the generator. Where could it go? Nowhere really safe in the building due to fire stuff.
Gandolf: Maybe someone can store it in a shed for us?
Nix: There is no good place bar workshop to store occasional useful stuff like generator.
Fanny: Workshop should not be used as a storeroom...
Steven: General problem is that everything gets dumped somewhere in the Forest.
Someplaces there are some things... some things are others... sorted
Wherever it sits can we not lose petrol from the generator?
To Ken from Steven
Can you look after it?
Ken - yep, good as medium term solution
Talk of draining the can... Can we drain i?
Nix - yep if it has no petrol, can be stored somewhere narrow
Steven - you mean other side of organ?
Nix - there's a hatch, where tarps etc are stored
Steven - under pulpit too, there's space
Nix: not much
AP: Nix to drain generator and store either in storage space under pulpit or in worst case scenario in the balcony

Stephen: Roundup
Nix: Fanny's been putting in a lot of hard work and so people have to be respectful and stop dumping shit in the workshop.

4)
Elodie: The cave is beautiful! Different colours. Gandalf will make some shelves for the small room to the left of the door. I am leaving soon so we need to find a new bottom liner for the cave and maybe organise the space a bit better.
Stephen: We have no new bottom liner as of yet. Would be good to have in place in the next couple of weeks.
Nix: We have a lot of people who will help out in exchange for free time etc.
Mike: I could potentially bottom line
Stephen: There were some other guys from <X> interested. Can we contact them?
Al: Do we have a "specification" for what being BL entails?
Stephen: I think it entails making sure equipment is working etc
Nix: Controlling usage and booking and advertising
Gandolf: It's not just maintaining equimpent but seeing how much stuff is used and if the equipment we have is suitable
Al: Would it be the same access system as before?
Stephen: I think so but that would be up to the BL or the Cave Team. Might be something similar to the dark room with list of responsible people and online booking system?
Mike: Internet booking system disadvantages people who want to book in person
Nix: But it's good because it allows people from all over town who just want to be involved with the Cave to book usage without having to come all the way here.
Stephen: We used to have a problem with people claiming they did work and then wanting cave time for free.
Mike: We're going into this in too much detail, lets leave it up to the new BL.
Elodie: Some people want to use room for free for jamming
Mike: We used to have free jam on Thursdays. Would be good to bring back as long as there is someone to take responsibility and without them, it doesn't happen.
Nix: It generally worked quite well so might be good to bring back.
Al: Jam was a good workshop, peopled liked it, it brought folks into the cafe.
Stephen: So we need to find a bottom liner and decide how the cave is run. Also need to AP getting the cave open so we need carpet, shelves etc.
Nix: I asked Kata to make a list of carpet suppliers. I will phone up tomorrow to look for spare carpets.
AP: Nix to source carpet
Gandolf: Do we need to buy stuff for attaching shelves to the wall?
Ken: I probably have the stuff you need.
Stephen: Lets co-ordinate this on the building working day. Elodie will be liason about all this.
Al: At the last meeting Eric offered soundproofing tiles? Did we go any further with this?
Alex: I will get in touch with him and see what the score is.
AP: Alex to organise soundproofing/acoustic tiles if possible.
Gandolf: I might have the ventilator stuff we need. If I find, I will give to Ken as he is person who is going to buy/source.
Alex: Can we get carpet for the walls?
Stephen: I have some I could donate
AP: Nix will source carpet

5) Silk Screen:
Stephen: Since last meeting, Silk Screen Room has been redone, repainted, silk screen bed is in and set up. Gillian came and looked at it for us and we will get it going soon. We can do all sorts of cool shit. Gallery people can even make prints to sell. We can run workshops etc. At the moment it's entireley bottom lined by me. Hopefully workshops for induction will be running soon run by two or three different people to get people confident in using the chemicals and stuff. No open access to room due to chemicals etc.
I need to find a few more people to help run the workshops. Maybe need some guidance from someone with experience so work out how free workshops work and how booking and payments will work.
We have been offered a grant of £600 from O2.
Gandolf: Any strings
Stephen: O2 give money to Conservation Foundation (a reg charity) who are the people in charge of the grants. Conditions: We have to have photo of facilities with a writeup on their site. We have to send a press release to a local newspaper. If they deem us to be outstanding thingy of thing than they can use our space for advertising and do a photoshoot here etc. I will make sure this last one doesn't happen. I also have to send them a report in 6 months.
Simon: Can we make the press release vague so it doesn't link us to O2?
Stephen: Yes. I listed us as "Silk Screen Facilities" so we don't have to Kowtow to them too much. We will have to mention O2 but it's not too bad.
Gandolf: I'd object if it was Shell but not too fussed with O2.
Stephen: Main concern is that but accepting grants we are no longer self funding and so in a sense we lose our independence because we aren't raising our own cash etc.
Gandolf: I don't think the "self-funding" thing prevents groups within the Forest from seeking addition funding.
Nix: Cave was set up with a grant. It's not Forest taking the grant per se, it's the Silk Screen group (as part of the AF WG)
Stephen: I will take the grant and we can use to buy materials for free workshops.
Other charges and stuff will be decided on a "per case" basis like the darkroom because of cost of materials etc.
Gandolf: Do we need ventilation?
Stephen: We, we have it but it's not working(?)
Ken: All rooms without window need ventilation. Boiler ventilation is more important so lets fix that first.
AP: Stephen to post on BB about grant and make a callout for people to come and help with the next step

6) Tech Team
Julie: I want to get more sound engineers. I have booked 29th November for training. Alex will run some of it.
Alex: We can split training between stuff on stage and using the desk.
Julie: It would be good to organise "shadowing" of already trained sound engineers
Nix: What we discussed is that all sound engineers will go through some sort of semi-formal training. There will be a checklist so everyone is trained the same and has the same info.
AP: Alex & Nix to make training guide.
Julie: It would be nice to have a few workshops to make people more confident.
Nix: When the guide is made, it should be easy to train people. It's all about consistency, people putting stuff back in the same place etc. Before we do training we need to get that old AP of equipment lists and stuff being sorted. I won't do it as took for an AP before and never got it done.
AP: Nix and Alex to do this before 29th.
Julie: Are we cool with this being advertised?
Mike: Yup, I'll be around to help if needed.
Elodie: Now we have tech team area in balcony we can use it for repairs etc. There is a lot of stuff that needs to be repaired.
Gandolf: Alex said he will repair some stuff I think.
Elodie: We maybe need a bottom liner for tech team.
Nix: We need light training? Can you do it Elodie? Can we ask Magda?
Elodie: I can't. I'm too busy and have worked too much on Cave recently.
Nix: We could just make a document that says maximum load for lights etc. We should train tech team in lights as well as sound.
Gandolf: We should encourage people to do tech shadowing even if they haven't done training as they start to learn and it's a good way to gauge who has the interest.

7)
Nix: At present all the artists using balconies have paid rent. One space is still free, still looking for an occupant.
Stephen: How are we advertising? Is it word of mouth?
Nix: Problems with advertising widely is small turnover of artists and thus many disappointed. So we use word of mouth. Studios@theforest email is working.
Simon: I might take the spare studio if cool
Nix: Issues are that door closers aren't there. We need Yale locks etc because doors keep being left unlocked. There have been a few thefts in the last few months. It's not a major problem yet but could become. Also issue of Pete's studio not being empty
Gareth: Peter told Lynne he is coming back
Nix: This is now not the case, when I spoke to him last he was really blase about it. The stuff is still his and that's the problem. Some of his stuff got moved to the cafe. I'm guilty of "spreading out" and moving my stuff into other people's spaces and in front of the fire alarm.
Elodie: In the balcony we now have a technical area and so the steps have to be kept clear so that people can access.
AP: Nix to yellow tape to designate walkways etc on the edges and down the middle to make clear the diffenrent areas and the fire escape.
AP: Nix to rewrite the codes of practice for balconies
Stephen: Are you the bottom liner?
Nix: Yes, have been for 3 months.
Mike: What are we doing about Pete's stuff?
Nix: Nothing until someone is interested in the space. He may come back and sort it himself. Eventually I will skip it or put it in cardboard and store it somewhere.
Mike

Dawnsio 'mlaen i'r gwres prynhawn a rwy'n addo erbyn yfori byddai wedi mynd, hwyl fawr i pawb, hwyl fawr i pawb...

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Shannon
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Re: Artists Facilities Meeting - Wednesday 11st of November

Post by Shannon » Wed Nov 11, 2009 10:01 pm

Wow...big meeting! Looks goooood.

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Martin
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Re: Artists Facilities Meeting - Wednesday 11st of November

Post by Martin » Wed Nov 11, 2009 11:30 pm

Well impressed with the turnout at this, sorry I couldn't make the whole thing.

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Lynne
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Re: Artists Facilities Meeting - Wednesday 11st of November

Post by Lynne » Thu Nov 12, 2009 11:45 am

Re: Pete's stuff - I spoke to him the other day and he said he is coming back to get his stuff this Friday?

Re: budgets for workshop tools - if you're just going to the car boot sale, then £20.00 should be enough? But I can go a bit higher than this, so let me know...

Re: Darkroom - please give me one or two day's notice if you want me to get a skip. This lets me ask Bedlam and arrange it.

Ta!

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