Greetings from Vancouver and Happy Chinese New Year (Gong Hay Fat Choy or Gong Xi Fa Cai).

I wanted to update you on our successful Board meeting and Strategic Planning weekend that we held in North Vancouver in early January. As usual we had our January Board Camp, but this time combined regular board business with a Strategic Planning session.

All members of the executive and all Zone Chairs were in attendance the weekend of Jan 11th.

We hired Yael Blum to facilitate the strategic planning www.intwoit.com and she did a great job over Friday evening and all day Saturday. She kept us focused and on track for the sessions.

I think that everyone present was energized by the weekend and we have lots to do over the coming months to put in motion what was discussed during the planning session.

While there were many take aways, some of the highlights include getting youth more involved, enhanced educational activities, more two way communication from/to the TBC office, and ways to sustain our programs into the future (not Back to the Future which is being turned into a West End musical in 2015).

January also saw TBC Executive member Peter Wienold launch a new podcast site called In The Theatre www.inthetheatre.info. We recently had a roundtable discussion with Peter, Allison Haley – CIZ Chair and Wes Eccleston – VP, that you may enjoy listening to. And there is a two part interview with Vance Schneider. Thanks to Peter for doing this. And if you want to know what Peter sounds like using his well honed radio voice, give it a listen.

With Spring coming, festival season is almost upon us. Good luck everyone with planning for the festivals. Members of the Executive will be fanning out across the province to attend when we can.

Glen

Hello, for those of you who were not at the Annual General Meeting on July 13, 2013, I have posted my report below:

President’s Report
July 13, 2013

I am happy to report that Theatre BC has had a very successful year and we are on track for restoring a lot of the programs and services that had to be curtailed during the economic downturn. It has been a pleasure working with the Zones Chairs, Board Executive and the staff to work on rebuilding Theatre BC. The City of Kamloops has been instrumental in this process as well with their ongoing financial, operational, and facility support that has provided us the needed stability both in terms of office space and having a five year home for Mainstage. Providing a home for Mainstage has allowed us to grow our sponsorships and local audiences and to keep the costs of Mainstage down.

Theatre BC saw substantial and continuing growth in the fiscal year 2012/2013, with grants awarded in various categories, another successful Mainstage, and at a 25% growth in revenue from last year. We were able to re-launch the Playwriting Competition, and have a grant to see the return of ACToberfest.

The Theatre BC office staff have been hard at work, investing time in ensuring that the organization standardizes its procedures, and is available to assist and be able to support its various programs, and better its communication with membership, clubs, and the zones.

This year has also seen a complete overhaul and re-development of the Theatre BC Website, and after Mainstage we are going to redo the site www.tbcmainstage.ca site and include online event registration.

As you know, this year we have a full 10 zones participating in Mainstage, for the first time in 5 years. While many of you have heard, not everyone may be aware that at the full Board meeting last year we approved the amalgamation of the SKZ and CIZ zones. It was the intention of the Board to merge the zones to allow clubs that wanted to participate in a festival but that had not had the opportunity to do so in the past few years, to be able to do so.

Unfortunately our intentions were not properly and fully communicated to the Skeena Zone and there was understandably much consternation and confusion about the decision that was made by the board, including the CIZ Zone chair who had not been able to attend the board meeting due to a previous commitment. I accept full responsibility for this poor communication and apologize to the members of both Zones for this. Fortunately, former TBC President Marianne Broup-Weston stepped in to offer to work with the Executive and with former member clubs of the Skeena Zone on a proposal to restore the zone. She worked very closely with Allison Haley during the fall of 2012 and leading up to board camp in January of 2013. At the Board camp, based on the proposal from Marianne for a new zone executive and to hold a zone festival, the board unanimously voted to restore Skeena Zone.

I would like to extend my thanks to Allison and Marianne during that period to ensure the restoration of the zone and the successful festival, as well as an instructor tour that was held for the zone.

Although we may have turned a corner with Theatre BC both financially and operationally, we must focus on the future and the sustainability of our programs. We cannot always depend on grant funding, and we must find ways to make the Zone Festivals and Mainstage financially viable. In the past I have thought about Strategic Planning for TBC taking us in new and different directions, I believe now that the Strategic Planning that the board must undertake should focus on sustainability and preserving the programs and services that our clubs and members continue to want.

It is incumbent on the new Executive Board that will be elected on July 13th to work with the Zone Chairs to set the course for the next few years.

Respectfully submitted;

Sincerely,

Glen Miller
President

Well Mainstage is almost upon us and Vance, Zoe and Glenda have been working diligently with our volunteers to put on an excellent event.

This is an exciting year for us as it is the first time in 5 years that we have had 10 zones participating.

We are also welcoming back Dean Paul Gibson as adjudicator, who is coming here straight from having performed in London!

Don’t forget to take advantage of our Passport and enjoy discounts from our participating merchants.

Our Annual General Meeting will be held on July 12th in the Old Courthouse. If you are interested in becoming a member of the Executive of Theatre BC we are still accepting nominations.
Please see Penny Bayne or Cara Graden if you want more information or are interested.

If you are able to join us for a week, or a few days, I know you will be in for some great theatre. Here’s hoping that you have fun, learn lots and make some new friends and get
re-acquainted with some old friends.

Glen

It is a sure sign of spring if it is Theatre BC Festival Season!

I am excited that for the first time in 4 years we have a full roster of 10 Zones participating in Festivals and Mainstage! The revamped Skeena zone has three competing entries and will be held this year in Terrace.

The North Shore Zone has the most plays being presented at 9!

If you want to see the plays that are being presented across the province check out the information on Zone Festivals here under the Events tab.

Work is well underway for Mainstage and the sister site www.tbcmainstage.ca has all the information you need. Dean Paul Gibson returns as adjudicator.

Good luck to everyone participating in the Zone Festivals. Thanks to all for the hard work.

At the Mainstage AGM three Executive Board positions are open for nominations, those of President, Vice-President and Recording Secretary.  The President and Recording Secretary have decided to let their names stand for re-election. If you know of someone who would be interested the nomination forms are online and you can contact the nominating committee of Penny Bayne at penny.bayne@theatrebc.org and Cara Graden at cara.graden@theatrebc.org.

See you soon in Kamloops in July

Glen

Well here we are in another year, soon to be heading into Festival season.
We just held our “Board Camp” on the weekend of January 11/12 in North Vancouver.  Now I don’t camp, and certainly wouldn’t in January, but for some reason that I am not aware of that is what we call our full Board meeting.

We had full attendance and accomplished a lot that weekend.  The biggest thing was the reinstatement of the Skeena Zone.  Last summer at the Mainstage meeting we dissolved the zone as there had not been a SKZ festival for 4 years. Our rationale was that if there were clubs that wanted to participate in festival they could do so with the CIZ festival.

Since that decision we have been working with Marianne Brorup Weston and Allison Haley to consider reinstating the zone with new zone board members.

At Board camp the Board voted to reinstate the Zone and to provide funding assistance for an instructor tour.

Since the Board meeting Marianne has been elected as the new zone chair.  Plans are coming together for the instructor tour, and planning is already underway for the festival.

Glen

Presidents Blog

Many thanks to TBC staff, the host committee, our volunteers, the board, and the City of Kamloops for hosting a wonderful event.  Thanks also to the Mainstage Patrons and Sponsors of the Thespian Awards.   And of course thanks to our wonderful adjudicator, Jeff Hyslop, for sharing his wisdom and expertise from over 50 years of performance experience with our performers, designers and crew.

The Mainstage passport was well received, I know I used mine several times to get good discounts.  You can be sure that the vendors were all well aware of our presence, and even those who were not on the list in many cases still gave discounts!

We tried an experiment in broadcasting the awards live via Livestream.  At one point we had 77 people watching. Unfortunately our internet connection was not good enough to support a quality broadcast.  But given the participation rate next year we will do it again with a proper broadband connection and good sound quality.   We did post comments as we went along, and tweeted the results live!

I think you will find that we listened to your suggestions from last year and have made many improvements.  So please make sure that if you have not already, that you provide us with your feedback so that we can make next year’s event even better.

Of course it wasn’t all fun and games for the Board and Executive, we had regular meetings during the week and will be posting information shortly about upcoming changes, including the establishment of a Charitable Foundation.

Finally, I am very proud to be President of this wonderful organization, that helps foster and promote community theatre throughout BC!

On to 2013….