Shelley Pitter (chair of Upham Players) writes:
Since the last AGM we have held 9 committee meetings and staged two productions and although the year has not been without problems, I hope you will agree that we have all had an enjoyable and satisfying experience.
Our Autumn production was a dinner theatre, “Christmas Can Be Murder” the fourth in the series involving the Berrington Family, written by myself and my brother Martin. Enormous thanks go to Barbara Philip and her team for overseeing the catering and to Heather Flaherty and Robin Porteous for their assistance. Creating a four course meal for 60 plus people, four nights running and with limited kitchen facilities was a huge challenge.
We had a terrific cast and a fantastic back stage crew and they nobly agreed to put on an additional performance as a fundraising evening for two local charities “Wessex Cancer Care” and “Countess Mountbatten Hospice”, in memory of Dave Plumb and Margaret Cochrane. Janette worked miracles with the raffle and Dave Smith produced a dvd of the performance, with money raised from the sale going to the fund. With a generous contribution from Bishops Waltham Rotary Club, £2,040.00 was able to be donated, split equally between the charities.
There were around sixty people involved in staging and catering the show and although it was a big undertaking we were delighted with the audience response and Lorraine Cheshire gave us an excellent review in the Upham Update. The Youth Award for “Christmas Can Be Murder” was presented to Lily Pitter.
We had hoped that our Spring production would be “Separate Tables” by Terrence Rattigan, which Gwyn had agreed to direct and we had a very entertaining read through with a good attendance. However, with some of our regulars not able to commit, it was not possible to cast it. After some discussion in committee, we were very fortunate that Chris Little stepped forward to produce and co-ordinate a reprise of some of the “Mixed Doubles” short plays which had been performed at a Club evening previously, plus some new material, including a one act play from our talented teenagers, all under the title of “March Medley”. We combined the evening with a ploughmans supper, with the audience seated at tables making the evening a very social and entertaining one. It also gave some members a chance to direct and so thanks go to them and to Chris for making the whole thing happen. The Youth Award for March Medley was presented to Ben Brown. This is the third time Ben has received this so many congratulations to him.
In May a party of members attended a production of “Absent Friends” at the Theatre Royal organised by Mo.
We now have a new logo for the Players, which was agreed upon in August. Primarily this is for our posters and programmes but we did look at how else it could be used, perhaps on a sweatshirt or polo shirt. Because of the difficulty in ordering correct sizes it was decided to order pin badges, which offered a cheap and versatile alternative.
We have a huge box of videos of old productions some from the early days of the Players. After I had catalogued them, Dave and Dermot got together and Dave has been ploughing through them and transferring them to dvd. Marian tells me that he can now go on Mastermind with Upham Players as his special subject. We did find that there are quite a few old tapes missing, so if anyone has some tucked away we would be pleased to have them.
For some months we have been investigating the possibility of a training workshop from a selection offered by the Mayflower Theatre. It has been difficult to juggle this around our productions and the availability of committee members. The Mayflower also offer private group behind the scenes tours and if we can get enough people together this could be an alternative for the present. Please let me know if you would like to be included.
During the year our Child Protection Policy was updated and agreed upon. For every production which has under sixteens taking part, there is a sign in and sign out book and parents are asked to sign a form before their child takes part. If you would like to see a copy of the paperwork I have it here.
Another thing we have to do before every production is to draw up a risk assessment, which might sound tedious but is in fact a very useful tool to make us aware of how to keep everyone safe.
Gwyn Halsall has agreed to tackle our Autumn Production and last week hosted a read through of “Alarms and Excursions” by Michael Frayn . Gwyn reports that it was a hilarious evening and though a challenging task for the stage crew thinks it would be a terrific production for us.
The dates for this are 17th, 18th, 19th November so please look out in your e-mails for audition dates and if you would like to have a look at a script, speak to Gwyn.
The rescheduled date for our popular “Quiz and Chips” is Sat 11th June. Thanks to Mo and Chris for getting this off the ground. If you would like to take part please book in with Mo.
We have booked a stand at the Church fete in June to help promote the group and we will be offering face painting for the children, make up effects and fun photos. Please offer your help for an hour or two to assist.
I’m sad to report that in October one of our founder members, Barbara Taylor passed away. Barbara lived for many years in Upham and was bookings clerk for the old village hall and a strong W.I. member. She carried on supporting our productions after moving to Swanmore and was usually to be seen in the audience. Several of our members attended her funeral.
As always we need to recruit more members to widen the scope of productions we can tackle. To this end we have copy in both the Parish News and Upham Update and on the Village website and have tried to promote the group further afield as well.
I’d like to thank Mo and Jenny who are retiring from the committee at this AGM. They have both been members for many years and their input will be greatly missed. I would also like to thank all the committee members, we have lively discussions and don’t agree about everything but our meetings are always entertaining and lively. Jane does sterling work back stage, Ben looks out for our younger members, Jenny is ticket seller extraordinaire, Mo as Chair kept the group going for several years and always comes up with innovative ideas. Chris puts in hours of work on our web site, as does Dermot keeping our accounts in order, Cyn keeping our minutes and bookings under control and Roy representing our interests at Village Hall Management meetings. Thank you all.