wellREDman
20th January 2004, 10:36 PM
Avit UK Meeting Report
After having a month or so to recover from all the intensity of running last years Avit, the British avitcore team came together for a weekend?s summit to post-mortem 03 and discuss 04.
We realised that this could count this as our AGM. So, according to the red tape set out by Companies House we re-ratified last years constitution (http://www.avit.info/uk/download items/avit ukconstitution.pdf) with the addition of ?and raise standards? and re-voted in secretaries, treasurers and whatnot.
the list of roles (http://www.avit.info/uk/download items/AVIT UK 2004 job roles ) within the avitcore can be seen but note that this reflects the major restructure we?ve had, which is explained here (http://www.vjforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=5507)
AvitUK03 Report
The majority of the problems we had at AvitUk 03 boiled down to lack of Time and/or money
Money from Arts Council didn?t arrive until barely days before the event, meaning that a lot of things that could have been sorted out beforehand couldn?t be because of not being able to commit until confirmation of funding
Time was a problem simply because there weren?t enough people in the avitcore to do all the things that needed doing. We were stretched too thin, with individuals doing jobs that should have been handled by a team
The MassJam fell between the gaps of people?s two, very different, expectations. That of a showcase for VJ talent, and of a communal space for VJs to perform to, and with each other.
Not enough collaborative work; This year we hope to be able to provide money and the opportunity to create projects as an important way to raise the level and encourage innovative and inspirational work
The Pressure Point events didn?t really work, the original plan was for the daytime stuff to be spread around multiple venues, with the Pressure Point bar downstairs and Screenings upstairs being the kind of hub, when it became clear that the rest of the events were going to be in The Brighton Centre place we should have moved all of the events in there, but the owner of the Pressure Point had been onboard for so long, and so helpful to Avit, that it didn?t even occur to us to cut him out of the event.
Lack of perceived professional slickness. The problem of trying to put on the kind of show we?d all be able to do, given a proper corporate budget, with little or no budget, voluntary help and borrowed equipment, (and over the internet) wasn?t really in keeping with peoples expectations.
Lack of communications with the VJ community. There was not enough dialogue between the avitcore team and VJC members as to what was possible within the funding/time constraints, what the VJC members wanted from avit, what they would be willing to do/pay for etc.
We think that a lot of the cause of this was that we were all aware that sponsors /funders etc. could be reading the public forums and we felt that we should be fostering a professional seeming public face rather than talking openly about the problems we were experiencing. In hindsight, we are a voluntary, community organisation, and we shouldn?t be afraid to show it.
Lack of Press/PR/Promotion to the general Public, our policy for this was to have as much of this done by professional companies, so this area was the worst hit by the delays in funding.
Those of us in the avitcore didn?t actually get to see any of the events except the ones we were participating in, and many of us didn?t get to perform at all,
We also had a late developing problem in that we discovered that although we are fully incorporated as a Limited-by-guarantee Company as Avit, the name Avit was held as a Trademark by a girl from Brighton who makes t-shirts, we worked out a compromise with her whereby she could flog t-shirts at Avit in return for letting us use the name.
So its important that anyone else wanting to run an Avit needs to look into not only domain names and company names, but also trademarks!
The things we think worked were:
Almost all of the daytime stuff,
The clubnight events, especially the AvitLounge, and the Concorde II
The VjSocial on the Sunday.
The Gallery Installations
In terms of our stated aims for the event, and despite some parts falling short, overall we think that AvitUK03 was a success
After having a month or so to recover from all the intensity of running last years Avit, the British avitcore team came together for a weekend?s summit to post-mortem 03 and discuss 04.
We realised that this could count this as our AGM. So, according to the red tape set out by Companies House we re-ratified last years constitution (http://www.avit.info/uk/download items/avit ukconstitution.pdf) with the addition of ?and raise standards? and re-voted in secretaries, treasurers and whatnot.
the list of roles (http://www.avit.info/uk/download items/AVIT UK 2004 job roles ) within the avitcore can be seen but note that this reflects the major restructure we?ve had, which is explained here (http://www.vjforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=5507)
AvitUK03 Report
The majority of the problems we had at AvitUk 03 boiled down to lack of Time and/or money
Money from Arts Council didn?t arrive until barely days before the event, meaning that a lot of things that could have been sorted out beforehand couldn?t be because of not being able to commit until confirmation of funding
Time was a problem simply because there weren?t enough people in the avitcore to do all the things that needed doing. We were stretched too thin, with individuals doing jobs that should have been handled by a team
The MassJam fell between the gaps of people?s two, very different, expectations. That of a showcase for VJ talent, and of a communal space for VJs to perform to, and with each other.
Not enough collaborative work; This year we hope to be able to provide money and the opportunity to create projects as an important way to raise the level and encourage innovative and inspirational work
The Pressure Point events didn?t really work, the original plan was for the daytime stuff to be spread around multiple venues, with the Pressure Point bar downstairs and Screenings upstairs being the kind of hub, when it became clear that the rest of the events were going to be in The Brighton Centre place we should have moved all of the events in there, but the owner of the Pressure Point had been onboard for so long, and so helpful to Avit, that it didn?t even occur to us to cut him out of the event.
Lack of perceived professional slickness. The problem of trying to put on the kind of show we?d all be able to do, given a proper corporate budget, with little or no budget, voluntary help and borrowed equipment, (and over the internet) wasn?t really in keeping with peoples expectations.
Lack of communications with the VJ community. There was not enough dialogue between the avitcore team and VJC members as to what was possible within the funding/time constraints, what the VJC members wanted from avit, what they would be willing to do/pay for etc.
We think that a lot of the cause of this was that we were all aware that sponsors /funders etc. could be reading the public forums and we felt that we should be fostering a professional seeming public face rather than talking openly about the problems we were experiencing. In hindsight, we are a voluntary, community organisation, and we shouldn?t be afraid to show it.
Lack of Press/PR/Promotion to the general Public, our policy for this was to have as much of this done by professional companies, so this area was the worst hit by the delays in funding.
Those of us in the avitcore didn?t actually get to see any of the events except the ones we were participating in, and many of us didn?t get to perform at all,
We also had a late developing problem in that we discovered that although we are fully incorporated as a Limited-by-guarantee Company as Avit, the name Avit was held as a Trademark by a girl from Brighton who makes t-shirts, we worked out a compromise with her whereby she could flog t-shirts at Avit in return for letting us use the name.
So its important that anyone else wanting to run an Avit needs to look into not only domain names and company names, but also trademarks!
The things we think worked were:
Almost all of the daytime stuff,
The clubnight events, especially the AvitLounge, and the Concorde II
The VjSocial on the Sunday.
The Gallery Installations
In terms of our stated aims for the event, and despite some parts falling short, overall we think that AvitUK03 was a success