2024 AGM Documents
The Annual General Meeting of the Stirling Community Theatre will be at 7.30pm on Sunday 3 March 2022.
This page contains the following documents:
1. Agenda
2. 2023 SCT AGM Minutes
3. Annual Report - President
4. Finacial Report - Treasurer
5. Nominations received for election to the SCT committee
Please email secretary@sct.org.au if you wish to receive a printable copy of these documents.
1. Agenda
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETINGSunday 3 March 2024 – 7.30pmStirling Community Theatre, Avenue Rd. StirlingAgenda
1. Welcome 2. Present/Apologies 3. To confirm the minutes from last AGM. 4. To receive the Annual Report on activities from the President 5. To receive the Financial Report from the Treasurer 6. To vote on motions a. Motion: That paragraph 6.2.e. of the SCT Constitution be removed in its entirety. Proposed: Erik Strauts Seconded: Mark Anolak This paragraph states "Nominations to the position of President shall be restricted to persons who have served at least one (1) full term as an officer of The Association within the previous five years". While this requirement is certainly desirable, it does significantly limit the ability to fill the President position. 7. To elect Office Bearers and Committee Members for 2024/2025 year. a. President b. Vice President c. Treasurer d. Secretary e. Ordinary Committee Members (maximum 6 positions) 8. Close
1. Welcome 2. Present/Apologies 3. To confirm the minutes from last AGM. 4. To receive the Annual Report on activities from the President 5. To receive the Financial Report from the Treasurer 6. To vote on motions a. Motion: That paragraph 6.2.e. of the SCT Constitution be removed in its entirety. Proposed: Erik Strauts Seconded: Mark Anolak This paragraph states "Nominations to the position of President shall be restricted to persons who have served at least one (1) full term as an officer of The Association within the previous five years". While this requirement is certainly desirable, it does significantly limit the ability to fill the President position. 7. To elect Office Bearers and Committee Members for 2024/2025 year. a. President b. Vice President c. Treasurer d. Secretary e. Ordinary Committee Members (maximum 6 positions) 8. Close
2. 2023 SCT AGM Minutes
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETINGSunday 5 March 2023 – 7.30pmStirling Community Theatre, Avenue Rd. StirlingMinutes
1. Call to order:
Mark Anolak called the meeting to order at 7.30pm and delivered Acknowledgment of Country.
2. Attendance: SCT Members - Mark Anolak, Malcom Horton, Ken Mason, Di Mason, Ben Stefanoff, Erik Strauts, Tania Thorne, Andrew van der Wolff.
HMC - Teilah Cannon, Scott Whellum HYT - Jon Eckert SP - John Graham
Apologies: Carole Dunstan, Kate Anolak
3. To confirm the minutes from the last AGM: Moved: Malcolm Horton 2nd: Di Mason Against: Abstain: Approved: Y - all voted
4. To confirm the minutes from the Special General Meeting (SGM) October 2022: Moved: Tielah Cannon 2nd: Erik Strauts Against: Abstain: Approved: Y - all voted
5. To receive the Annual Report on activities from the President: The report was distributed prior to the meeting. Mark Anolak spoke to the report and highlighted the fact that while there were many positive achievements, he could not claim the year was ‘successful’ as there were no goals set to measure ‘success’. Mark acknowledged that SCT needs to move in a new direction for the benefit of its members.
Moved: Erik Strauts 2nd: Jon Eckert Against: Abstain: Approved: Y - all voted
6. To receive the Financial Report from the Treasurer:
The Treasurer’s Report and Auditor’s Report was distributed prior to the meeting. Erik Strauts spoke to these reports. Diana Berzins was appointed auditor for 2022 and examined the books and records of the SCT. Mark asked groups if the member groups have presented audited reports of production accounts. All groups have not as of yet.
Moved: Ben Stefanoff 2nd: Jon Eckert Against: Abstain: Approved: Y - all voted
7. To relect office Bearers and Committee Members for 2023/2024 year: Mark Anolak vacated the chair and Malcolm Horton presided as Returning Officer and declared all positions vacant.
a. President: Nomination - Mark Anolak. Elected unopposed
b. Vice President: No nominations received
c. Treasurer: Nomination - Erik Strauts Elected unopposed
d. Secretary: Nomination - Ben Stefanoff Elected unopposed
e. Arts Members (maximum 6 positions): Nominations - Di Mason, Andrew van der Wolff. Both accepted their nominations. Elected unopposed.
Malcolm welcomed the new SCT committee and handed the chair back to Mark Anolak. Mark thanked everyone for re-standing. Mark wanted to mention that it is important that the SCT keeps going and manages the venue.
8. Close: 7.41pm
3. Annual Report - SCT President
I present a report to the members on the activities of the Stirling Community Theatre.
In my second term as President of the Stirling Community Theatre Management Committee, we continued our journey to re-define the primary purpose of the SCT committee; one that focuses on providing our members with a safe and well-equipped venue dedicated to presenting Performance Art to the community.
Despite the several challenges that seem prevalent in many volunteer-run organisations, which I will go into further later in this report, I am very proud of what we few have achieved in the last 12 months. The AHC has recognised the good processes that have been implemented by the SCT committee on several occasions, which has strengthened our relationship with them.
The SCT Strategic Plan (2022-2027), of which the four areas of focus are Community Engagement, Safety and Security, Modernisation, and Organisational Resilience, continued to guide our activities through 2023.
Aside: The Strategic Plan, along with other key member documents, is available via the Members' Section of the SCT website
Community Engagement:
The SCT has seen continued challenges in the area of volunteers again in 2023. The committee was unable to fill several positions left vacant after the 2023 Annual General Meeting, which resulted in too few left to carry most of the work; the flow on effect being that previously available SCT services have been deferred and lots of great ideas being re-directed to our “would be nice to do at some stage” wish list. A call out to our members for assistance with some of these projects went unanswered with zero responses.
In order to address the Community Engagement element of the Strategic Plan, some telling decisions needed to be made to manage the workload on the few dedicated committee members. In consultation with AHC, and in accordance with the current Lease Agreement, the biggest impact to this strategic goal was reducing external hires. The main reason for this decision was that the SCT committee was not able to source an individual to manage the hires, nor attract anyone with the skills and technical expertise to facilitate these external hires with or without payment for their services.
The Principal and Associate Members were tasked with meeting this strategic goal. A full year of productions yielded eight SCT authorised productions (3x Hills Youth Theatre, 2x Hills Musical Theatre, 3x Stirling Players), plus the End-of-Year concert for Carolyn School of Ballet. These productions welcomed approximately 6800-7000 audience members to the Stirling Community Theatre, which included several sold-out performances - an estimated increase of around 55% in patrons visiting the venue to see a performance in 2023 compared with a partially COVID-impacted 2022. In addition to this, SCT hosted regular rehearsals, classes, and a few non-member hires contributing to the venue being used by approximately 150-170 people for about 70-75 hours most weeks.
Safety and Security:
A strong focus for this committee continues to be the safety of the users and visitors to the venue. The SCT management committee emphasised that safety was everyone’s responsibility. Frustratingly, several safety concerns took too long to sort out, mainly due to lack of volunteer resources. Of continued concern is the inconsistent use (by all users of the venue) of the QR code process for reporting incidents, which has been in place for over a year. Another safety concern for this committee that has not been resolved, and one that future committees may choose to address, is the come-and-go-as-you-please culture that is prominent in the organisation. Members with keys continue to access the venue outside the group’s set hours, and without informing others they are onsite. Being onsite with others is safe. Safety issues can arise when one fails to notify anybody else that they are onsite alone. The committee is legally liable for the health and safety of all people onsite, and this includes times outside the set times and/or not adhering to set processes.
In terms of security, the SCT is still challenged by the venue being left unlocked unintentionally despite this being mentioned in last year’s report, and despite a lockup procedure being developed and agreed upon by the SCT Management Committee (and readily accessible on the webpage). My recommendation to the newly elected committee is to investigate installing a security system that will reduce the likelihood of the venue and valuable SCT assets being left unsecured, and accurately record the comings and goings of individuals and groups to better inform the AHC of the actual usage of the venue by the community.
Modernisation:
The Adelaide Hills Council and SCT Management Committee recognise that this is a very old building. While there is great emphasis in the AHC Policy documents around maintaining the heritage look and feel of the venue, there are parts of the venue that do need to be kept up-to-date.
This year the committee received some very good suggestions for upgrades that will serve our members well. And some inroads have been made exploring these ideas. However, progress has been slow mainly due to the lack of personnel willing to lead these projects.
Last year’s SCT Annual Report identified the aging lighting and sound systems as needing updating. Early in the term of this committee we approached Paul Tossel, who knows the SCT and our theatre equipment, to undertake a full audit of our current equipment to determine what we have, what is broken or needs to be updated, and what can be disposed of. At time of writing this report, we have not yet received the audit report. I have two recommendations to the incoming committee:
(1) to respond the the audit report by creating a detailed inventory of SCT technical equipment and a system for maintaining the inventory, and
(2) to investigate options for installing a more energy efficient and effective heating/cooling system to lower energy costs. This may require additional funding and support from the AHC.
Organisational Resilience:
The focus of this component of the Strategic Plan was to ensure as much information about the organisation and its operations is documented to make it easier for future committees and volunteers. This is a continuous project with still much work to do.
When I commenced my first term as President in 2022, I contacted key representatives from our Principal Members, and they all indicated that it would be good to have all the rules and processes documented. Following on from the new Constitution and Membership Policy introduced in October 2022, we have reviewed several other policies and procedures. These have been made readily available for all members through the Members’ section on the SCT webpage. While we want our members to feel comfortable in the venue, it is disappointing and frustrating that people continue to choose historical practices or personal preferences over those procedures agreed and approved by the SCT committee. This may also be a result of messages not filtering down through our group representatives.
In response to the recommendations presented in last year’s Annual Report, we developed and agreed to a new financial model that will see all three Principal Members benefit in the same way – simplifying the processes for Principal Members to report back to the SCT, and one that allows for a financial bonus to the Principal Member when the authorised production is in surplus. This model came into effect for all authorised productions from 1 January 2024. We are fully aware that further fine-tuning may be required to better the newly introduced model, but we do trust this process will be better.
For the first time ever, SCT introduced its own operating budget for 2023. For the most part we operated well within the budget. It was very noticeable that the increase in energy costs have impacted the SCT, mostly due to the method of heating and cooling employed – another reason to prioritise the heating and cooling system upgrades in the the venue.
It is essential the SCT continues to maintain a robust financial position to be ready for future unknown challenges, and also to look at financially supporting future upgrades of the venue. This will become particularly essential if the AHC agree to our request for an Exclusive Use Facility Management Agreement in which the structural care of the building itself may become the responsibility of the SCT.
Closing Remarks:
After two years as President, I wonder what the future holds for the SCT on several fronts.
Firstly, and probably the most significant issue, the lack of volunteers and lack of engagement from our members makes managing the venue harder for the very few people willing to volunteer on the committee. Over the last two years we have worked hard to prevent volunteer burnout by prioritising tasks, simplifying tasks and in some cases suspending services. But I still can’t see how the SCT can continue to operate with fewer and fewer people wanting to volunteer on the committee to manage the venue, particularly as the majority of those on the SCT committee are committed to our member groups and not primarily on managing the day-to-day operations of the theatre. I would recommend to the incoming committee that “Volunteer attraction and retention” be a priority, aiming to source appropriately motivated and skilled people to not only serve on the committee, but to take on specific tasks and projects as per the ‘wish list’.
Secondly, the continued delays from the AHC regarding a new Lease Agreement for the Stirling Theatre as they continue to emphasise the need to conform with the new AHC Community and Recreation Facilities Framework Policy, which outlines two unique operating models that neither match the way SCT has been managing the venue for the last 40+ years. I fear the next committee may need to consult with the membership to make some hard decisions, depending on which Lease Agreement option is presented.
• An Exclusive Use Facility Management Agreement would allow SCT to operate in a similar manner to how we have been; the main difference being that SCT may be held responsible for maintaining the building structure, traditionally the responsibility of AHC. • A Community Hall Management Agreement appears to be the preferred option of the Council - requiring an independent incorporated association to manage the venue the way the AHC want it managed. This option would require SCT to be independent of all users and treat every user as a hirer. SCT, in all likelihood would be required to change its committee structure to remove the member groups from the committee and treat every user as a hirer – not the preferred option by the current committee.
At time of writing this report, we have requested an Exclusive Use Facility Management Agreement but have yet to see any draft Agreement from the AHC.
I do need to sincerely thank the dedicated volunteers on the SCT Committee for every minute they have been able to contribute to this organisation, and the positive and engaging way in which we have worked together over the past 12 months to provide a safe and welcoming space in which our members and a few hirers/users can present performing arts to the visitors of Stirling Community Theatre.
I wish the newly elected committee all the very best.
Mark AnolakSCT President (2023-2024)
Mark AnolakSCT President (2023-2024)
4. Finacial Report - SCT Treasurer (Auditor's Statement will be available at the AGM)
* Each Principal Member has a dedicated Production Account containing SCT funds to support SCT Authorised Productions.
5. Nominations for election to SCT committee
PRESIDENT
Nominated:
by:
VICE PRESIDENT
Nominated: Dianne Masonby: Tania Thorne
TREASURER
Nominated: Erik Strauts by: Ben Stefanoff
SECRETARY
Nominated: Vanessa Redmond by: Bronwyn Chapple
GENERAL MEMBERS (6 positions available)
1. Nominated: Di Mason (interested in Costume Room Manager portfolio)
2. Nominated: 3. Nominated: 4. Nominated: 5. Nominated: 6. Nominated: * Nominations will be taken from the floor at the AGM for those positions where no nominations were received.
2. Nominated: 3. Nominated: 4. Nominated: 5. Nominated: 6. Nominated: * Nominations will be taken from the floor at the AGM for those positions where no nominations were received.