Silchester Players

In a first for Silchester Players we held our AGM by Zoom on 26 June followed immediately by a Zoom meeting of the new committee.

We are determined to remain active despite current challenges but inevitably there was a rather downbeat feeling to the AGM. It is always sad when productions cannot go ahead and we also mourned the loss of one of our founders, Stephen Oliver, who died in November 2019.

This year our annual accounts, approved by the AGM, held a strange appearance. There were the usual schedules of income and expenditure for the first two productions of the season but for The Tempest no income, only a loss reflecting expenses already incurred. We hope these will be recouped when we are able to go ahead with this production, possibly in 2021.

The two productions which did take place in 2019/20, Rhythm of Life and Snow White, both returned a surplus. Fortunately we remain solvent and financially able to stage future shows when restrictions are lifted.

Our practice is to make distributions from any surplus to charities nominated by directors of productions. This is done every 3 or 4 years at our Drammies event (our equivalent of the Oscars). Despite current difficulties the practice will continue although we are being cautious over amounts as we do not know what unforeseen expenses we might face in these uncertain times.

The AGM also decided to adopt a new procedure for voting for our Drammies awards. In the past our members have voted for awards in various categories covering production over the preceding 3 or 4 years. This has meant that, as memories fade, awards have tended to go to later rather than earlier productions. To rectify this we have adopted a system of annual voting. The results will then be kept securely and combined with succeeding years’ votes to produce winners immediately before the next Drammies event. We are also introducing awards which will give greater recognition to the work done by people who do not necessarily appear on stage.

An early challenge for the next committee will be to take a decision on whether we stage our annual pantomime. At the moment this seems unlikely but we will issue an update in the autumn. Watch this magazine for news.

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Steve Spillane speaking at The Drammies 2019 when Silchester Village Hall, registered charity, was presented with a cheque for £600 by Silchester Players. This followed a donation of £1,000 previously made early to assist with the renovation work. Also pictured (l to r) are Silchester Players members Roy Glancey, Tim Oliver and Scarlett Quittenton.