PRESENT: Mark Hibbett Robert Fleay Matthew
Whitaker
APOLOGIES
There were no apologies necessary
MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING
Agreed as a true, accurate, and VALID record.
MATTERS ARISING
PLUGGERS
Mr Hibbett had spoken to Mr Conlon at Overground, and testified that he was a thoroughly nice bloke. Mr Conlon had spoken about the problems facing plugging at present - in a market where press coverage was hard to get, many small record companies were using radio plugging as an alternative way of getting coverage, and thus there were far more singles out and about than ever before. He had suggested that AAS produce some CD's of the single. He had also given quotes of £200 for 50 singles and £400 for 100 CD's. The meeting discussed this choice at length, recognising the veracity of Mr Conlon's ideas, but in the end decided that, as getting 100 CDs would take a great deal of time, not to say a lot of extra expense, we would go with the initial plan, and use 50 singles. Mr Hibbett to inform Overground of this, and discuss delivery arrangements.
PRINTING NEWS
The covers were all printed and done. The only slight problem was that they been printed the wrong way up, and so had had to be cut in two rather than folded as is normal, but the board agreed that this wasn't really a huge problem.
MANUFACTURING
Mr Whitaker was happy to report that the singles had been pressed, and that he would be picking them up on Tuesday. Everybody jiggled about, excitedly.
FINANCE
Mr Hibbett reported that we were looking dangerously close to coming in under budget, with £777.08 currently spent, and only the pluggers still to pay. This was cool.
ADVERT
Mr Hibbett presented the meeting with his proposed text for the advert in the NME, which was passed as VALID. He would be sending it to Shellshocked henceforth.
NUMBER ONE HITMAKERS SINGLES
Again, these had been done and paid for, and would be picked up by Mr Hibbett on Friday.
MAIL ORDER COMPANIES
Mr Fleay reported a slightly disappointing response from Mail Order companies. Some had suggested that AAS swap our records for some of theirs, but it was agreed this was a bit fliddy. Some companies had requested to hear the single before ordering,so Mr Fleay agreed to pass these addresses to Mr Hibbett, who would deal with it.
GIGS
Both Mr Fleay and Mr Hibbett looked a bit shifty at the mention of this. It was agreed that trying to find gigs for both Sienna and MJ Hibbett at the same time was really a lot of hassle. Thus it was agreed that, while Mr Hibbett would continue his efforts to sort out a joint gig in Coventry, and possibly a launch gig in Leicester, all other efforts would be pointed at getting gigs alone.
WEBPAGE
The webpage is up and running and VALID. There was some discussion on the possible inclusion of the minutes of the meetings on these pages, to enable The Kids to see how the business of running a revolutionary record company was conducted, and this was agreed, so long as certain sections were censored to protect allied groups.
THE GROOVE
Sienna had chosen "from the stuck-up bitch" for the run-out groove on their side, while Mr Hibbett had gone for "It's meant to sound like this." Everyone was happy.
PROMO MAILING LIST
The Board buckled down and stepped to it, and sorted out the following list of people to send promotional copies to:
BBC Radio Leicester
Leicester Sound
Leicester University Student Radio
DeMontfort University Student Radio
Leicester Mercury
Nottingham Evening Post
Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Ashley Bird (MM)
Steven Wells (NME)
Everett True (MM)
Simon Williams (MM)
Singles Reviews, Melody Maker
Singles Reviews, NME
Record Collector
Mojo Magazine
Kerrang Magazine
BBC Radio Derby
Ram FM
Radio Freedom
Derby Evening Telegraph
Shellshock
Printers
DaMont Pressing Plant
Labels people
The Big Issue
Music Week
In addition, Mr Whittaker would select 5 fanzines to send copies to, and Overground would be given the names of Mark Sheldon at XFM and Mark Radcliffe specially send to.
UMBRELLA ORGANISATION
Mr Whittaker presented the board with details of the Umbrella Organisation for Independent labels. The board read this, agreed it was valid, and decided to join. A cheque was written and signed there and then in a fit of dynamism, ready to send.
FUTURE RELEASES POLICY
There was a great deal of discussion on future policy as to releases, with general agreement on the idea that AAS should act as an umbrella for other groups to release records - in other words, rather than bands making a pretend label to release a single on, they could call it an Artists Against Success record. In this way, they get to be on a relatively established label with distribution, and the label gets the credit for putting out good records without having to do much work or spend money. This was felt to be a Good Idea, on the proviso that there was nothing crap - Mr Fleay raised the spectre of disagreement, putting forward a nightmare scenario in which two board members favoured a record and another didn't. Mr Hibbett offered to draft some Rules for future releases, for reference both by the board and by future aritistes, and this was passed as VALID.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS
MORE FINANCE
There was further financial discussion, and from this was born the idea of board members divorcing their aritistic selves from their business selves. In other words, when sending out promotional copies and stuff like that they were acting on behalf of the label, and could thus rightfully claim back, for example, postage, whereas when sending off a record to get themselves a gig, this would be them acting as an artiste. This would also be included in the general Rules, to keep everything kosher. This was all a bit heavy (again) but it was agreed that it was good to deal with it now, before it got complicated with other people being involved. Similarly, Mr Fleay put forward the policy for how many copies the bands should get. He and Mr Whitaker told Mr Hibbett, who didn't know, that general Indie Etiquette was for 10% of the copies to go to the bands, which seems like a Good Idea. Thus Sienna and MJ Hibbett would each receive 25 copies of the single, while Mr Whittaker was to receive 10. Everyone was happy at this, it sounded quite neat. Returning to the idea of divorcing artiste and label, it was agreed that orders sent to the label should be filled by the copies left with the label itself, whereas if anyone sold any copies at gigs, these would come from their initial supply, making it a sort of "fee", sort of
PRODUCT PROVISIONING
Moving on from this, Messrs Fleay and Whittaker felt we should decide where copies should be kept, and it was decided thusly:
Mr Hibbett: 25 as Artiste's Quota
16 for sending out as promotion
50 for Overground
58 remainder for filling orders and general spares
(Total 149)
Mr Fleay 25 as Artiste's Quota
4 for promotion
(Total 29)
Mr Whittaker 10 copies as Manufacturing Co-Ordinator's Quota
11 copies for promotion and courtesy copies
200 for Shelleshock
100 spare for possible re-orders
(Total 321)
BIG STAMP
Mr Fleay suggested having a Proper Big Stamp so that things could properly stamped as "VALID". Mr Whitaker knew of a bloke who could sort this for us, so Mr Hibbett agreed to forward him some artwork to action this. Smart.
MISSION STATEMENT
The meeting brainstormed some Aims for the Mission Statement, which were GRATE. These to be appended to the next Agenda for final Validation.
The meeting closed after 2 hours of Hard Work, with the board leaving for the sunshine, which was lovely.
