The Board apologised to Mr Fleay for choosing a location MILES from any decent parking, and agreed that the next meeting would take place in Leicester's Fashionable West End instead.
MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING
Agreed as Accurate.
MATTERS ARISING
There were no outstanding matters arising - what a rum old do!
ORGANISATIONAL ISSUES
5TH BIRTHDAY RELATED ISSUES
BIRTHDAY PARTIES/AGM
Mr Fleay had had An Idea.
He proposed that AAS hold a special ALL DAY gig in Derby to celebrate our 5th Anniversary, and incorporate certain aspects of the traditional AGM into this occasion. There was some discussion of making this a two-leg affair with another all-dayer in London, but it was agreed that it might be better to have the Derby gig as the Birthday Party, and a London Gig as a launch for an accompanying singles compilation. Mr Fleay's other, REALLY good idea was to give out goodie bags to all in attendance at the birthday party, containing free copies of some of our more "available" recordings, thus making people happy AND clearing out his shed, Mr Whitaker's living room, and Mr Hibbett's mum's garage, all at the same time. GRATE! It was agreed, then, that Mr Fleay would book a venue for the Derby gig, Mr Hibbett would sort out London, and Mr Whitaker would try and find some cheap bags, which could be stamped with the Valid Stamp to make them official. GRATE!
SINGLES COMPILATION
It was agreed that this would be made available for the Birthday Party - if we did get lots of our bands to play and some of their fans to come along, it would be an ideal time to try and Shift Some Units. All Board Members would thus get on and start BADGERING their respective A&R responsibilities for DATs as soon as possible, asking about gig availability at the same time.
It was also agreed that 500 copies would be pressed, and that they would be sold off CHEAP at £3.99 each. Each CD would contain one track per release as a general rule i.e. not just singles, although some tracks might be pruned if, for instance, one person would be appearing on every other track....
The CD would also feature a multi-media aspect, comprising of a history of the label told in relation to each track on the CD, in much the same way as the "Curse Of Voon" booklet had accompanied the "Legend Of Voon" compilation. The Book would therefore be abandoned, with the title "No Sales: No Sellout" being reused for the compilation as a whole, and existing text being integrated into this new format by Mr Hibbett
Mr Whitaker would get chasing up some pricings, and Mr Fleay would sort out the artwork, and it was agreed that the next meeting would see a draft of the artwork and text and be the place to present Mr Fleay with all DATs and CD-Rs. Let's ROCK!
AWAY DAY
This year's Away Day would take place after the celebrations, in order to allow Board Members to evaluate their situation and investigate What Happens Next.
WEBPAGES
Mr Fleay had had a UPDATE SPASM and redone many pages, including the shop, links, and albums pages. Well done sir! Mr Hibbett had not had a SPASM, and so needed to update the news and minutes pages, as well as the Now That's What I Call Valid album, which he had forgotten about.
NEWSLETTER
Mr Hibbett suggested that perhaps the News Pages could be turned into a Group Blog, so that all Board Members and, indeed, BAND members, could update it whenever News Occurred. This was agreed to be a Good Idea, and would be done.
PLUGGERS
No news really, apart from that Mr Esplen had apparently left!
DISTRIBUTION
There had been no progress with Agent Alice, largely due to the SLOTH in the Board Itself. Mr Whitaker suggested that a list of shops who might owe us money be divvied up amongst Board members, and then rung. He would email ISAAC to Mr Hibbett to sort out, and we would progress from them. It was agreed that this was an Experiment, so Let's Finish It Off - it remained to be seen how easy it was to extract CASH from shops, for instance.
Mr Fleay suggested getting a Work Experience Youth in to do this, as The Board didn't want to, and he'd look into it further.
It was agreed that we'd carry on as we are with this and see how it goes, and if anything Picked Up Interest we could still try and get a Professional Company to do it for us at some point.
Meanwhile Mr Fleay would forward all PRIME material to Mr Whitaker as soon as possible, that he might probably be UNLEASHED on that shower of fcukwits. The Meeting attempted to make humour of second resolutions being required for this action, and so forth, but couldn't quite get it to work.
FINANCE
There was loads of cash in the bank, as the monthly tithe was ACCUMULATING mightily - some of this would be given to bands, if we ever found out how much we actually owed them, and much of the rest would pay for the gigs and the singles compilation. There was also enough for a SOLICITOR to sort out the ABOVE, if need ever be.
RECORD STALL
This would happen at the GIGS!
FOOTBALL
This was discussed at lengths throughout the meeting. Mr Dresden was ROMPING to victory. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.
A&R
PLANS & APOLOGIES
They were playing in Sheffield even as the Board Met. A review had been received in that Careless Words magazine, as a result of the work of their Press Woman, and LOADS of copies had been flogged at gigs. LOADS had been sold in Reveal too - well done them!
Mr Whitaker gratefully received his Board Member's Quota, and it was reported that the 50 copies apparently lost by the Post Office had now turned up, and so the band would not be able to claim the £500 insurance. BOO! Finally, Mr Thatcher had been helping out with some management, and several gigs were forthcoming - Mr Fleay would keep all informed about these well in advance.
FRANKIE MACHINE
Mr Fleay gleefully reported that they had recently been into the Hive to record three NEW songs as a band. This would Kick Start The Album Sessions for album two - HOORAH!
That American Chap (Chocolate Hearts Records) was still interested in putting out a singles compilation, and had also agreed to do a swap, taking unsold copies of the ALBUM in exchange for singles comps., which sounded good. Mr Fleay was going to try and see if the band could TOUR THE USA, as long as this complied with their new BAND RULE: Only Tour In Summer.
L CHRISTIAN LUNDHOLM
For heaven's sake - Mr Hibbett pledged that he would bite the bullet this month and get it DONE, sending copies out for review. It would be put on sales sheets sent to shops, so that reviewers could say it was available in the shops, but also include the address of OUR online shop, so people could actually get it. Mr Hibbett had also contacted two Classical Distribution Companies simply to ask if they'd mind HEARING the CD. One had replied within two hours to say they weren't taking on new music, another had not replied. How very unexpected.
MJ HIBBETT & THE VALIDATORS
Mr Hibbett presented FINISHED (nearly) versions of the album, with all songs now MIXED and put into their proper order. He was GLEEFUL at this, and stated that the next stage was to organise a BAND MEETING, and then it would be Manufacturing Time. Golly!
THE FRIGHTENED PRISONERS OF THE KRAKEN
The Kraken had asked for another 50 copies of their album for themselves, which Mr Fleay would send. He also reported that a copy had been sold through the website, bring total sales up to a mighty FOURTEEN! Hoorah!
ANY OTHER A & R
TWINKIE
Their new single "Crime" was now out, and Mr Fleay said it was GRATE!
THE PO BOX
There were a massive TWENTY CDs to listen to this time, which Messrs Whitaker and Hibbett would divide between them in a lucky dip stylee later, and promised to send postcards out for. Mr Fleay reported that the Griff Pilchard one was "quite funny".
ALUMNI NEWS
Rob Wandrin' Allstars new band had a new drummer and a singer whereas, conversely, Terrashima's singer had been sacked. There was not believed to be any relation between these events.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS
Mr Fleay bemoaned the fact that we hadn't released any vinyl for a long time, and would investigate an Australian who apparently produced small runs cheaply.
DATE OF NEXT MEETING
The next meeting would take place in Leicester's Fashionable West End on April 25th.
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