On April 28th at the Millstone Inn, Hathersage, Artists Against Success held their third annual Away Day. The main points of the day were as follows:
The AAS New Contract
Job Descriptions
Criterion of Releases
AAS New Things Competition
AGM planning
Job Title for Mr Dresden
The AAS New Contract
The day’s work began with a lengthy Board Meeting, during which a proposal for a new contract was discussed – a draft of this is attached. All agreed that it was smashing that the open ended nature of the day allowed them time to discuss such matters at the length they deserved.
After the end of the formal meeting, the Board held a long, sober, detailed discussion about Physics and The Universe, covering such matters as Black Holes, Quarks, proof of Alternative Dimensions, and that sort of thing. It was very interesting.
Job Descriptions
At the end of lengthy and heartfelt discussion of this and related matters (during which all Board Members commenced speaking in Very Long Sentences, utilising Important Words and generally speaking in Capital Letters) agreement was reached as follows: Job Descriptions had been deemed a good idea when AAS began, to allow everyone to recognise their tasks. However, as the company had grown, organically, these job descriptions had grown with them, with each Board member taking on certain clearly defined tasks, whilst being flexible enough to share others. It emerged that the company was very lucky to be operating on a system of Assured Mutual Guilt, whereby each Board Member was given to thinking he wasn’t pulling his own weight, and so did perhaps more than they ought. The Board trusted each other implicitly to do things if asked, and it was agreed that perhaps we all needed to trust ourselves enough to actually ask a bit more.
The meeting then took a break before there was too much hugging and, possibly, dolphins. It is believed that the discussion turned to films, or something.
Criterion of Releases
The Board focused on the fact that last year had seen releases coming exclusively from Board members. Mr Fleay proposed a Criteria Matrix, which described in some ways why this was. Basically, in order to be an AAS release, a band would need to:
Share the AAS Ethos
Be able to provide Financial Commitment
Have GRATE product
This was tested against various scenarios, and found to be VALID. In some ways this was our great weakness, that we were by necessity unlikely to find many new things to release (i.e. this year it was pretty much only The Kraken who fulfiflled all criteria), but of course this was also our Strength, and the thing that made us different from other labels. Also better.
AAS New Things Competition
The competition had been proposed as a way of spending the money we had accrued through the tithe, and as a way to attract new material. However, the acceptance of the idea of a New Contract (in which AAS would contribute financially to future releases) and also the Criterion of Releases, meant that this was no longer necessary, and so the matter was dropped.
AGM planning
There was discussion of the possibility of advertising this properly as a proper gig, but in the end the meeting agreed simply to commence planning in the June meeting, to give everyone plenty of time to coordinate their efforts more effectively.
Job Title for Mr Dresden
It was agreed that Mr Dresden’s new Job Title would be Director Of Operations.
The meeting agreed that this had been an extremely prolific exercise, in which many new ideas and objectives had been agreed upon, with several Papers likely to emerge for future meetings. Discussion then moved onto other matters, including a very long and enjoyable Shout In The Restaurant about Politics. The subject matter remained educated and highbrow for the entire evening, and in no way disintegrated into stories about going to the toilet.
