Page 66 of The Silent Appeal

Date: February 4, 2025

Subject: Committee meeting minutes

Dear all,

Thank you for venturing out into the February chill for tonight’s committee meeting. I’m pleased to have typed up the minutes before midnight for once, which gives me approximately eighty minutes before Sammy crawls into bed and wakes me up.

Sarah-Jane MacDonald

Producer & Cochair, The Fairway Players

The Fairway Players Committee Meeting

Date: February 4, 2025

Time: 7:30 p.m.

Place: Chez MacDonald

Present:

Kevin MacDonald, cochair and director

Sarah-Jane MacDonald, cochair and producer

John O’Dea, treasurer

Celia Halliday, box office and publicity

Joel Halliday OBE, set design and construction

Emma Crooks, membership, social secretary, and publicity

Apologies for absence:

Karen Payne, ordinary committee member—accompanying boyfriend to dinner dance.

Review of previous minutes:

The minutes were read, accepted by Kevin, and seconded by Celia.

Matters arising:

Director’s report by Kevin MacDonald

Rehearsals are well underway for our next play: The Hollow by Agatha Christie. Kevin spoke at length about how he has assembled a cast of regulars and fresh faces to give this production the verve and energy of the new, with the solid dependability of the old. An early blip, when Fran’s friend Georgia declined to continue in her role as Gerda, was solved when Kevin mined an old mailing list and unearthed Isabel Beck, who accepted the part and attended her first rehearsal last night. Sarah-Jane voiced her hope that her sister Nicky-Rose, who has many years’ experience of the professional stage, will start attending rehearsals soon.

The group is delighted to make available free go-size flaskets of Bliss Bubbles minimally carbonated well-being water at rehearsals.

The committee thanked Kevin for his hard work so far and expressed its desire to help and support him where it can.

Any other business:

Joel OBE says he has been studying rehearsal photographs of The Hollow posted by other amateur groups online. He is confident we can at least match the set-building ingenuity of those and is pleased to have an extra hand this time thanks to Karen’s boyfriend, Mark, who is extremely enthusiastic and a keen student in backstage craft.

Kevin brought up the subject of charity donations. The Fairway Players have, in recent years, chosen to donate a percentage of their profits to a charity.

Celia suggested St. Mark’s Hospice again, but Kevin has been thinking about this very subject, without so much as mentioning it to his wife and cochair.