I just got back from my first ever attendance of the UNIMA Australia AGM (Annual General Meeting). Although I’ve been a member (as an individual for about a year, previously a company/group member for a few years) for a number of years, I’ve never actually attended or voted at an AGM. In fact, as a group member, I was never the one to get the forms/magazines/updates - that was Susan, my fellow company member. After my trip to America mid-year, and my recent appointment as webmaster, I decided it was time to attend.

The meeting took place at Polyglot Puppet Theatre - Sue Giles, the artistic director there, has also been the UNIMA Aus. secretary for a few years - in Melbourne. It was attended by about 15 people, some ‘young’, some ‘old’. In fact, for me, this was the first time I was meeting the majority of attendees; including the committee themselves, and some past committee members. Julia Davis and Richard Hart (from Dream Puppets) were there, along with John McDonald, who by happy coincidence I’ve ‘met’ recently online in organising some loose threads from previous web admins. We all sat in Polyglot’s small theatre (it’s about 100 seats with a large wooden floor as a stage and upstage a storage area), luckily, it was also catered .

I didn’t plan on writing about this, but so much was discussed that may be of interest to Aussie members/puppeteers, along with just fulfilling some curiousity for non-Aussie puppeteers. UNIMA Australia is the only representation of puppeteers here (America has both UNIMA USA, the Puppeteers of America, plus local guilds…), and in fact represents a significantly smaller percentage that UNIMA USA would… And because at the end of the meeting we learned that yesterday (18th Dec 2009) marked the official signing of paperwork to open UNIMA Indonesia! (Another interesting tidbit: each UNIMA branch must pay 3 euros to UNIMA International - or "the big UNIMA in the sky" as Jennie put it - for every member of that branch, and this income makes up 11% of UNIMA International’s budget!)

Once everyone got settled, the meeting began, with minutes of the last AGM confirmed by attendees of that meeting (who were present at this one). Then the current President, Jennie Pfeiffer, gave a report on the activities over the past year. She spoke of the numerous retirements and unusually high turnover of committee members (mostly either due to other commitments or having done it for long enough to feel like moving on), including a lot of well-known Aussie puppeteers. She spoke of the UNIMA 2008 festival, which occured in Perth, and the large and ongoing process that involved with Perth-based Spare Parts Puppet Theatre as a huge proponent of the planning of said event.

A large part of what she discussed in her report involved the recent ’suspension’ (she literally said, "in quotes") of the VCA puppetry course. This part is a little sensitive, as Jennie is also a current student at VCA, and so I’m not going to go into detail what she said. It was quite clear though that she had an opinion on it, for obvious reasons. However, another person (I’m stressing that it’s not Jennie, because really, I want to keep her and the others out of hot water) gave some updates and inside scuttlebut. … Sigh… I had a whole paragraph about the insider info, but you know, I don’t have anyone’s permission to post it, and although I’d like to - because it really revealed a lot about the status of the course - I’m not really willing to risk getting people in trouble or in an awkward position just because it’s a hot-button tidbit. I will say though that it was remarked that as Swinburne (and possibly something run by Sue Harris, which I’ve never heard of before) is the only course currently left with a puppetry component, it was a sad state of affairs. It was decided that the new committee - voted in later in the meeting - would discuss what actions should be taken by UNIMA Australia to continue a discussion with VCA’s management about the course and its future.

We also discussed the One Van Puppet Festival, which was unsuccessful at gaining their usual funding, and have postponed from January to hold the event - also cut down to one day - in May. Interestingly the event grew from a local puppetry school, and has been known to break even from ticket sales. 

Moving on, we have the Acting Treasurer, Annie Forbes, report. She gave a semi-detailed account (she’s only done the job for 6 months and there was some confusion as to something the previous treasurer had written) of the … accounts, and it was interesting to note that UNIMA Australia is in a pretty decent financial shape. So much so, that we were all encouraged by her remarks that sound management will not only allow UNIMA Australia to support more programs/events/artists, but that it should continue to grow. Mention was made specifically of the need to fund and develop more festivals, to which we all agreed was necessary given the current (practically non-existent) state of puppetry festivals in the country.

Sue Giles finally spoke, and told us how the Handspan Grant that UNIMA Australia had been tasked to oversee had finished, with the last recipient receiving funds this year. This means that UNIMA Australia has only one grant available: the Lorrie Gardner Scholarship. Even more stress was put on the fact that we could even increase the amount of the scholarship, or provide more grants, given the financial status of the organisation.

Additionally, the new website was briefly mentioned, and the introduction of state representatives; people who are in a position to send out updates and info specific to their state, as well as report back to the main UNIMA Australia committee. (PS. They’re still looking for a NT rep if anyone in NT is reading this…)

From here, we looked at the ballots for the next lot of ordinary committe member nominations (sadly, I had completely forgotten to vote, and didn’t realise it was only by postal ballot). Included in the nominations was one Gary Friedman (who I would have voted for!); but Al Martinez, Beth McMahon (of Purple Capsicum Puppets), and Gilly McInnes, were all highest voted nominations. (Al wasn’t in attendance, but Beth and Gilly both accepted the roles)

Then came the nominations for Secretary, Treasurer; editor of the magazine and memberships secretary were left for another time. Nancy Black, of Black Hole Theatre, raised her hand for Secretary and unanimously voted in; Michael Bevitt (also of Purple Capsicum) got nominated by Beth, and was also soundly supported.

As the meeting concluded, we all chatted for a bit, and the new committee members - and I - made a time to meet in the new year to discuss how UNIMA Australia can continue the good fight in 2010. I also had a chance to chat with Beth and Michael, who appear to know me in a couple of different ways - we have a mutual friend, we’ve met last year at UNIMA 2008, and we’ve chatted online about their company - and John McDonald, who asked me about Foam Glue and my experiences with it. I have to say, I’m normally very intimidated meeting a big group of people for the first time (I didn’t realise I knew Beth and Michael until today), but as usual, puppeteers are happy-go-lucky and very welcoming. Annie also happens to know Jeany, my other company member, and so I think perhaps I may know more people via six-degrees-of-separation than I thought. Even though I didn’t contribute much to the meeting or chat a lot afterwards, it’s good to meet people and I’m looking forward to the next UNIMA Aus. event.

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