Hello members!
I hope you and your families are well and keeping safe. I must apologise for the time it has taken to get back in touch with you all – I fully appreciate it’s been a while and you must be wondering what we are up to at the moment. Here I now am with an update as to what’s happening in what is perhaps the strangest year in our history.
COVID-19
Your committee are still meeting on a monthly basis, either in person or via Zoom to ensure we are keeping up to date with all the guidelines and laws around performing from the government and the Arts Council. We are continually assessing the possibility of returning to performing in some capacity but as you can imagine, plans now change on a weekly basis as the guidance changes so regularly. We will be in touch shortly to offer you some opportunities around performing digitally so look out for that in your inboxes soon! We’ve also got a little project created by our very own Trevor for something online nearer Christmas – take a look at that below too!
Membership for 2020-21 – *Action Required*
You will be aware we held our AGM back in June where it was decided we would freeze the membership fees for 2020-21 due to the lack of performing taking place this year thanks to the evolving COVID-19 situation. Fees will remain at £30 for a full member, £20 for an associate member and £10 for a student member in full time education.
That said, due to the current circumstances where the vast majority of us aren’t working full time due to furlough or having to work under different conditions, coupled with the lack of performing activities this year, the committee and I feel it’s not reasonable to expect members to pay their fees in their entirety this year if they do not wish to do so, without any impact on their membership status. We appreciate the financial difficulty many of you may find yourselves in as a result of this pandemic though sadly we as a group are also not exempt from this too. We have missed many opportunities to secure the income required to run the group this year so far and seemingly will find ourselves in the same situation for quite some time to come. With that in mind, we are asking all members, where you can, to pay their fees and contribute to the running of the group this year. Your committee have all paid their membership contributions in full this year and we would of course greatly appreciate it you could too!
We are starting our membership database from scratch using a new system this year. Therefore, we are required to update our membership records so we are asking all members to complete the membership form below:
If you wish to roll over your membership from 2019-20 to the year 2020-21 and do not wish to contribute your fees for the year, the form will still need to be completed – please indicate in the relevant fields that you wish to roll over your membership.
Once the form has completed, I will add you to our new members group on Facebook for 2020-21.
At our AGM this year, we elected Anne Tafler to take over the role of Membership Secretary. Anne will continue to work alongside me and our committee to manage our membership process for this year.
We will reach out to you all individually in the coming weeks if you have not completed the form to enquire as to whether you wish to remain a member and indeed on our mailing list.
Quiz Evening – 14th October 2020
Following the success of our previous Zoom Quiz Evenings, I will be hosting another quiz on Wednesday 14th October 2020 at 19:00. Please feel free to invite your friends, family and people you may know from other groups and societies – the more the merrier! Joining instructions for the Zoom meeting are below. I will send out further information in due course too.
Link to autojoin the quiz:
https://zoom.us/j/96855767922?pwd=dmorSDczUDltbi81T1dWeEZKUzQrdz09
Manual Meeting Details
Meeting ID: 968 5576 7922
Passcode: CPquiz
Channel Hoppers – Christmas 2020 – A Message on behalf of Trevor Hodsdon
Hi Players, you can never keep a good drama group down and so…
We cannot do a Panto this year in the Village Hall and I suspect we would all love the opportunity to be involved in some sort of production as we live through these unique times. Well, we have a cunning plan. I have written a 10 minute comedy skit for us, with a festive flavour – full of gags and one liners and designed to go out on social media and recorded using the Zoom platform.
In short it involves 9 performers, each one being a television presenter. Channel hopping provides the opportunity for gags and cut overs which should make the audience laugh as well as being a Christmas greeting to all our members and friends. Your committee have read it and it brought a smile to our faces anyway.
My plan is to recruit for the roles in October, rehearse and fine tune, as well as testing the technology during November to then film and edit etc in early December for premiere and release just before Christmas 2020.
All rehearsals will be via Zoom, possibly 3 or 4 in the month up to an hour at a time and scripts only need to be loosely learnt as presenting allows the chance to read a script. Not too time demanding then and that should be popular with us all! It is designed to be fun and get us performing and together again under the banner of Copthorne Players.
The parts available are Father Christmas, Gardening Expert, TV Doctor, Kids Presenter, DIY Expert, TV Chef, Sports Commentator and an Antiques Expert. If you do want to be involved please email Trevor on trevor@thegtpartnership.co.uk I will allocate parts and only auditioning if we are overwhelmed, so if you are interested in more than one part say so to make my job easier. The script will then be sent out, keeping it fresh for those not involved. A keybord player might be helpful – only a Christmas carol – but if you fancy helping in this way please also tell Trevor, our own Sam Mendes…!
Our New Look
You’ll notice we have a new logo! We hope you like it. You’ll start to see our new look rolled out across all our social media and our website over the coming weeks!
Congratulations Sam!
A massive congratulations to our wonderful patron Sam Tutty, who has recently added another award to his ever-growing collection. Sam recently won two prizes at The Stage newspapers Debut awards, winning Best Performer in a musical and the best West End debut performer. Having seen Sam perform in the role, I couldn’t agree more with The Stage, who described his work in Dear Evan Hansen as a ‘truly star-making performance’. You can read all about Sam’s most recent win on the BBC here – https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-54292943
Thank you!
Finally, I just want to say a massive thank you to our wonderful committee and of course, each and every one of you, for the continued support of Copthorne Players. It means an incredible amount to all of us and along with the team, I look forward to continuing to navigate us through these difficult times and can’t wait to catch up with you all on the other side!
In the meantime, stay safe and I look forward to seeing you for the quiz night on the 14th!
Ross McLennan
Chairperson
Copthorne Players
