April 2018 Highlights in this month’s Spotlight President’s Final Address 58th AGM and Volunteer Training Weekend – it’s a wrap Update from John Herber/NZ Fire Shield on their vouchers from conference Meet our newest Life Member – Valda Peacock QSM (KOV) Meet our new (well not really, but new positions) Executive team members – Dan, Helen and Tania Conference Competition Results and Award Recipients (Merits will be announced in June) MTNZ Calendar – it’s huge – so many training and networking opportunities Agendas for May meetings – Combined North Island and Zone Five NextGen Boot Camp – August, Lake Karapiro – our third one Latest news from iTICKET #mtnz2018 Zone One News – PUSS, Rising Stars, Heathers, Beauty and the Beast, Book Club Masterclass opportunity with Hayden Tee Zone Two – Shrek, Last Legs and Celtic Connection Zone Three- Blood Brothers, a great idea from Abbey MT, Once Upon a Mattress Zone Four – Defying Gravity, new associate members 4th Wall and Dennis Brown; Combined South Island Meeting 14 – 15 September Zone Five – Grease the arena spectacular, strat planning in Queenstown and Priscilla comes to Dunedin, South Otago have been painting their green room and we welcome new members Taieri Dramatic Society to the MTNZ family, April 2018 will see Triple Threat Academy NZ return to Christchurch and Wellington with their three day intensive musical theatre workshops. The next New Zealand Singing School: Te Wānanga Toi Waiata will be held at the Eastern Institute of Technology, Napier, from 4th to 14th January 2019 – registrations are now open Techie info – NSL, our ETNZ award recipients, Showtechnix, Philips Entertainment, John Herber Copyright info – Flashdance, Joseph, Madagascar, Little Miss Sunshine, NZ musicals from Playmarket 1 Thinking of all our New Zealand communities this month and in Australia, of which our community theatres both here and across the Tasman, are such a huge part of, as we remember our ANZACS who served in World War One and those who have served in further conflicts since the “great war” – we will remember them. 2 President’s Opening Address – 58th National Volunteer Training/Conference – 2018 Good Evening. On behalf of the Executive, and Nelson Musical Theatre, it is my very great pleasure to welcome you all here to the 58th National Volunteer Training/Conference Weekend for Musical Theatre New Zealand. It is great to be back in Nelson – conference last being held here in 2011. In welcoming you all here tonight, I would especially like to acknowledge our Patron & Life Member, Donna Philpott QSM, our Life Members John MacGibbon, Ian Reid, Markham Lee, Diane & Graeme Philip and Ngaire Holmes; Diamond Partners and major sponsors of MTNZ – John Herber/NZ Fire Shield; Platinum Partners - BOUNCE NZ, The Light Site, Origin Theatrical , iTICKET and so many other sponsors, without whose assistance we would not be able to stage this Conference. I would also like to acknowledge past MTNZ Executive member – Terry O’Connor, who is also attending conference this year. A very special welcome to all those new conference attendees, I do hope you all have a wonderful weekend and Valda will be taking you under her wing very shortly. A very special thank you to Archdeacon Andy Joseph QSM and Ramari, for being with us tonight. And a very warm welcome to Jennifer Ward-Lealand ONZM, who has become a very good friend of MTNZ, and I know we all look forward to hearing from her shortly. I look back on 2017 as a wonderful year with many highs and achievements, and I must particularly acknowledge all the efforts made by Vice President Dan, General Manager Kate, and all my Executive who have worked so hard on your behalf. Our second Next Gen Bootcamp at Lake Karapiro was extremely successful, and we look forward to repeating that exercise again later in 2018. On the down side, MTNZ lost some very special members during the year, and our thoughts are with families and societies as they continue life without those special people and, in particular, I would like to acknowledge two special MTNZ Life Members – Shona Spencer and Len Speir who left us during 2017 and also Elsa Cresswell the first secretary who worked so hard in 1960 with our founder Frank Terry to bring community theatre societies together to form the New Zealand Federation of Operatic Societies. I am sure they would both be very proud and pleased of their achievement in seeing all of us gathered here tonight celebrating another amazing year for our community. Your Executive has travelled up and down the country to attend many society productions, and I thank all those societies who hosted us for their kindness and generosity. We have seen some wonderful shows, and indeed Musical Theatre is in good heart in New Zealand. Sadly, this is the last time I will address you as your President, I have had the most amazing time over the past ten years on the Executive and I will be forever grateful for all the friendships I have made over those years. I am not however lost to the organisation and will always be around for any help and guidance, you all know that I suffer badly from what my friend Tessa May Brown so aptly called “the disease”, back in 2014. I would like to publicly take this opportunity to personally thank General Manager Kate and my respective Executives over the past four years for their hard work, support and friendship, I could not have done this job without you And finally, my grateful thanks to Kate, Ross, Carl, Michaela and the team of Nelson Musical Theatre for organising this wonderful weekend, I am sure we will all go back to our communities from Whangarei to Invercargill all the better for it. Enjoy this evening, and I look forward to seeing you all at the Annual General Meeting in the morning, here at 9.15am 3 4 58th AGM and Volunteer Training Weekend – Nelson - IT’S A WRAP Thank you to all those who attended or were part of the MTNZ Annual Conference in Nelson. What a fantastic weekend of fun, frivolity, networking, learning and of course, some serious moments. Congrats to all those societies who were successful in the competitions. Our congratulations to all the Merit Award recipients and Patron’s, Community Tech and Merit Award Recipients this year. Special congratulations our Valda Peacock QSM and KOV on receiving Life Membership award. MTNZ sincerely congratulates Carl, Ross and their wonderful team from Nelson on a great weekend and all the volunteer hours that go into these events, from pretty much a year out. HUGE hours – so thank you all so much. Special thanks to the front liners who worked with Carl and I. We would also like to sincerely thank our corporate members who sponsored parts of conference – without them we could not keep the rego fee at the level it is. Please remember to support our corporate members when you are looking at sound, lighting, theatre design etc. It was really good to see so many new faces at conference and great to see so many young people there as well. Our wonderful seminar speakers and forum panellists – AMAZING – thank you – and no one gets paid to do those either, so we are very lucky. The MTNZ conference now has over 220 people attending (when I first started this job 16 years ago, we had 110 – 120) and that is a massive amount of administration and logistical work for the host society and the MTNZ resource, which is still the same as it was back then – although now, MTNZ have BOUNCE NZ and Light Site lending a much needed hand since Timaru in 2008. So as we are in the grand scheme of conferences, a very large group, it is often hard to find one venue for our requirements and one that meets the community theatre budget – so sometimes the transport logistics can be challenging for the host society as well when we are split across several venues. A big thank you to Nelson for offering to host conference and pulling it all together – huge job and very much appreciated by us all. Feedback is always very welcome and very important– whilst we have rules that require an AGM etc. the weekend is about the membership, so if you want to send some thoughts or ideas especially seminar and forum ones or perhaps you would like to present a seminar or be on a forum panel, just send me an email or email your zone rep. The Exec are meeting in June, where we will discuss any feedback and the planning for Auckland will be sorted. But we do hope to see many of you before then Start your fundraising now and it would be fantastic to see “EVERY SOCIETY IN THE MTNZ MEMBERSHIP” represented. Let that be the challenge ☺ Spread the word. Further down in Spotlight is our calendar – it would be great to see you along to zone meetings. As you can appreciate, it is so hard during AGM weekend for the Exec and I, to talk to people etc. because we are all running about like mad things, meetings at zone levels are great because we have more time and are not in “organisation” mode and can catch up in a less formal environment which is what it is all about. Cheers everyone and see you next year in Auckland if not before. Thanks for supporting MTNZ and coming to conference and make sure you bring a new person or two next year ☺ – Kate for the MTNZ Executive 5 A big thanks from MTNZ to the following individuals and companies, for their assistance with the planning for the 58th Musical Theatre NZ National Conference Diamond Partners and Major Sponsors of Musical Theatre New Zealand John Herber Limited & NZ Fire Shield Limited Platinum Partners of Musical Theatre New Zealand iTICKET – Friday night dinner and Saturday night “best