Thank you to all who attended our October General Meeting via Zoom. It was great to see everyone virtually. Here are some highlights:

Treasury: Peter Busby, Treasurer, reported that WODL continues to have liquidity and stability in its financial affairs.

Adjudications: Ken Menzies, Adjudications Chair, reported that following the cancellation of the 2021 Festival, both the pre-Festival adjudicator, Phyllis Leighton, and the Festival adjudicator, Lindsay Price, kindly said that "We are all in this together." Consequently they agreed that WODL owed them no payment. The WODL board is grateful for their generosity to WODL; and we look forward to working with them on future adjudication cycles and Festivals.

Website: Mary Jane Walzak, Webmaster, continues to work on the new WODL website. Mary Jane will give us tour at the next WODL General Meeting in February 2021.

Hanover Community Players: Marg Poste and Linda Manchester, Hanover Community Players, described their plans to film Hilda’s Yard in the spring and asked about copyright, etc. They plan to write a newsletter article outlining their process.

Palace Theatre, London: The Palace theatre in London is working on various initiatives to bring small audiences into the theatre, including to see a play while it is filmed.

Kitchener-Waterloo Little Theatre: KWLT is working on Black Box Radio #1 online radio project The Tragedy of Miriam which will launch on November 1. You’ll find more information on the KWLT website, https://kwlt.org/.

WODL Archives: Bev Dietrich is collecting WODL archives and preparing them to go to the University of Guelph. This will be an open collection which will be available for WODL to borrow from as needed.

Guest speaker, Brandon Moore: Brandon was formerly Community Theatre and Communications Manager at Theatre Ontario, and he has served for over fifteen years as a member of the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development: Health and Safety Advisory Committee for Live Performance. Brandon provided an update on the work of this committee on developing occupational health and safety guidelines for live performance.  Even though only some WODL theatres are employers in the legal sense of the word, these guidelines are helpful for all community theatres.

If you are a member of a WODL member group, and you would like a copy of the draft minutes of this meeting, please contact the WODL Secretary, Pam Niesiobedzki-Curtis, at [email protected].

The next WODL General Meeting is at 11:00 am on Sunday, February 21, 2021 via Zoom. Brandon Moore will be our guest speaker and provide further updates from the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development: Health and Safety Advisory Committee for Live Performance.

VIRTUAL WORKSHOPS - Theatrical Prop-Building : Making Magic from Home: Design and create your own props under the guidance of professional Stratford Festival Prop-builders. In each of the hands-on sessions, you be invited into a virtual work room where you’ll be guided through specific techniques to realize your own finished prop.

For more information and to register, click here.

Suzanne Merriam, Senior Manager, Education, at the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake has extended an invitation to teachers and community theatre folks on November 18, and 19, 2020. Suzanne and Megan Gilchrist, Education Coordinator, believe the online Q&A sessions on November 18 would be particularly interesting to artists involved in community theatres.

 

Pre-registration is required. Cost: $25 for one day. $40 for two days. For the list of session options click here.