Band Meeting!
Meetings are a complete waste of time. Most of the time. Band meetings are usually more fun than the average corporate meeting. Usually because there is beer. They are also usually less productive than the average corporate meeting. Usually because there is beer. Well, we had a good one the other night, and some really good stuff came out of it. I thought it would be helpful to post our agenda, minutes and some thoughts on why I think the meeting worked.
The Meeting Itself
We decided to call our meeting because money was quickly starting to become an issue. There were payments coming in through different band members and expenses being covered by too many people. It was becoming difficult to keep track of everything. We also needed to make sure we were accounting for band van mileage accurately. We needed a plan and a meeting is a good way to make one.
Ivan quickly drew up an agenda. You can't just turn a bunch of beer drinkers loose in a pub and expect them to stay focused on the topics at hand. Both Ivan and I are pretty anti-meeting, so we thought it would be a good idea to treat this like an annual meeting and cover as many things as possible. The main goal was to lay all the shit on the table, resolve gripes and lay out a system to keep the business organized without having to think about it so we can concentrate on the fun.
The Agenda
We more or less stuck to the following six subjects. Actually, I don't think number five was really covered at all, but other things came up that turned out to be much more important.
- The band, how is everyone feeling about the music, the business, the entertaining, etc.
- Gigs, is everyone happy with the frequency, is everyone happy with the booking situation and the places we're playing?
- Money, is everyone happy with the money, dividing up, SSN's, taxes, etc.
- Van, motels, gas money, gear, etc.
- Rehearsals, gigs, and making free time to do both on a schedule.
- New Recording, in-house or out-of-house? How much time and $$ are we willing to contribute?