ACTRA Maritimes – President’s Message

Hello Fellow Members,

Thank you to all those who attended our AGM this week-end! It was a full house and the general feeling in the room was positive and supportive. We had quorum so the updated By-Laws were voted in and our By-Law Chairman, John O’Keefe, can now stop eating, breathing and dreaming By-Laws. Our sincere gratitude to both John and Richard for all their work over the past four years.

In my opening remarks, I pointed out some of the great initiatives that your Council has worked on and implemented over the past year.

· Intensive Two-day Adult On-Camera Audition Lab with Lynn Cormack
· Why Work ACTRA information sessions given to acting and film students at Dalhousie, NSCC, NSCAD, (acroynyms!) and Acadia.
· Acting for Camera workshop with our own, Angela Vermier
· Youth Q & A with local directors/producers – Chaz Thorne, Jason Eisner and Mike Melski; hosted by Josh MacDonald. Included pizza, drinks and dessert!
The first ever ACTRA Industry Series – every Monday in February a different session was held in the Neptune Rehearsal hall – Meet the Agent; Voice Work; Marketing Yourself; and Contracts and you.
· Stellar Christmas Party complete with the presentation of our 2011 ACTRA Awards. It can’t be said enough – our congratulations to Marguerite McNeil for Best Performance by a lead actress for Rhonda in Rhonda’s Party; Gary Levert for Best Performance by a lead actor as Sexton in Heart of Rhyme, and the David Renton Award of Excellence to Randy Bolivar for his contribution to the local film industry with his work as stuntman and coordinator.

I would like to give a special shout out to Andrea Dymond (Training), Francine Deschepper (Special Events) and Genevieve Steele (Awards) who happen to Chair the busiest committees. Our thanks for your time and perseverance! A reminder to members, we will be holding our ACTRA Awards annually once again, so please take note of performances throughout the year that you wish to nominate, also, make sure that your own work is put forward for consideration.

Some of the other issues Council has been dealing with are –

Status of the Artist Legislation
Phasing out of the New Brunswick Tax Credit
Recent cuts to CBC, NFB and Telefilm

We have also helped to sponsor the following:

Atlantic Film Festival
Performing Arts Lodge “Scrabble with the Stars”
Women in Film and Television – Making Waves Conference

It is a lot of time and work being on Council, and it isn’t always pleasant, but I can guarantee you that every Councillor has the same objective – how do we keep our members working and what can we do to keep our branch at the top of a very competitive market.

I am very pleased and proud to report that we most certainly are at the top when it comes to the financial stability of our Maritime Branch. A few years ago, under the stellar leadership of Jeremy Webb and a council that worked very hard to tighten the purse strings, this branch went from being in a very precarious situation to an astounding surplus. You can take pride in knowing that our small branch is one of the strongest in the country, and I thank you for helping us to achieve this status.

Our guest speakers were our National President, Ferne Downey, our Regional Executive Director, Daintry Dalton and the Director of Public Policy & Communications, Joanne Deer. Each gave an informative and enlightening speech pertaining to National and Regional issues. Joanne later gave a fantastic info session with Branch Council on Communication and Lobbying. We will try to post more details of their speeches once the Minutes are transcribed.

Of course, there is far more work to be done, and I encourage all members to get involved by joining one of our many committees. Political Action and Communication are very prominent right now as we determine what our role will be in trying to stop the wrecking ball that the present government has unleashed from wiping out our industry. We need your voices and your support. You are ACTRA.