Cecil Fonseka - BMR 2010

Hi All,

Let me thank the team again for the massive effort by all of you and the honest comments you have made. I read all of them carefully which has been very educational. I have to face the facts and reluctantly agree to Nissanka’s comment of 2010 rating is Average. I now wish I received all these comments before the show. I am not correct person to read the, but the next Production Manager. I heard that after each BMR every year a lot of comments were made and documented. Did the corresponding following year team read and follow them? Does anyone know? Are we preparing ourselves to create another document of comments that the next BMR team will seriously not read? We have figure out a way to write our documentation so that the next Prod Man will read it happily.

One thing to remember is BMR has been going down in the past few years to a level of below average. It is unrealistic to expect 2010 BMR to straight away go to from below average to the best BMR in 2006 or so. The team this time stopped the show sliding any further and brought the level up to average. Next production team now can work on it to improve to above average.

After the last AGM it was clear that SCF had a bigger problem. It has alienated itself with membership and most artists. When I called to invite well known artists to attend BMR 2010 almost all of them immediately refused to attend BMR 2010. They did not want to have anything with SCF. I have walked right into a SCF PR disaster. If BMR results in a PR problems, disunity in our community I don’t see the point in doing BMR. Survival of any association depends on public relations.

I have received a lot of comments on BMR 2010 from different sources. People coming to watch BMR have different objectives. Most want to see a very entertaining show. They are entitled to criticise when they see an item which did not provide them entertainment. This is quite acceptable.

If entertainment is the only objective the best way to achieve is the bring Bhathiya and Santhush and Gypsies together to Sydney. But SCF has a lot more objectives.

SCF has many conflicting objectives which makes BMR the 7 way ultimate balancing act.

1.       Build community relationships
2.       Provide an entertaining show
3.       Provide a stage for established local artists and promote them
4.       Develop and build skills of budding artists
5.       Provide opportunities to more artists (than less artists)
6.       Involve our children and the youth. Give them an opportunity develop artistic skills
7.       Be financially viable.

In that order. In my mind most important is 1 least is 7.

Some objectives are related. Involve school children and financial viability are somewhat related. Remove school children completely and we can expect 200 – 300 less people buying tickets to the show. This is a reduction in revenue up to $10000. Can SCF carry a loss of that magnitude?

Unfortunately with BMR, objective 1 and 2 are in direct conflict! What a pity.

What the next BMR team would require is not more comments. It is ok to give comments. But we have been giving comments for the last few years and the next BMR  team will not take any of them seriously simply because of large volume of comments and their conflicting nature. This is what happened in the past. Let’s do something different this time and make it difficult for the next BMR team to ignore us.

I invite you all wise people for a discussion on these objectives (via email at this stage). Are these objectives valid? Is this the correct order?  Should we drop some of the objectives? Did the BMR 2010 achieve the correct balance with these objectives?

The next BMR team needs guidance. So stop comments which we have received in 100s. Start guiding and directing. Email your thoughts on the objectives.

These are my opinion only. Don’t take anything personally. I am usually wrong. (my good wife will confirm this any time)

Regards,

Cicil