56th JCRC, King Edward VII Hall

Annual General Meeting Report

56th JCRC, King Edward VII Hall

Annual General Meeting Report

Annual Report from Chinese Drama 2012/2013

General Comments For Chinese Drama, AY 12/13 was filled with breakthroughs, challenges and excitement. Before the academic year starts, the Steering Committee revised our vision and mission to make sure that we have a clear goal at the very beginning. Based on the new vision and mission, 2 new initiatives came into place: Weekly Drama Screening (7 sessions) and Acting Workshop (8 sessions). We also introduced the idea of having members taking up double position in Chinese Drama to make better use of our manpower and talents. The Weekly Drama Screening is an event that opens to the whole hall. Our purpose is to provide an opportunity for the whole KE community, especially Chinese Drama members, to watch and discuss some of the most famous theatre productions in the Chinese theatre arts. It not only serves as a bonding time for our members and other hall residents, but also helps them to better appreciate theatre arts. The most exciting thing one can do in Chinese Drama is to be an actor/actress. However, very few people can have the chance to perform on UCC stage for our final production. To bring the wonderful acting experience to more members, we initiated the Acting Workshop that all interested members can participate in. On the one hand, more members can gain the experience of acting. On the other hand, our Director had more chances to observe potential actors/actresses and train them before making the final cast selection. It worked very well this year and we had wonderful actors and actresses for our final performance. The recruitment process was very exciting. We had over a hundred residents signing up as well as a few external talents. After the recruitment, we had a one-day orientation to encourage team bonding as well as introducing our community and culture to the new members. From ice-breaker to station games and short play presentation, our members not only got to know each other, but also had a first taste of what drama is like. After the orientation, we divided all new members into 2 ICN groups and had 4 volunteered ICs. Each lead by 2 ICs, our new members produced 2 short plays for ICN under the supervision and help of our senior members. This helped us to identify leadership quality in new members and allowed the new members to try out production positions like sound, lighting before they where streamed into different production departments. For our biggest event, the annual production in February in UCC, we chose to try a completely new type of drama ---- comedy. After script discussion and several sessions of stage design, our Director and Designer came up with a very creative stage design (100% original) in which we need to build 2 layers of platforms in order to differentiate the social classes presented in the play. In addition, the production difficulty of the play was never seen in the history of KEVII Chinese Drama. Due to the requirements from the script, we had to handle special effects like pizza falling down from the ceiling or actor pretends to hang himself. We did a lot of experiments on the special effects, and the final outcome was amazing and won numerous praises from our audiences. Our actors/actresses trained very hard starting from the first semester, and we had 6 rehearsals before entering UCC. All the hard work paid off when we finally delivered a great show for our audiences! We also had several breakthroughs for our public relations. First, we reached out to NUS Chinese Drama for the first time in history and 3 of our core members participated in their forum theatre conducted by professional theatre practitioner Li Xie. That experience gave our creative team a lot of inspiration and new knowledge. We are also very proud that our final production was featured in Lian He Zao Bao as well as NUS ArtZone, which brought our presence to a larger audience. In addition, thanks to Hall Master and our Public Relations members, the VIP list this year was highly 2

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Annual General Meeting Report influential: including Mr. Nick Shen, a celebrated Singapore actor; Ms. Zhou Jianpin from the Chinese Embassy; Ms. Lim Hai Yen, an ex-Keviian and professional theatre practitioner; and Dr. Zhou Zhao Cheng, Lian He Zao Bao Chief Editor. We received very high comments from our VIPs after the show and we were very excited about that. Major Events for the Year
Major Events Weekly Drama Screening Orientation Acting Workshop Part I ICN Acting Workshop Part II Members' Photo Shoot Rehearsals Campus Publicity (poster pasting, banner hanging) Final Production Date(s) Week 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12 (Sat/Sun), Sem 1 9 Sep Week 6, 7, 8, 9 (Sat/Sun), Sem 1 1 Nov Week 10, 11, 12, 13 (Sat/Sun), Sem 1 27 Oct 18 , 19 , 26 , 30 Jan; 2 , 7 , 13 Feb Week 3, Semester 2 18 , 19 Feb (Bump In); th st 20 , 21 Feb (Performance Dates)
th th th th th th nd th th th st th

Problems Encountered Though we spent a lot of effort in our productions, we did not do a fantastic job on following up on our online publicity. As a result, some of our potential audience forgot about the event and did not show up. Consequently, we did not achieve full house for our first night of performance. We learnt a lesson on the importance of continuous publicity from the hard way. We hope that our successors will do a better job in publicizing our event so that more people can have the opportunity of enjoying our show. We also encountered a major problem on set building during the production process. As it was the first time we build large-scale platforms by ourselves, there are some imperfections in our quality control of the sets. During bump in, those imperfections were brought up by the safety officer from UCC, and we had to do some rework to make sure our sets were up to safety standards. This severely interrupted our bump in schedule and raised some degree of panic in our production team. Recommendations for the Future As we worked towards our mission of deepening members understanding of theatrical arts and cultivating their long-term passion through practice, new initiatives like Weekly Screening and Acting Workshop were brought up to provide our members with more exposure and hands on experience to theatrical arts. However, we sometimes feel that our ability falls short of our wishes, as we did not have any professional training on performance arts. Hence we would like to suggest that in the future, we could collaborate with Hall Play and organize Master Classes conducted by professional

56th JCRC, King Edward VII Hall

Annual General Meeting Report theatre practitioners. We believe that such activity will bring our acting skills to a new level as well as give our members a more enriching experience in exploring the theatre arts. Acknowledgements We would like to express our deepest appreciation to our Hall Master, the SCRC, 56th JCRC, Hall Office staff for their generous support throughout the academic year. We would also like to sincerely thank other hall CCAs for their cooperation and help, especially KE Vision for supporting our photo shoot for booklet and poster design. And last but not least, a big thank you to all our devoted members. Without anyone of you, the achievements of Chinese Drama would not have been possible. Thank you!

Prepared by, Ms. Liu Yang Chinese Drama Vice Head 12/13

56th JCRC, King Edward VII Hall

Annual General Meeting Report

Annual Report from Hall Play 2012/2013

On the 11th and 12th of January 2013, King Edward VII Halls very own Hall Play performed Peter Gordons Murdered to Death. With a team of talented cast and dedicated members who toiled throughout the semester, it was an extremely rewarding sight to see the seats at the NUS University Cultural Centre filled to the brim on both performance nights. But apart from putting up a fantastic play which received raving reviews from audiences across all ages, Hall Play 12/13 focused on continuing our long tradition of giving back to the society. Working hand-in-hand with Filos Community Services, Hall Play members went down to communities in Whampoa and Bedok South on the 14th of December 2012 and distributed blessing bags to the needy residents in the neighbourhood. But Hall Plays forte, ultimately, is in putting up plays. As such, we reserved 10 seats for some of the children and youths-at-risk whom Filos Community Services reach out to for them to have a night of laughter and fun and hopefully leave a positive impression on them as well. Hall Play 12/13 boasted a strength of 98 members across 11 departments1 with many members involved in multiple departments. Table 1 below summarizes some of the key features of the play we staged. Cast Size Approximate Runtime Copyright Agent License cost 10 (5 Male and 5 Female students) 2 hours, divided into 3 Acts Josef Weinberger Limited $200 (in total over 2 performances) Table 1: Murdered to Death, play details

Murdered to Death is Peter Gordons ingenious parody of Agatha Christie's renowned crime genre. What starts out as a luxurious house party soon turns into a night of horror as a sweet old lady is murdered in cold blood. This comedy proved to be light-hearted and yet filled with suspense, keeping the audience glued to the edge of their seats (if they havent already fallen off from all the laughter). As Hall Master Prof. Ho always reiterates at our Hall Play suppers, Hall Play is a great place for KEVIIans to discover a part of ourselves we never knew existed. The following section will give a brief overview of what the various departments accomplished as well as some of the problems faced together with recommended solutions. Steering Committee Hall Play 12/13 started out rather shaky as we incurred a huge debt2 the previous year and our Steering Committee still had many roles to be filled. Determined to bring Hall Play to greater heights, the Steering Committee (SC) decided to first focus on building strong ties within members in the CCA. For that to happen, the SC knew that we had to be the change we wanted to see. Instead of only meeting up for work-related matters, the SC met up on a casual basis for outings that allowed for the committee to bond and function more effectively as a team. With a clear vision and concrete
1

Our 11 departments comprised the Steering committee, Cast, Costumes, Charity-Social-LogisticsWelfare (CSLW), Set Building, Set Dcor, Tech, Marketing, Publicity, Ticketing and Stage 2 This was particularly due to the high licensing cost of the script 5

56th JCRC, King Edward VII Hall

Annual General Meeting Report goals set from our very first SC meeting, we managed to piece the different aspects required to stage a play together. Cast Hall Play 12/13s cast comprised 10 brilliant and extremely hardworking young budding actors and actresses and was led by the very talented director, Augustine. The biggest difference seen from previous years is that there was no divide between the cast and the rest of the Hall Play team. This is attributed to a plethora of factors of which may be summarized as follows: 1) Influence of seniors within the cast Seniors such as the Director, Augustine, and the Publicity head, Annie, actively encouraged the cast to not cluster together during rehearsals and to help out with the work of other departments if possible. This fostered much more interaction between members across different departments and friendships were forged during the process. 2) Greater integration between Hall Play members On top of greater inter-department bonding, a 10-man cast also ensured a sizeable pool of potential ticket buyers, as it is much easier for a cast member to persuade a friend or family members to come down and watch the play. But our cast members all exceeded the minimum quota of 20 ticket sales, with our lead actor reserving up to 50 tickets for his friends and family and ticket orders coming in even one week before the performance. However, a bigger cast naturally means more work coordinating rehearsals for everyone as well as more work for the director to brush on each actor and actresss acting skills. As much as this was not a paramount problem for Hall Play 12/13, we acknowledge the constraints and strive towards a greater balance between cast size and administrative workload. Costumes The costume team, led by Man Ting, was relentless in finding suitable costumes for the to match the setting of the play and to better bring out the personality of each character. Working closely with the director and assistant director, the costume team brainstormed, selected and refined the costume choices for each member of the cast. The team also actively engaged other KEVIIans who were not in Hall Play to help out with make-up for the cast on the actual day as the team did not have enough man power. CSLW CSLW this year, headed by Aloysius, comprised a small, yet highly efficient team. The 2 Hall Play suppers were planned impeccably well with sufficient food to feed the entire Hall Play team and food delivery during rehearsals and the actual performances were always on time and tasty. On top of that, the team met up regularly with their counterparts from Filos Community Services to better understand their needs and to discuss the areas in which a group of 100 undergraduates could offer their services to help the community. Much work was put into the organization of the Hall Play 12/13 CIP on 14th December 2012 to ensure that we would render help in the most efficient and best possible way. 6

56th JCRC, King Edward VII Hall

Annual General Meeting Report Set Building, Set Dcor, Stage Intrinsically linked, Set Building, Set Dcor and Stage came together at the start of the work year and agreed on a common time line. The heads of Set Building, Set Dcor and Stage, Meng Hwee, Fang Ting and Xiao Yu respectively, worked very closely together and helped each other out extensively. We have them to thank for the beautiful and structurally sound sets and interior decorations for the play. This year, Set Building avoided the mistake of waiting for wood sponsorship and made it top of their priority to buy good quality wood and start work on building the panels as early as possible. This gave Set Dcor more time to work on painting and decorating these panels, thus giving them more space and time for other creative decorative ideas such as a flame in the fireplace made out of crepe paper and a mini fan as well as a stags head sculpted out of cardboard. Stage could then come in and mark out specific spots for the actors and actresses to stand in the spotlight and finalize their stage arrangements better. Despite our early performance dates compared to previous years, Set Building, Set Dcor and Stage managed to provide a beautiful set without which the play would not be complete. Tech Lights and Sounds The Tech team, led by Maximillian and Hall Play Tech Advisor Tharsan, was extremely effective in liaising with the UCC technicians, making the final touch-ups during bump in smooth and fast, allowing enough time for the cast to have a final full dress rehearsal the evening before the actual performance. Using different filters and varying degrees of warmth of the stage and spotlights, the Tech team brought out the true intensity of the scene. Marketing Hall Play 12/13 also saw greater change as we collaborated our marketing efforts with XQRJ and Chinese Drama, marketing ourselves as KEVIIs combined productions team under the leadership of our Productions Secretary, Xiao Yu. Hall Plays Marketing head, Jeremy liaised closely with his counterparts from XQRJ and Chinese Drama and sourced for sponsorship for wood, paint and everything else under the sun. There is much room for improvement when it comes to marketing and sourcing for sponsorship as companies are less willing to sponsor one particular CCA as they are unsure of the amount of reach we can generate. Hence, it would be wise to continue discussions for collaborations with the other production in KEVII as well as the Halls very own marketing committee. Publicity and Ticketing Last but not least, the two most crucial departments when it comes to ensuring a full house turn out on both performance nights, Publicity and Ticketing. Hall Play 12/13s Publicity team, under the leadership of Annie, brought Hall Play Publicity to new and greater heights with a greater emphasis placed on advertising on new media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Instead of sticking to conventional ways of advertising by using posters and banners, the Publicity team took it one step further and created KE Assassins a brand-new game created from scratch to be played within the hall during dinner time where participants have to guard their lives while stealing the lives of other 7

56th JCRC, King Edward VII Hall

Annual General Meeting Report participants to collect a bounty. This game was to be played 2 months prior to the release of ticket sales and was targeted at increasing ticket sales from KEVIIans. Unfortunately, as the performance dates were in January, there was little time to iron out all the details and to implement the game. Future Publicity departments should aim to brainstorm for bold and innovative ideas and seek to implement them as early as possible to achieve the greatest impact. Boosting ticket sales from our own halls residents have always been a tough hurdle to overcome perhaps due to the multitude of productions and performances various CCAs from hall put up hence spreading the demand for performances more thinly. Instead of relying on JCRC incentives to encourage KEVIIans to purchase tickets, productions should look to increasing the hype and appeal around their individual shows thereby appealing to more hall residents. Ticketing this year, led by Melissa, was faced with a problem productions seldom encounter more demand than supply. The ticketing team had to actively go around and collect unsold tickets from members who could not hit their quota of 10 tickets each in order to pass it to other members who needed more. While it is a good thing for some members to sell many tickets, the fact that some members are unable to sell 10 tickets to their friends and family is rather reflective of the sense of belonging and ownership they have about the performance. Future Hall Play Steering Committees should continue looking into instilling a greater sense of belonging and ownership by encouraging greater bonding within the CCA and validating the efforts of individual members to the final big picture cumulating in the actual performance. A good Key Performance Indicator would actually be having no members returning unsold tickets and that is an aim we are gradually working towards.

Acknowledgements We would like to thank our Hall Master, the SCRC, KEVIIs non-residential fellows, Filos Community Services, the 56th JCRC, Office Staff, Hall Play members and all KEVIIans and members of the audience for their support and contribution to Hall Play.

Prepared by, Mr. Isaac Chay Hall Play Producer 12/13

56th JCRC, King Edward VII Hall

Annual General Meeting Report

Annual Report from Xin Qing Rong Ji (XQRJ) 2012/2013

General Comments
Xin Qing Rong Ji (XQRJ) AY12/13, namely the 15th XQRJ Regional Chinese Song Writing Competition Organising Committee, has achieved a notable success and exerted a more significant impact on the region. Being the largest scale production in King Edward VII Hall with strong influence in Singapore and Malaysia, XQRJ continued to amaze the audience with a gorgeous Grand Final held in University Cultural Centre Hall on 17th February, 2013.

Financial Status
Thanks to our diligent and efficient Marketing Team, 15th XQRJ has managed to secure $10,980 cash sponsorship from external parties. This includes $4,000 from Chinese Language & Culture Fund, $3,000 from Composers and Authors Society of Singapore (COMPASS), $1,000 from Promote Mandarin Council, $1,000 from Lee Foundation and $1,980 from other companies. Adding the income from ticket sales, donation from Hall Master and support from Hall, XQRJ has achieved an income of over $23,000. With this strong input from Marketing Team and great expenditure cut from other activities, XQRJ managed to have surplus in the financial statement despite its deficits in the past two years.

New Initiatives and Achievements

XQRJ collaborated with Bright Vision Hospital, the largest community hospital in Singapore, in organising the annual charity event, Music without Boundary on 9th January, 2013. During this event, the top 10 finalists of XQRJ put on a professional performance and spent a great afternoon with more than 30 patients in the hospital. The manager from the hospital gave us favourable feedbacks and would like to have a long-term collaboration with XQRJ. The grand scale and professionalism of XQRJ has attracted the attention of NUS Office of Corporate Relations. With their help and details provided, a news article was published on Lianhe Zaobao to report the Music without Boundary event and Grand Final on 27th March. With more than 4 years partnership with Cristofori and Audio-Technica, 15th XQRJ has extended collaboration with them. A new concept of Live House Concert was brought up by Cristofori, our Official Musical Instrument sponsor. The first Road Show Live House Concert was held on 12th January and attracted over 100 passers-by in Funan DigitaLife Mall. AudioTechnica has also increased their sponsorship to $1,692 of prizes and free rental of professional microphones in Grand Final. The 5th collaboration with YES 933 FM, the most popular radio station in Singapore, started with a brand new series of interviews. An exclusive session was arranged for the finalists to talk about their music dreams and promote XQRJ itself. With the mission of reducing workload of juniors, 15th XQRJ reformed the structure and increased the seniors staying back to 5 leading the committee of 32 people divided into 4 departments (Programme, Design, Marketing and Production) Together with the 15th Anniversary of XQRJ, a grand reunion was organised during the Grand Final of the competition. The reunion was highly praised by the seniors of XQRJ and it even attracted those from the 3rd and 5th batch.

Key Statistics
The total weekly reach of our Official Facebook Page peaked at 21,102. It means 3 out of 10 youths in Singapore has seen the posts from XQRJ. The number of Likes on our increased 46% from 1250 to 1827 during the Grand Final publicity phase. 15th XQRJ received 112 original entries from 73 participants in Singapore and Malaysia. The songs are of better quality as compared to last year. 9

56th JCRC, King Edward VII Hall

Annual General Meeting Report 541 of 787 Grand Final tickets were sold with a 2% growth from last year.

Major Event List

Events Mass Poster Pasting and Competition Officially Starts Publicity Booth at KE Bazaar Publicity Booth at Ark Music Cafe XQ Solution (major bonding session) th 15 XQRJ Preliminary Round Members Photo Shoot (major bonding session) Overseas Trip (major bonding session) Recording and Photo Shoot for Top 10 Finalists Music Workshop for Top Finalists by Ocean Butterflies Music Music without Boundary Charity Event at Bright Vision Hospital Live House Concert at Cristofori, Funan DigitaLife Mall Grand Final at University Cultural Centre Hall, NUS Date (Aug 2012 Feb 2013) 12 October nd th 22 24 October th 27 October th 19 December th 28 December th 30 December nd th 2 January 4 January th th 7 9 January th 7 January th 9 January th 12 January th 17 February
th

Challenges Faced and Recommendations

Misconception and Low Awareness from Hall XQRJ has represented and branded KEVII Hall in both Singapore and Malaysia to a great extent and serves as a breeding ground for future student leaders. However, due to the nature of the event, involvement in the internal Hall activities is low. As such, many hall residents misinterpret it as a competition for external participants and have a low awareness of the events going on. A suggestion will be to involve and increase awareness of this competition in hall by organising more publicity events in hall, and also to collaborate with more relevant CCAs. Lack of Sustainable Ways of Selling Tickets The problem has slowly emerged that XQRJ does not have a sustainable way of selling Grand Final tickets. The recommendation would be to seek advice from Hall Master as early as possible. In terms of event publicity, XQRJ needs to adapt to the current trend and be more innovative. Lack of a Sustainable Financial Income Although XQRJ has a surplus this year, special attentions should be paid to the part of income classifying as non-recurring income. Members of the following batches should continue to work hard in sourcing for cash sponsors and have a wider collaboration with existing sponsors.

Acknowledgements
On behalf of 15th XQRJ Organising Committee, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Hall Master, the SCRC, General Office Staff and 56th JCRC for their practical guidance, considerable encouragement and useful critiques of XQRJ. We would also like to thank all the KEVIIans for their continuous support for XQRJ. Finally, I would like to thank all the 15th XQRJ members for making this batch one of the most successful XQRJ Competitions.

Prepared by, Mr Jin Yuhang Chairperson of 15th XQRJ Organising Committee

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