Blog #8: Audits and new adventures

Blog #8: Audits and new adventures Overview of week’s activities: 1) audit compliance requirements 2) avenues for exploration open up This week has been reserved for catching up on all those tasks that were postponed to concentrate on the reading and signing off on the grant requirements. There’s been a disproportionate amount of time, energy, and money put into securing the grant against the quite small amount we received for the project (all of which went to the director). So the question has to be: was it worth it? That is, was all the personal time, effort and money pout into securing the grant worth the employment of a professional director? Did my playwriting benefit enough for all that effort and expense? I am very tempted to say “No” and a resounding “No” at that. If anything I would say it has damaged the process, because the actors became jittery and insecure about the project once they heard what the director said about it. They then stampeded for the door and disappeared into a cloud of anxiety like a herd of Thompson gazelles with the scent of lion in their nostrils. Having said that, the process did make a few things clearer for me (see previous blog) and I suspect, the benefits of both the grant process and the secondment of a professional director might become more apparent in the future. Nonetheless, the small amount of grant money received is disproportionate to the energies that have been expended dealing with the accountability mechanisms of pre- and post grant reception. Not only are the requirements onerous and exacting, they have almost no relevancy of what was needed and what actually happened, particularly in financial terms. Most of the budget boxes were filled in with stuff that had to be made up in order to fit pre-conceived (ill-conceived) criteria, which are purely for auditing (aka, accountability) purposes. For example, both pre- and post-grant forms ask for an “account for all costs of the project”. This includes in-kind and actual costs. You have to estimate costs in the first instance, then quantify exactly your costs in the second. Which is difficult with actors who may or may not even turn up and with project leaders (moi) who don’t remember to write down every attendance, every outlay and/or keep every receipt. New Avenues to Explore. Finally, the week has been replete with email traffic between myself and a couple of Little Theatre groups. From which I seemed to have procured 2-3 evenings of readings. There is also some talk about production, but as usual, nothing definite has come of it. Just remember folks, it is important to maintain the impetus when these things crop up. Without that drive things can dissipate just as easily as they appeared. End Blog #8