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President's Letter

Letter from the President, September 2016

September 8, 2016

Dear Members and Friends,

I last wrote to you in July about a couple of excitingnd some new challenges.  Since then, we honored a long term member, Marian Morrison, with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the DASH Gala. We celebrated many nominations for our productions of Picasso at the Lapine Agile and The Full Monty.  The Board also met to discuss our financial and space challenges and some possible solutions.  We had a guest join us, Jessica Pelletier, who comes from a strong background in Fundraising and Development.  She educated us about best practices in raising new income. It was an informative, productive discussion.  It also revealed the challenges the Board would face in taking on a fundraising effort, leaving us without clear consensus about how best to proceed.

As you know from the details of my July letter, we’ve beenat the Allston building (where we currently rehearse,  is being renovated and we will need to vacate the space in early January.   The Board immediately took action and amended the aforementioned meeting to include discussion of space options.  The discussion yielded fairly obvious observations: there is no easy way to find a home for all of our belongings, tools, costumes, materials, and props without looking for another, comparable space.  There are challenges, of course, with finding another space: namely, the high cost of lease payments.  You may know that our Allston arrangement allows for an extremely low lease rate (which we share with the Longwood Players).  We will not be able to replicate that low cost.

Nonetheless, we’ve engaged the assistance of long termile it has been a challenge to find an appropriate location, it is even more daunting to think about raising funds to afford the space.   We currently have $15.7K in our bank account and estimated costs to mount our upcoming show Shrek could be “north” of $32K.  Taking into consideration the historical pattern of ticket sales for both our planned shows, after all of our CURRENT annual costs (and please remember that we’re facing a space crisis, likely to increase our costs) we could see a trended loss of approximately $3.5K.  So… with our already challenging fiscal status, those kinds of lease rates are daunting.

In my first letter to you in June, I committed to stronger fiscal management controls.  We’re beginning that process, working to establish a balanced budget and even more stringent efforts to control costs.  However, we face an uphill battle in that initiative as some of our most critical cost-drivers like space—which currently represent some of our lowest costs—are likely to represent some of our highest costs in the future.

Frankly, I’m concerned about the future viability of the Players.  We can’t incur these kinds of increased costs without increased operating income and we can’t sustain these kinds of losses without depleting our already meager bank balance.  We must do something differently… and the Board cannot solve this problem without help from members and friends.

Now IS the time that the Players could use all additional help you can provide—the time is now, more than any time in my recent past with the group.  Without increased income, decreased expenses, and creative space solutions our ability to produce shows and attract an audience faces great obstacles.  Your help can show up in the manner of ideas, financial resources, support of fundraising efforts, donations… the lending of space!

All of the above are welcome.  I hope you’ll consider increasing your support of the Players.  As always, we’re available to answer your questions and collaborate around your ideas and offers of support.  Please feel free to reach out to us through the website at

https://wellesleyplayers.club/membership/make-a-donation or via eMail at WPBoardofDirectors@gmail.com

Sincerely,

Ken