Meeting with Kate James and Sarita Saggar (Marketing)

Hello all, here are some notes from a meeting that was held with Wimbledon's External Relations Officers on Friday 2nd November. Pippa

Office and telephone use:
External Relations have a free desk space and telephone in their office most afternoons. MA Show committee members can use this desk for making MA Show related telephone calls etc. The Office is behind the main reception desk.

Design:
Last year a designer was commissioned to design invitations that were used for the BA and MA shows. The University want to continue to have a link between the Foundation - BA - MA in all future publicity so as to develop a consistent and recognisable brand. A brief has just gone out to several designers to develop a two-year design for Wimbledon. This will be ready for the MA show invitations but possibly not for the interim show. External Relations are happy for us to develop our own design ideas for our website and for the interim show and also to compliment the official college invite for the MA Show. It will be possible for members of the MA Marketing and Design Committees to meet with the designer to discuss what we want from them. It may also be possible to sit in on the selection of the designer (this will happen in January when all the design bids are in).

During the show:
External Relations have looked at the idea of commissioning a professional map/floorplan of each show.
They usually recruit BA students to invigilate/signpost etc during the opening night.
They have spoken to the council about having footprints along the road from the station to the college as a way of signposting the exhibition. This was not received positively as there were concerns about local residents feelings.

Money:
Marketing is unable to fund our catalogue but they may be able to help in other ways e.g. postage of catalogue, proofreading etc.
If we have a really great PR proposal we can pitch it to Kate James (External Relations Manager) and if she is convinced by it she will endeavor to pitch it to UAL management and get more money for us.

Other exhibitions:
External Relations have been developing contacts with Wimbledon Coucil regarding disused buildings in Wimbledon that students could use for alternative exhibitions and theatre projects. Kate James has given Doug and Geraint information about this.

Marketing:
Cross-course promotion: there is a monthly e-briefing that the University sends out that we can include information on.
David Whittaker (head of Alumni at UAL) organises monthly Dover Street Talks for Arts London and if the MA contact him we may be able to give a talk one evening to Alumni of UAL etc about our work and the course.
We can include information on the event page of the Wimbledon and UAL websites.
Arts London - Student Newspaper. The journalists responsible for writing about stuff at Wimbledon are LCC students Brett Siegel and Eugena...
Mailing List: The mailing list can be used for the MA Show (Marketing will post things out) but not for the interim show (Kate James is happy for us to present a case for us using it to her) as this event has never been considered important enough to invite Wimbledon VIPs and Alumni to.
We can talk to the Head of Alumni about using the UAL Alumni mailing list too.

Opening Night:
Caretaker's fees are £36 per hour and so if we wanted to have the Opening later than 8.30pm we would need to source this money.
External Relations staff man the reception during the opening.

Sponsorship:
Several Banks have a certain amount of money put aside for student projects. ING are a big sponsor of student events.
Offer sponsors the opportunity of paying to hold a corporate event during the show.
Have a VIP event to raise money.