Dennis (Michael Palin) might not have agreed with King Arthur (Graham Chapman) about the structure of society, but many chamber groups who are just getting started would be lucky to have the clear structure of a monarchy confirmed by Excalibur for managing their operations and direction. Our blog this month talks about how Gaudete has managed to survive as equal partners.
The initial stages of forming a chamber group with equal partners are turbulent, and most groups unfortunately don’t survive long enough to need to establish a written document of policies and practices. For groups that work very sporadically, groups with an interchangeable membership, or groups with a single owner or director, having a set of operational guidelines might be optional. For groups who want to be equal partners, who rehearse regularly, and require long term commitments of time and energy from members, a set of clear guidelines are essential.
Gaudete has been fortunate to have been guided by a formal operations document for over a decade. This document was born out of the many times in those first years we had to say “I’ve made a huge mistake.” It happened so often we started calling it the “Gaudete Way.” We wrote our operational document to address those issues and issues we could extrapolate from those mistakes.
Once a group has decided that it would like to build a chamber group of equal partners and the members have established a track record of functioning together with regular rehearsal and increasingly excellent performances, the group should sit down together when things are going well and everyone is happy to create an such an operations document.
Our document addresses our mission statement, performance requirements, non-musical requirements, leave of absence guidelines (including medical, personal and professional), and guidelines for member changes, both voluntary and involuntary. In every case, the guidelines were written to protect the quintet. For example, in our documents, a professional leave of absence has a limited non-renewable time limit since a brass quintet with only 4 full time members is significantly weakened. Also, the quintet retains all intellectual property rights during a member change - ensuring the ability of the remaining members to continue to function after a departure.
While a document cannot cover every eventuality, the key is that there are guidelines in place to help the group - guidelines that everyone agreed to follow before a problem might come up. For an unforeseen situation, an operations document can provide direction for the group when faced with making a difficult decision.