MUGSS Management

The position of "X Manager" in an organisation like MUGSS is both enjoyable and challenging. You are working with a group of volunteers, some you will initially barely know, some will be your friends; some will be vastly experienced, some will be starting out.

There is pretty much only one certainty - that you will make a mistake. But, mistakes are not the end of the world, they can be learnt from and the show will go on. MUGSS has not made it through 50+ years without learning some things the hard way. Here are some suggestions from past show management. Some will apply, some won't. It's up to you.

Notes

Prepare as much as you can.

You can't prepare for everything. But a lot of things you can. But by preparing for what you can, you'll be less stressed and better able to deal with the unexpected things too.

Get to know and work with your fellow management people from as early on as possible.

Understand what you need to do, and that others may not be as reliable as you would like them to be.

Students have deadlines, essays, projects that sometimes you won't be told about because it's information that's forgotten to be passed on or it's become more time consuming than expected. When you ask someone to paint the candlestick you've created, they might be more busy fixing the structure of the set. Communicate, be understanding and try to work something out that everyone can agree on.

Go and work in other theatre environments if possible before show week if you've never done this type of thing before!!!

Make sure somebody turns up to set-building/costuming sessions/meetings when they're announced to start, even if it's just to say that the session is going to be starting a little late.

This way, new people who have come along might actually come along again rather than not bothering a second time round.

It's boring as anything but do plan things, especially if they look like they're going to go pear shaped.

Properly planning and organising a 20 minute set-change got it down to 8 minutes

See what you can blag/get cheaper.

If you pay full price, you're not trying hard enough. MUGSS buys things in huge bulk a lot of the time and companies are very much willing to offer discounted rates.

Morale is vital.

Simple things like putting a sign on the arch saying where we've gone to lunch, announcing when we're having crew/training sessions in rehearsals, and making sure everyone feels welcome and useful.

What it boils down to is that 3 people cannot carry a piece of steeldeck up 3 flights of stairs when everyone else has got pi**ed off and left.

Don't be afraid to ask someone else to do a job that they can do better.

They will be flattered, it will probably take them less time, and be much better than if you had tried to do it. The worst they can do is say no.

If you have loads to do, ask other people for help. Don't wait until you're really stressed and shout at them for not helping.

We're not just talking MUGSS here. If there's something come up elsewhere that means you can't do MUGSS stuff, just let someone know before you get too stressed about it and they shout at you for not doing it!!

Some people would rather talk about your work than do their own.

Just because someone is talking about how they could do something better, does not mean that they would do it better. It doesn't even mean that they would do it at all.