It’s been my job to do the live streams for the Union Working meetings for quite a while now. It’s an easy job to do and I know that a lot of people are grateful that I am able to do it. Many people either cannot make our meetings or they don’t live in LA, so having the videos posted allows so many more people to learn from what happens. Sometimes there are a few things we can’t have public, but I try to live stream as much of the meeting as I can.
But for the meeting that we had this past week, I got to run 2 different live streams. We had a guest at our meeting this time, which was a nice treat. Our guest was Chaim Magnum, who is an agent/owner of the LemonLime Agency. He was there to discuss his experience with submitting actors for commercial breakdowns and what he sees with union versus non-union work. And he wanted to have a live stream of the meeting for his Instagram, so I helped him with that. I had my iPad on a tripod running our usual live stream and his iPad being propped up with water bottles running his Instagram live. Fortunately, there weren’t many issues with running both, but it did make things a bit interesting for me.
Chaim first talked about his experiences as an agent, and then we had a Q&A where anyone could ask him questions. There were a lot of good questions about understanding how he sees the current state of the industry. There were questions about some of the new contracts we have and commissions that agents can take. And for some of the questions, we also had some staff from the union at the meeting to help answer things. It really was a great informational session and I’m so glad that I was there for it and could record it so others can watch.
Besides having our guest, we had some of the usual discussions that we have at our meetings. We discussed some current issues regarding unions and some of the battles that they are fighting. There are a few new tax policies that people were concerned about would affect them but our union was able to make sure that we would be protected. And we wanted to discuss some upcoming things and deadlines our union has.
Then we had a new thing that will hopefully be happening at the next several meetings. Being on a committee in our union is something that many people are confused about. They don’t know how to get on a committee or how to be involved even if they aren’t an official committee member. So the hope is that for the next several meetings, there will be a representative from a few different local committees so they could explain what their committee does and what opportunities there are to be involved now that the committee members have been selected. There were 3 committees at this past meeting and I think the plan is to cover 3 committees each time.
I love this idea and I wish this had been around years ago! I am getting more involved in committees now, but for a long time, I had no idea what I could do if I wasn’t a committee member or how I could try to become one. Now, I understand it significantly better, but there are still committees that I’m not completely sure what they do or if they have public events that everyone can attend. I’m excited to learn more about our local committees so when I have a chance to request to be on one the next time that I can be better about which ones I select. When you request to be on a committee, there is also space for you to write why you want to be on it. And by understanding the committees more, I can write a better pitch for why I should be selected. Having these little explanations of the committees is only going to benefit all members, whether or not they want to be a party of committee service.
After going over the committee information, there were a few more small updates about Union Working such as when our next meeting will be and some of the things we have for sale that help off-set the cost of renting the rooms that we have our meetings it. Even though we had a lot of information being covered in the meeting, we somehow ended exactly on time!
But before anyone could leave, we did want to take a big group photo of everyone at the meeting. We had a really good turnout and there were several people there that I haven’t seen before. I love that we have new people coming to our meetings and I hope they come back and bring some friends with them next time!
I didn’t stay too late after the meeting because I had an early morning the next day, but I did make sure I said hi to all of my friends who were there before I had to say goodbye and head home.
Overall, this was another successful Union Working meeting and I am so glad that I was able to be there. Not just because I got a lot of good information out of the meeting, but because I was able to help out with my live stream and doing a second live stream. The more people who can see what we are discussing, the better!
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