SLFilm UnionThis is a featured page


Union Affiliation: A Sierra Leone Film Guild?
The Film Workshop has been involved in preliminary discussions to explore how Sierra Leone professionals working in film (or television) might gain national recognition through union affiliation with Sierra Leone's Labour Congress, and recognition and affiliation with international industry and union bodies. (This has been faciliated by support from BECTU, the professional union in the UK of which Ian Noah had links as he was a member whilst in the UK.)

One idea is to create an 'umbrella' union', which might be called something such as the 'Broadcast and Media Union', and would bring together the power of all those working in TV, Radio, and other allied sectors - including filmmakers.

We recently invited some key members of the industry to contribute their thoughts to thie idea of a union, and as a result, recently hosted the first meeting of a Working Group for a putative Sierra Leone Film Guild. It agreed that given the level of filmmaking in Sierra Leone, it was more important to begin by formally acknowledge the existence of filmmakers. Whilst they may include and collaborate with professionals working in other areas (television, theatre, etc), they are nevertheless a distinct group in their own right with a unique contribution to make to Sierra Leone culture and the economy. Consequently, filmmakers also have their own needs which are perhaps best addressed by a dedicated guild/union in the first instance.

In addition, in order to ensure that all the important needs specific to filmmaking in Sierra Leone, are addressed (or at least represented) there is an argument for the creation of specialist 'clubs/guilds/associations' for cameramen, directors, producers, etc. Nevertheless, the first priority is the craetion of a Guild/Union for film professionals.

To this end, the Workshop, which has been supported in its aims by BECTU in the UK, (the professional union of which Ian Noah was a member whilst in the UK) , has been drafting a Constitution, based, inevitably on the BECTU template. This is can be downloaded from the bottom of this page.

Apparently it needs to be considerable shorter for Sierra Leone (!) Whateve your thoughts, suggestions, etc, please feel free to give us your feedback, and also let us know if you would like to be invited to attend the next Working Group meeting.

Update: 16.10.07
Further to a meeting of the Working Group on the 12th October, a revised draft constitution has now been created and is available for public viewing and feedback, from the link at the bottom of this page.



No user avatar
cottontree 		Latest page update: made by cottontree , Oct 2 2008, 10:49 AM EDT (about this update About This Update cottontree Moved from: Home - cottontree

No content added or deleted.
- complete history)
Keyword tags: None
More Info: links to this page

Threads for this page

There are no threads for this page.  Be the first to start a new thread.

Attachments

Word Document slfilmguild draft constitution.doc (Word Document - 81k)
posted by cottontree   Oct 17 2007, 2:25 PM EDT
SL Film Guild - Draft Constitution2
Word Document slfilmguild rules.doc (Word Document - 358k)
posted by cottontree   Oct 1 2007, 2:08 PM EDT
SL Film Guild - Draft Constitution and Rules