Extra meeting to discuss Festival Awards and format.
- The revised awards were discussed.
- trophies would need to be returned in January and 'reassigned'. The donors of trophies to be retired or reassigned would be contacted first.
- the flexibility of the adjudicator's choice trophies was a positive feature
- We need an administrator - no one has applied to date.
- Government requirements are changing frequently
- there would be a need to check vaccine passports if a live festival was held
- there could be difficulty finding a venue that would accept the liability of a live festival
- there are liability issues both with not expecting vaccines, and with expecting vaccines - personally, as a teachers' group, for the student performers and for the audience
- Strong and diverse opinions were shared - we want to be responsible and caring to each other and to our students.
- Comments were made that if we followed government mandates regarding masking and checking vaccine passports, that, rather than suing an organization such as our branch; individuals – and Dina Pollock and Joyce Janzen were named specifically – could and would be sued.
- With this in mind, the only option is to have an online festival this year in the same format as we had last year - video submissions with live Zoom room adjudications
- One advantage of this format is that adjudicators can be local or from across Canada
- Dina will send an email requesting teachers to poll their students to see how many would participate in an online festival (there doesn't seem to be much point in going to all the work of putting on a festival if there would be minimal participation).