Subject: How to get people to credit the right group...

Hi southdevonplayers, sorry you are having a tough time with this. Five incidents of mistaken event-ownership in recent months is a lot. On the positive side, it's good that you are known about - your name clearly means something to people. Do let us know what happens at your emergency meeting, in the meantime, we'll see if we can get some other suggestions for you...

Thank you for your reply and for fowarding this on Twitter Any suggestions gratefully recieved! We have sorted out things with the pub night people now, but since this is a re-occuring issue, it needs tackling at source as well.

Hello again SDP.

Would you mind just clarifying a couple of things for me?

1. You say that you received a bill which should have been sent to another organisation. Are you aware who provided them with your billing information on that occasion? (Please don't post names).

2. Are you saying that performances you have given have been attributed to another group?

3. If you had to describe your 'old dears,' would you place them into any of the following categories: Trustees/Members/Volunteers/Performers/General (audience, local supporters, fans)?

All the best.

1) The contact details for the group are available locally so they had looked us up and simply addresed the bill to us, as some of our members had been present at the event as private people having an evening out. (nothing to do with our theatre group). It took several quite tetchy meetings to finally sort out that four of our members had gone to the event for an evening out and were nothing to do with the running of the event, nor was our group. It was simply assumed we were the ones to bill because four of our members had attended the public event and were the only people to attend.

2) Yes. Several times, despite our providing detailed publicity material with our group name clearly stated with logos and headed paper for letters!

3) They are not connected with our group directly, I refer to the (99.9% elderly) people who organise some other various local events & festivals and are responsible for booking local  groups - entertainers/ re-enactors/ performers/ staff , including our group and several others, to appear on a voluntary basis.

The problem is, they keep mixing up which groups are which, despite verbal explanations, written & photographic publicity with group names on, us using our headed paper in all correspondance, etc. Sometimes we get advertised as appearing and know nothing about it because they actually mean another group doing stuff completely different from us, , and sometimes we are booked and perform, only to find ourselves listed in their publicity as another unrelated group - despite our providing all information verbally and in writing!  We live in a small town and quite a few people are members of more than one community group, and this seems to be what confuses them, although everything is explained verbally and in writing with as much clarity as is possible, but they then ignore all of that.

Hi SDP,

It's quite hard to comment on this without knowing the details of the situation, so these are simply initial and uninformed thoughts, but:

1. That sounds like rather poor business sense on behalf of the people billing you. It's generally advisable to know who you're doing business with before you do it. I would write that one off as their error and put it in the 'forget about' tray. Hopefully they have learned from the experience.

As for two and three, I think I'm starting to get a sense of the problem. A case of GIFS (Good Intentions - Forgot Specs)?

Well, my tuppence worth:

Don't post the above letter on your website. Generally you have under 30 seconds to grab someone's attention on a site, and not much longer to keep it. The moment someone arrives on a page and sees a wall of text, they're likely to tune out.

Whereas it's a huge relief to unload what you're thinking onto paper, it's generally bad PR. The knack is to find the positive action you can take within your assessment of the situation. You can probably boil that down to 'Make sure to check this page regularly. If it isn't listed, we ain't there'. After all, it goes without saying that you know your own 'Dates and Times' page, and that it's the most accurate source to consult.

If you try to take on rectifying every mistake made (of which it sounds as though there are numerous), you'll find it taking over your day at the expense of more important tasks.

Remember: your page is correct, your advertising material is correct, you are the head of the organisation and the information you have is correct. Starting from that position, you have no case to answer; no apologies to make. Nothing to get stressed about.

What I'm about to suggest next might seem a little unorthodox, but it can work where other methods fail.

Do you have a local newsletter or paper? Get in touch and explain what's going on - or issue a press release - in a humorous and entertaining fashion. The power of embarrassment can be immense in effecting behavioural change. It doesn't single anyone out, but it brings quite publicly to light a theatre group brought to its knees by an army of silver surfers with good intentions but terrible memories. The real key is humour. Turn it into a bit of a running joke. Don't make it personal, get people laughing - they are unlikely to forget it.

The other question is - why are people who wish to organise events going to Joe on the street instead of directly to your organisation? My guess is networking. Your dears get asked because they're the ones who are there at the time. It may be a sign that you need to increase your public profile. Get volunteers out there talking to the movers and shakers, handing out business cards, promoting your website to top of the Google rankings. Instead of letting word-of-mouth run away with you, overtake it. Appoint your own 'luvvies' to get in there before the 'dears' and distribute the correct information.

Finally, if you know that there is a big event coming up - get in with the PR people and ask to have a squiz at the promo before it goes out. Perhaps this is happening to other organisations too? If so, perhaps you could band together to ask for this privilege. Add some weight to your request.

Just remember though, if people come to you saying: 'Why didn't you show up?' Simply ask them 'Who said we would?' - 'Well, so-and-so did!'

There's your unfailing answer: 'Why didn't you come to us?'

Asking that question might help to improve your own marketing strategy at the same time.

Good luck with it. And hold onto that line between the things you can control and the ones you can't. Never sweat the ones you can't. There aren't enough hours in the day