Annual Meeting

Annual Meeting 2025 Notes and Summation

The Sudbury Savoyards’ Annual Meeting was held at Liberty Lodge in Camp Sewataro at noon on Sunday, June 1. Aside from some occasional gusts of wind, the day was bright and sunny. It was perfect for celebrating the successes of the past year, reconnecting with friends, sampling a variety of potluck foods, and enjoying activities in preparation for The Gondoliers 2026.

The themes for the event were Italy and boats with a red, white, and green color scheme. The two winners of The Gondoliers trivia and scavenger hunt activities, each took home their own Italian flags. Individuals also enjoyed a variety of coloring pages, responding to themed questions, and selecting from an assortment of Italy stickers.

Treasurer, Briana Bensenouci, reported that we are in good shape going into the next fiscal year (FY25 ends on June 30). We will end the year in the black with $12K rather than $10K in the red. She mentioned that our status as a nonprofit does not mean we should not turn a profit each year. Annually, The Sudbury Savoyards continue to have expenses for things such as rental of our storage/workspace and insurance. Donations throughout the year are critical because costs are increasing overall, and we should have a nest egg in case we are unable to put on a production.

Graham Daley, Chair, spoke enthusiastically of our 2025 production of Ruddigore including our record-breaking ticket sales of 1330 due in large part to the amazing efforts of our Publicity Strategist, Sara DeLong, and our new ticket restructuring plan which included a True Cost option. (The True Cost option exceeded our projection of 2% with a whopping 18.2% of total sales). We had a total of 132 individuals who participated, and there was a strong feeling of camaraderie. 

A lot happened behind the scenes this year including renegotiation with Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School to continue our rental discount. (This year we paid $17K in rent rather than the standard nonprofit rate of $31K.) Briana Bensenouci presented her recommendations after conducting a Committee Audit. This resulted in restructuring the 6 committees, creating formal charters, establishing active chairs, and writing annual goals. Our Committees include:

• Fundraising (Chair: Graham Daley) which exceeded their goal of $21K thanks to the amazing response from individuals in our community.
• Audit & Finance (Chair: Briana Bensenouci, as Treasurer) which created an annual budget for The Sudbury Savoyards, suggested a fundraising goal, and monitored our finances.
• Governance (Chair: Laurel Martin) which created new Committee Charters for approval by the Board of Trustees and is working on both updating our existing policies and creating new ones as needed.
• Communications & Community (Chair: Sara DeLong) which sent monthly Sandwich Board newsletters and kept our website & social media accounts updated.
• Programs (Chair: Karen Powers) which interviewed directors, made recommendations to the Board of Trustees for a vote, and suggested our next production for a vote.
• Information Management (Chair: Matt Garber) which ran the online election, managed our lists and Google Drive, and handled the membership applications.

The membership elected three new Trustees: Dianne DeChellis, Jennifer Dohm, and Jeremy White. We thanked our outgoing Trustees for their service: Andrew Conway, Randy Glidden, and Matt Tragert.

See you all in spring 2026 at our next Annual Meeting!