It's been AGES!

Sorry for the lack of updates guys!

We just had another meeting of the Exco recently, and there have been a few interesting developments.

First off, the website. Unfortunately, we begin with apologies because our developer (and member of the guild), Tiki, has been hospitalised for the past two weeks. As such, we won't be able to meet the promised deadline of 1st January 2009.

However, before he was admitted, the update was that things are going swimmingly well. The server's been migrated, DNS references changed, and most of the interface has already been designed.After Tiki gets back on his feet, we should be looking at a quick 2 weeks before the final draft is out, a brief bug-testing stage, and an end-jan launch.

Secondly, the date is drawing near for the new rates! Yay! Don't forget that any jobs taken on 1st January 2009 should be done with reference to the new rates (which are RM15 a second for commercials).

We've been hearing on the grapevine that many of you have already had offers of job batches for the old rates (i.e. "We promise you 18 jobs next year if you stick to the old rates"). While the guild does encourage its members to offer packages when appropriate, we believe that these packages should be negotiated based on the NEW RATES, not the old ones. i.e. instead of giving them the old rate, simply discount off the new-rate.

Thirdly, updates on errant studios... Incognito is now officially on COD. This means that you should insist on immediate payment for any jobs, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER IT'S PAYMENT FROM THE CLIENT, OR STUDIO. Same arrangement with Nada. Please take note. Also, as requested, please send in all your statements from Incognito so we can tally the amount outstanding to the guild.

Also, we are speaking to a few other studios, including FlyFM, StellarSound and AMP about backdated payments, and will inform you in the coming months how this will pan out.

In times of uncertainty like this, there's only one thing we can say for sure.

It's going to be an interesting year for the Guild.

The 8th Annual Voice Guild AGM and the website revamp!

This year, the buzz about new rates for Voice Overs really brought the members in to the nice venue at the WIM building in TTDI. All in all, we had 46 attendees, which is something of a record for us. I guess people really wanted a say as to how they wanted to charge as an industry.

Discussions were unexpectedly animated, and as a result, we received some amazing feedback to our originally proposed rates, which we'll be posting up once I get the full confirmed list.

We also received a list of studios that talents should watch out for, listed below. This list is basically comprised of studios that have been known to treat talents oddly, or delay payments excessively. Once again, I will publish this list once it's up and confirmed at our next Exco meeting.

On top of this, we also discussed the current state of our website. Needless to say, we would like to revamp it and bring it into the 21st century. Here are some of the key features that we're thinking of bringing into the new site.

• Control - Instead of us uploading your samples to your accounts and changing your details, we allow you to upload your own samples, change your own details and even upload a nice (non-IC) picture of yourself to let the world know a little bit more about you
• Convenience - Both for us and for you. For you, having complete control of your account, and functions to easily message the Exco, or other members. We also plan to have watchdog lists for errant studios as well as a section that highlights Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) from members and the public. On our side, we plan to link the news section to our blog, meaning that it will be easier, and more convenient for us to update news, as well as send messages to all members if necessary.
• Discoverability - We plan to fully revamp the search engine, allowing you to search for talents in a more intuitive manner. We also plan to include tags that you can attribute to yourself, e.g. British, Manglish, young, old, teenager, surfer - things like that to help agents, creatives and sound people to find exactly what they're looking for.

This is basically just a taster of the new features we're planning for the site. We would love your feedback as to what other features you would like to see on the site before we start work in proper! Send all suggestions to chakster@gmail.com and I'll be sure to answer them as soon as I can.

Welcome to the Official Voice Guild Blog!

This blog was created to keep members and other interested parties updated about the latest news and happenings from The Voice Guild Malaysia.

For those of you not in the know, The Voice Guild is a non-profit organisation in Malaysia that looks after the interests of voice talents. You can check out more about us at www.thevoiceguild.org.

What are voice talents? We are basically the voices that wake you up in the morning, irritate you in afternoon traffic, and tell you about the latest promotions around town when you're watching TV at night. We lend our voices to everything from radio commercials to documentaries.

Thanks for dropping by :)