Meeting Report

Minutes of Scribblers meeting held on Tuesday 21^st June 2016.

Apologies: Cathy.  

Present: Jane, Richard, Mel, Mairead, Gerry, Liliane, Steve, Beryl, Jim, Dave and new members Anne and John. 

Business items:

There was a welcome to Anne and John who have just moved to Felixstowe from Woodbridge. They were members of the Woodbridge writing group that was attached to the library there but hopefully the Scribblers will provide them with a fresh alternative. Anne likes writing for children whilst John enjoys short story writing.

Prior to the meeting, Cathy collected the display boards from Dave together with various items for the Flash Fiction event at the Book Festival, like prompts and pencils to write with! There were also some handouts with details of our group. Because of a very early start tomorrow (Wednesday) Cathy had to leave. She missed a pretty good evening.

Don’t forget to come along to the Orwell on the weekend of 25^th and 26^th June and support the Festival and especially to come to our events, both on the Sunday in the Furneaux Suite at the Orwell Hotel. The first is at 10.00 on Sunday 26th June when we ‘Start the day with a story’, then, at 4.30 we hold our flash fiction event. Squeezed in between, at 3.00 pm our good friends the Orwell Writers will read a selection of short stories inspired by William Shakespeare. These events are all free but if possible you should try and get tickets in advance. There is a full programme over the two days with various events including Ruth and Jeanette.

Talking of the Book Festival, congratulations must go to our Jane who has won third prize in the Short Story Competition with her work ‘The Lucky Ones’. We look forward to hearing the story in due course.

The Photographic Flash Fiction session:

It was very pleasing to see so many people attend this meeting – in fact this was our largest attendance for some time.

There was a plethora of postcards and photographs to select from and writers were even allowed to change photographs if need be. There were some grimaces, some twinkling eyes and some disbelief at knowing that the picture in front of them would prompt them to a story.

Thirty minutes were allowed with the writing done in silence. There always seems to be pressure to come up with a believable (in most cases!!!) story. Sometimes pressure makes better writers of us although not everyone enjoys this kind of challenge.

The stories that were read out were extremely good even though some work was not fully completed. Well done everyone for your efforts. It made a good night even better!

Thanks:

Our thanks must go to everyone for bringing along some excellent pictures and entered into the spirit of the evening.

Thanks to Liliane for collecting the key, to Mairead for bringing along her naughty confectionary and to everyone who helped with setting up and tidying the room.

Our Next Meeting:

Tuesday 5^th July at 7.30 pm. The homework assignment is to write up to 1,000 words on any subject that includes the phrase “It makes a change”.

Don’t forget that we’ll be at the Orwell for the Book Festival on Sunday 26^th June.

Until next time:

Keep Scribbling!!!

Dave