The Xmas get-together (running a little late!!!)

Ten happy souls gathered at The White Horse in Felixstowe last night to enjoy our belated "Christmas meal."

Despite the weather outside, there was a genuine warmth in the restaurant area where, despite a few last minute changes and additions to our original order, all went extremely well. Apart from the food there was plenty of discussion, even more laughter and a real feeling of a pleasurable evening spent in some wonderful company.

Of course we must thank Liz for organising the evening and ensuring everything ran smoothly. We think she pretended it was a school meal time...! Seriously, thank you Liz.You did a great job. Now we know who to ask to arrange our next meal out!

Not a pen or pencil in sight... and they call themselves Scribblers!

Meeting report

Minutes of Scribblers meeting held on 22 January 2019

Present:  Dave, Tony, Beryl, Liz, Kay, Georgina, Liliane, Jim, Anne, Derek, David, Carole, Cathy

Apologies:  Jane

Business: 

We were delighted to welcome two new members, Carole and David.

Poetry reading - Dave had been contacted by a local poet asking whether or not we would be interested in having her attend a meeting to read one or two of her poems. The general feeling was that as we are essentially not a poetry group, it wouldn’t be appropriate, so Dave will decline.

Felixstowe Book Festival (FBF) – Scribblers and Orwell Writers’ League have offered to share a two hour slot at the festival, and Meg Reid has agreed to this. Scribblers will run a flash fiction session, while OWL will do a light hearted ‘fun’ session of some description. Cathy did remind members that volunteers are crucial to the successful running of the FBF – if anyone can spare even one hour to help out, then they can contact Meg.

2019 Anthology – Gipping Press have given us a very reasonable quote, so we will be using their services again. Stories for inclusion need to be emailed to Dave, either as an attachment or within the body of the email, quite soon. As a rough guide, each member of the group can have about 2000 words to work with, whether as one long story, or as a mix of shorter ones. Competition winners and runners up were asked (told!) to offer their winning entries for inclusion.

Post Christmas meal – Liz double checked orders. Tuesday 29 January at the White Horse pub, Church Road, Felixstowe, 7 for 7.30.

Review needed - an undisclosed magazine wants to print a review of Tony’s recently published book. If there is anyone in the group who can do this review for him, he would be grateful.

Flash fiction: 

Writing ‘on the spot’ isn’t everyone’s favourite pastime, and we had to admire our new members’ courage in joining us for this session – talk about throwing themselves in at the deep end! The topic drawn (‘You are the world’s worst …’) drew groans from most of us, but as ever, we buckled down for a little over twenty minutes to see what we could come up with.

The results were very satisfying. It’s always amazing to hear how differently we use the topic, and impressive that we almost always achieve complete stories. And congratulations to new members David and Carole, who did themselves proud.

Next meeting: 5 February 2019, when the homework topic is ‘My best friend.’ in stories of up to 1000 words.

The flash fiction evening

An excellent turn out for this evening's flash fiction event including two new members, David and Carole. With a challenging subject drawn as "You are the world's worst...." it was down to twenty minutes writing albeit with a groan or two from various quarters.

The result was a really enthralling meeting with so many wonderful and diverse short stories all created in such limited time.

The pick of the bunch had to be Jim's letter to the Chairman of Marks and Spencer concerning the closure of their Felixstowe Branch. It really was hilarious! Well done Jim! 

Next week, Tuesday 29th January, is our annual social evening with a meal at the White Horse in Church Road Felixstowe (IP11 9NF) at 7pm for 7.30.

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 5th February when our 1,000 word homework assignment is "My Best Friend."

Keep Scribbling!

Dave 

Our next meeting.

Hasn't the fortnight since the last meeting passed quickly? It's already coming up to our second gathering of the year in The Room at the Top. This time, as you will know, it is a flash fiction event which is popular with some and not so popular with others. 

I wonder what you have found to do without any homework? You'll all be fresh with your creative talents ready to get into the zone of writing to a subject that will be revealed on the night. These sessions are quite a lot of fun. We'll have the draw for the theme of the evening, spend about 20-25 minutes writing, have a tea and coffee break, and then read out our work.

The meeting is on Tuesday 22nd January and starts at 7.30pm when the door will be locked for security purposes.

A week later, on Tuesday 29th January is our 'Christmas' social with a meal at the White Horse in Church Lane Felixstowe. Details will be confirmed at our meeting.

We have a very reasonable quote from Gipping Press for our forthcoming anthology which is acceptable. Now is the time to think about being a published writer - if you never have been before, then there is a really lovely feeling seeing your work in print. So please, on behalf of Beryl, Georgina and myself, start sending in your short stories, poems or other work for inclusion. At the outset we are suggesting two short stories of any length, which should be sent to this email address. Your work might be some of your homework from the past, or a completely new stories. The choice is yours.

The anthology will again include current and, hopefully, former members as in the past. The absolute cut-off time to submit work will be the end of February to allow time to check the work and formulate the contents.  More details will follow later.

Hope to see you on Tuesday complete with writing material...!

Keep Scribbling!!!

Dave

  

Poetry book

We have received an email from a poet, Sarah Caddick. She writes:-

My name is Sarah Caddick and I live in Felixstowe. I’ve often thought about joining your group, but my health hasn’t been consistent enough to manage regular evenings out. 

I’ve had ME for almost 19 years and I’ve just published a book of my poetry spanning the last 25 years. The s ubjects it covers are love, relationships, ME and spirituality. I’m donating a contribution from each book sale to ME research. It’s available to buy direct from me (which generates more money for the charity) and also on Amazon. Follow the link below and you’ll be able to see more details about the book on Amazon.

I wondered if any of your members might be interested in buying a copy of my book? Maybe I could come to one of your meetings and read a couple of poems from the book if I’m well enough?

Let me know what you think.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best Wishes

Sarah

"Loving from the Soul: A Collection of poems" 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1999676203/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_viRhCb2R60WMP

Amazon says this about the author: 

Sarah Diane Caddick was born in 1964 in West Bromwich, West Midlands. She began writing poetry at an early age, and encouraged by her parents, won a poetry competition at five years old. Sarah studied in York and gained a BA Hons in Drama and French. She then decided to train to be an infant teacher, and achieved a PGCE in Northampton, specialising in music. 

In 1988 Sarah moved to Suffolk and began teaching at a school in Felixstowe. She taught all subjects, but was in charge of music, playing piano and flute. She also especially enjoyed reading poetry to her pupils and encouraging them in their own creative writing. Sarah was very involved in amateur dramatics and also played the flute in a local concert band. She enjoyed swimming, walking by the sea, reading, writing and playing Bridge. She taught at the same school for fourteen years until, after struggling with the illness M.E. for several years, she finally had to take medical retirement. 

During the last twenty five years there have been periods when the emotional ups and downs of Sarah's relationships and her health, have inspired her poetry writing more than ever. For several years when she had to spend a lot of time in bed, unable to walk or even to read more than a few lines, poetry writing became even more important. It was one of the few hobbies that she could still pursue. 

Sarah finds that it helps to express her frustrations and transports her to another world, inspired by the beauty of nature, love, and her deep spiritual beliefs. Sarah loves Suffolk - the flat countryside, the estuaries, the pretty little villages, and especially the sea. She now lives in Felixstowe and has recently adopted two black kittens called Roman and Sparkle after her dear old cat Pebble died. Her long-term partner Brian lives and works away, but is back every few weeks. Sarah's mum and step-dad live nearby and are a great support. Sarah has a rich and varied life full of family, friends, laughter and many interests. Sarah has had poems published in church magazines and in poetry anthologies. She hopes that some of her writing may resonate with your experiences of love and life. Perhaps comfort or inspire you, or maybe just bring a smile to your face. 

Would you like to invite her to one of our future meetings? Please let me know.

Dave

First report of the year.

Minutes of Scribblers meeting held on 8 January 2019

Present:  Dave, Tony, Beryl, Liz, Kay, Georgina, Liliane, Jim, Anne, Cathy

Apologies:  Steve, Hazel, Jane, Derek.

Business: 

It was pleasing to have such a good turnout for our first meeting of the year.

Dave mentioned that during this year we will be involved in a Writeathon – more details on this at later meetings.

Also, a reminder that there will be a further Scribblers’ anthology this year, so we must all start thinking about the stories we would like to offer for inclusion.

Post Christmas meal: this will be at the White Horse pub, Church Road, Felixstowe, on Tuesday 29 January, 7pm for 7.30. Liz is dealing with menu choices – if you haven’t already spoken with her about this, please contact her on erwalesisat@gmail.com as soon as possible, as she has to get our menu choices to the pub in advance of our attendance. Information for those who haven’t been to a Scribblers’ meal before - we pay for our meals and drinks individually – we don’t follow the practice of splitting the entire bill between those attending. It is often easier to pay cash rather than use cards.

Readings of homework:

We had the luxury (or not!) of free choice of topic for our homework. Plenty of interesting, moving and quirky stories were the result.

Jim – Dead ex-husband

Anne – The New Year’s Eve party

Liliane – Atonement and retribution

Beryl – You

Georgina – A la carte

Kay – Future tense

Liz – The stories eyes can tell

Cathy – Rose for rememberance

Tony – Awakening

Dave – Sitting, waiting, hoping

Next meeting: 22 January 2019, when we will enjoy a word based flash fiction session. No homework required, but don’t forget to bring writing implements!

Great start to the new year...

What a great start to the year! The excesses of the festivities forgotten (well, almost!) and it was back to business with a bang.

A really terrific meeting with a wide ranging variety of stories and genres that kept us all wide awake listening to so many wonderful words that flowed from the Scribblers pens. It is almost a habit declaring that every meeting is better than the last... I can't guarantee it is always the case, but tonight the gauntlet was surely thrown down and the high standards set for 2019. Will there be a regular improvement to set an even higher standard than we achieved in 2018? On tonight's evidence I am certain we will.

There is no homework for next time (22nd January) as this will be one of our flash fiction evenings. The theme will be drawn at the start of the meeting. Nothing like a bit of suspense is there?

Three items to remember.

Firstly, if you would like to attend our Christmas meal and haven't yet told Liz, then please do so as soon as possible. It is being held at the White Horse in Church Road, Felixstowe on Tuesday 29th January with a 7.00pm for 7.30 meal. The menu looks superb with plenty of choice and very reasonable prices.

Secondly, watch out for details of a new Writeathon. It is basically an online story that will start with a single paragraph by a nominated person and then passed from member to member to continue the story with their own added paragraph. We held one many years ago which can still be viewed on the pages above, whilst one was also run by the Orwell Writers last year. It really is fun.

Finally, Beryl, Georgina and I have formulated a plan of action for our 2019 anthology. Again, watch out for details.

Until Tuesday 22nd, 

Keep Scribbling!!!

Dave

The First of the Year

Happy New Year Scribblers all!

I hope you all had a lovely and enjoyable Christmas and celebrated the coming of 2019, a good lead-in to our own new year.

This coming Tuesday, 8th January, we meet for the first time this year. There was no set homework for the meeting just a suggestion for 1,000 words on any subject you choose. In theory that should make things easier to begin this new campaign. I wonder what topics you will write about? Christmas? Last year? Your aspirations for this year? A love story? Science fiction? The mind boggles with anticipation.

As always we need to be aware of security and will close the outer door at 7.30pm but if you are late then ring the bell on the wall and someone will come down  to let you in.

With that over, I will remind you of our 'Christmas' meal which is arranged for Tuesday 29 January, 7 for 7.30 at the White Horse pub, Church Road, Felixstowe. Liz , who has worked effortlessly on sampling the cuisine will be following up with menu choices and asking for our requirements. These meals are always popular and good fun for those who attend so I know this year's function will be no less enjoyable.

Looking forward to Tuesday so, until then...

Keep Scribbling!!!

Dave