Minutes of Scribblers meeting held on 12 February 2019
Present: Dave, Tony, Beryl, Liz, Kay, Georgina, Liliane, David, Carole, Derek, Justin, Jim, Gerry, Cathy
Apologies: Steve, Anne, Hazel.
Business:
Steve has notified Dave that he will unfortunately have to take some time out from the group over the next few months, but hopes to be back with us in the summer. Let’s hope it will be early summer rather than late – he’ll be missed!
Great to see such a good turnout for our competition in memory of young Jack Wilkinson. Jack’s mother Caz (an ex-Scribbler) has recently been executor to an estate in which a very substantial amount of money was to be donated to a charity/charities of her choice. She has chosen the ward at Ipswich Hospital in which Jack was cared for.
Anthology – not many items for inclusion have yet been sent to Dave. He asked that we all send our offerings sooner rather than later – easier for him, Beryl and Georgina to manage the workload of editing if there’s a steady flow of work rather than a massive influx at the last minute.
Competition:
For this competition, the remit was to write a story about children. Of the fourteen members present, a fantastic twelve had submitted entries. As usual, Beryl and Cathy read the entries out for assessment and judging – and what a pleasure it was for them to have such a mix of excellent writings to share with the group. Dave always comments that as writers we continue to grow in talent and expertise, and the standard of entries proved him right again.
Marking was difficult – with so many high calibre stories on a wide variety of themes, it really challenged us. Tony kindly collated the final results of our marking, (needing to ask for a fourth placed entry as a tie breaker), and the winners were as follows:
Justin in first place with ‘The things that disappear’. In second place was Georgina, with
‘Thursday’s child’. Kay and Jim tied for third place with ‘Birds’ and ‘Madonna’ respectively.
The remaining stories were:
Beryl – Coming home
Carole – The swing
Liz – A moment and magic
Gerry – The nightlight
Derek – John and Peter
Dave – The little truant
Tony – The gang
Liliane – History lesson
A tremendously enjoyable evening, and congratulations to our newest member for going home with the coveted trophy!
Next meeting:
5 March. The topic is ‘On the beach’, a story of up to 1000 words.
