FELIXSTOWE SCRIBBLERS
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
7.30 PM TUESDAY 19th NOVEMBER 2019
THE ROOM AT THE TOP, FELIXSTOWE LIBRARY
Attendance: Thalia, Liliane, Liz, Kay, Martin, Steven, Derek, Beryl, Gerry, Jane,
Tony, Georgina, Dave.
Apologies: David and Carole, Justin, Jim, Cathy.
1 Secretary’s report 2019 by
Cathy.
As ever,
I’d like to offer my thanks to Dave for his steadfast work as chairman of
Scribblers. It’s good to feel that the group is in such a safe pair of hands!
Thanks too to Beryl as treasurer, and we all know that’s been a bit of a
poisoned chalice this year because of issues with HSBC.
Liz’s
work as social secretary is much appreciated, and it’s also good to have Georgina on board taking responsibility for editing
entries for future anthologies.
And speaking of anthologies, Dave, Beryl and Georgina deserve praise for their work in this year’s
publication. There is a tremendous amount of behind the scenes effort involved
in this undertaking. Thank you all.
Our
workshop at the Felixstowe Book Festival was a huge success, and I’d like to
offer my thanks to all the Scribblers who came along to give their support. It
can be challenging to participate in the festival – the fact that the entire
festival is run solely by volunteers does bring its own issues in terms of
smooth running/room changes etc, but I felt that Scribblers acquitted itself
very well. We must have done something right – we gained our newest member Mary
Bevan after she met us there!
As ever,
membership has fluctuated during the year, to the point that we wondered
whether we needed to actively recruit to increase our numbers. However, that
proved to be unnecessary. We gained new members who have brought fresh thoughts
and outlooks to our sessions, whilst longer serving members have been able to
offer constant support and encouragement, based on their own experiences.
All in
all, I’m grateful to be secretary to a group that has at its heart the welfare
of all its members, and continues to nurture and support them, whatever their
ability and experience.
2 Treasurer’s Report by Beryl.
Following
the difficulties banking with HSBC the signatories have now opened an account
with Barclays and will shortly be closing the HSBC account thus transferring
funds to the new account. The anthology made a profit of £161.30. There was a
kind but unexpected donation from Debbie in France. The money generated from
membership remains steady. A breakdown of funds was presented to the meeting
and it is worth noting a “contribution” of £150 was received from HSBC. Our
annual membership fees are now due if members wish to pay for the year.
3 Chairman’s Report by Dave.
- First let me thank every member of Felixstowe Scribblers for helping to make our friendly group such a fun place to be. We are probably the oldest and one of the most talented writing groups in our County. Yes, we’ve had our problems with membership levels in the past but 2019 has provided us with some highly talented new members and a healthy and positive future.
- This upsurge in numbers tells me that Felixstowe Scribblers reputation is spreading and this is far better than having to advertise for new members.
- My thanks to our committee for the support and ideas they have provided, Cathy as secretary, Beryl, Treasurer, Liz Social Secretary and Georgina as Editor and supplier of the biscuits! We have the support of our Honorary President, Ruth, from afar. Special thanks to Liliane for always collecting the library key whatever the weather, and to you all for helping with setting the room up, clearing up, washing up and all the little things that makes life easier.
- 2019 has done us proud.
- Our main achievement has been the successful production of our anthology, “Characters.” A well-deserved sell-out. Many thanks to all the contributors but special thanks to Beryl and Georgina for their hard and dedicated work helping with editing and the title and cover design. Great stuff!
- A former member of years past, Debbie made contact earlier this year and has been a great help to Scribblers. Living in France, she made a very generous donation towards the cost of producing the anthology which was so kind and unexpected.
- It has mostly been my fault, because of time constrictions, that our proposed e-book version of the anthology has yet to be released. Debbie has done all the hard work preparing and reformulating the manuscript so hopefully it will be available online in the not too distant future. Special thanks to Debbie for everything.
- It took a long time for the idea of a Writeathon to be adopted but it is up and running now. I am pleased to say it has been well received and a great success so far. There are still a few more contributions to go and, when it is finalised, I suspect it will form a major part of our next anthology in 2021.
- There has been a bitter-sweet situation over banking – on a personal level I am disgusted at the treatment we received from HSBC that left one of our dedicated members loaning the money to pay our room rental. Glory be we now have an active account at Barclays thanks to Beryl’s endeavours.
- I am sorry that we are unable to provide new mugs with our logo. Unfortunately Scott who has supplied us in the past, has found it uneconomical to purchase the ink at now astronomical costs. Unless anyone has a supplier in mind, then I’m afraid it’s a case of making do with what we have.
- Finally, our members, that’s all of you, have provided some fantastic stories in the competitions, for general homework assignments and the pressurised flash fiction sessions. You are amazing.
Thank you for a memorable twelve months so, here’s
to the continuing success of the Scribblers in the future.
Keep
Scribbling!!!
4 Social
Secretary’s Report by Liz.
The meal
at the White Horse in January was an enjoyable evening, we met there again in
July. We plan to meet there on Tuesday 11th February 2020. More details
available nearer the time. The secretary thanked members for co-operation in
placing their orders and settling their accounts. Suggestions re alternative venue or
activities most welcome.
5 Editor’s
Report by Georgina.
Looking back at this year’s anthology- it
seems it was a breeze. But in reality there was a lot of effort
involved.
The
biggest challenge seems to be collating all the entries- preparing everything
for the publisher. Dave took the brunt of this, but I’m hoping I can help more
with that when we do another anthology.
Another
issue was the editing process- which is a fine line between improving and
interfering. I think we stayed on the right side of this line- we did have
positive feedback about the standard of the edit. This reflects the amount of
time that edit took- by Beryl, Dave and me.
The most
important aspect of the anthology is the content- the actual stories, poems,
essays, streams of consciousness, whatever they may be. Again we had great
feedback on the quality of the writing. There was a great variety- horror,
humour, sci-fi, historical and more, which made it a very interesting and
enjoyable read.
We sold
100 copies, quite easily. I believe.
So, we
may do it again, but I think there are some ways we could make it less
stressful for all involved in the collating and editing.
We found
that some people send in a collection and ask us to pick for them, some people
say they want to contribute and then have to be reminded several times to send
something.
Contributors
also seemed to pick from their latest scribbles, rather than looking back over
a longer period.
So, the
suggestion is that you could start thinking about potential submissions with
every new piece you write. You are welcome to send them in as and when you want
to over the next year or so, rather than the last minute.
My email,
in case anyone wants to send contributions in, is: gjsalmon@yahoo.com
If anyone
has any ideas, suggestions, contributions- just let us know.
6 Weblog Report by Dave.
Prior to
the meeting there had been 173,510 hits on the weblog, well over half were from
international sources. Recently it has been more difficult to find out about
competitions and initiatives for inclusion on the weblog because organisers or
promoters are less likely to email details as they advertise on their own
sites. The chairman asked the members if anyone would be interested in taking
on the running of the weblog, Georgina will find out what this involves and
will let Dave know if she will take this on.
7 Ratification
of existing committee.
Dave, Chairman
Cathy, Secretary
Beryl, Treasurer
Liz, Social Secretary
Georgina, Editor
Proposed by Derek, Seconded by Tony.
8 Felixstowe
Scribblers banking.
Matters addressed in the Treasurer’s Report (item 2)
9 Membership.
Fees to
remain unchanged at £30 per year or £5 per meeting. The chairman reported the
membership is growing very steadily and felt this was a good thing and opened
the discussion to the members. There was a feeling that we were happy with the
size of the group, whilst a word limit would be introduced due to time
constraints, time was also needed to give feedback and to ask the author about
their writing, this would not be possible if the group became very much bigger.
10 Structure of Meetings and inhouse
competitions:
i) Homework, themes and word limits.
ii) Suggestions for new themes or
activities.
iii) The Writeathon.
The
members felt the structure of meetings to be good and appreciated the
chairman’s work in producing a programme which spreads out competitions and
flash fictions therefore making the year balanced. There will be some very
interesting challenges given to the group when asked to write in a range of
genres.
One
alteration to the programme is that the social meal shown as 12th
February should read 11th February.
Dave will
contact Ruth to invite her to our meeting on 19th May. If attending
she will hear us read our homework of 500 words, a flash fiction piece.
Changes
need to be made to accommodate the larger numbers we have attending the
meetings. To give us time to hear all stories and receive feedback a new word
limit for competitions and homework alike, has been set at 750 words. The
author must include the word count at the top of their work and state, when
reading, the number of words they have used.
These
items proposed by Jane and seconded by Tony.
11 Planning for the future: The Felixstowe Book
Festival 2020.
Dave has
received emails from Meg explaining the problems the organisers of the book
festival have to face. There is no public money available, the hire of the
venue has doubled, so to meet costs they will need to ask for ticket money
contributions.
Currently
there are two possible options for Scribblers to participate, either joining
with OWL and the Café Poets in a block event anticipated at three hours, or a
shorter independent slot for each organisation of 1 hour each. Cathy and Dave
to meet with Meg to discuss further.
We have a
set of display boards that could be used for the event.
The
chairman gave information concerning a workshop to be run by Sam Ruddock. The
membership discussed producing a poster or flyer about Scribblers as way of
information but not necessarily to promote membership at this time.
12 Any Other Business.
A number
of questions were asked. Firstly, why in competitions are members not allowed
to read their own stories? Answer; to keep the author anonymous. Not everyone
is a good reader this makes the competition fairer.
Cathy and
Beryl to remain as readers with Kay as “deputy!”
Clarification
was given re the Jack Wilkinson Trophy.
The competition on February 18th is about children up to the
age of sixteen and the target audience would be adult. The Jack Wilkinson
Trophy competition on 18th August has a target audience of children
aged between 7 and 11 years and need not be about children.
Just to
clarify the situation, only attending members can enter a story in any
competition.
Justin
suggested that we have some social event every three months and this was well
received, suggestions welcomed.
Tony
informed the members from December 5th at 6:15pm to 6:45pm, for 92
weeks in total, Felixstowe Radio will be broadcasting stories from The Suffolk
Reading Festival and there will be some Scribblers stories making the air
waves.
The
A.G.M. closed at 20:40
