Meeting Minutes January 9, 2011

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

I logged in to write the meeting minutes and discovered this is the 501st article written to our blog. Not good enough. Come on fellow writers, flex those muscles and BLOG!

Fifteen people showed up for the first meeting of the New Year - and three of them were new members! Welcome to Judi M, Megan and CJ. We enjoyed having you there.

Jayne suggested a book to us titled "Write Away" by Elizabeth George. She says it's a wonderful book on writing.
We were all informed that Nancy's father passed away last week. Our condolences to she and her family.
It was also Marilyn's "29th" birthday again! My how time flies.

Gloria was glad everyone emailed her regarding typos in the anthology. She will send out an email to the group and will have a new proof made up before the second run of books. Out of 250 copies, she's down to 2 remaining AND we sold 1 on Amazon.com (to my brother-in-law in Oregon!) In the second run, she also plans to add the group's webpage address on the title page and a note to say that profits will be donated to the children's wing at Headwaters Health Care Facility to promote literacy for kids. We may also branch out to other childrens' organizations (ie Sunrise Centre and Transition House). Besides books, we could also purchase subscriptions to magazines such as Chirp and Chickadee for the hospital.

Judi M. told us that she has a friend who collects children's books to sent to the far North. If anyone has books to donate, you can contact her through Ruth since I don't have her email or phone number.

Pat told us about an item she saw on CTV for a place called The Book Nook that collects kids books. Kids are welcome to go in and read then take home a book. Great idea.

Gloria was going to ask BookLore about sales of the anthology.

We did get a few people with pieces to read. Clare read a story called "Seeker" where Len Johnston asked him "How would you describe your stuff?" That led to a philosophical discussion that gave us all two questions: "Who are you? How do you describe yourself?"
Jenn read a poem called "Airplane." We all soared with her wonderful descriptions.
Ruth read "Inspiration" from the anthology.
Marilyn read "Dream Lover" from the anthology.
Ron read a wonderful piece that he got A+ on in his English class. It was based on his trip to Europe and had us all captivated. Worthy of applause.

In keeping with the whole New Year resolution idea and getting back to basics, my prompt for the group was simply "WHY DO YOU WRITE?" We expanded that to add the "WHO ARE YOU?" idea. We discovered a lot of things about ourselves and each other and were so delighted with the responses that we asked the authors to post them to the blog. (One per week when I put out a list, the problem with that being our new members aren't on the blog yet!) I'll post the list at the end of the blog where the prompt would normally be.

Some of the quotes from our writers are:
"All artists walk a path of change and self-discovery." - CJ, Pathworker and Shamanist
"None of us are one single thing." - Ron, A+ English student
"I have a monkey mind that hops around from one thing to the next." - Judi M, new member
"Are you saying we bleed printers ink?" - Marilyn, our resident Dream Lover.
"I've had many creative hobbies. I kept trying new ones until I could do many things adequately, but none well. Until I wrote." - Jayne, a mystery to us all.
"Breathing is akin to writing." - pretty much all of us.
"I've been away from writing for far too long." - Megan, a recently resurrected author. (Welcome back!)

One group consensus that we did reach was that this was a great exercise in getting in touch with our Inner Writer again and that we would like to use this prompt in the first meeting of every New Year. I made sure to write that on my calendar!

Okay, for those who would like to post your prompts from this meeting, here's the order (minus the new members for now!  Marilyn (Jan 10), Clare (was published in The Banner in November), Pat (Jan 17), Diane (Jan 24), Gloria (Jan 31), Ruth (Feb 7), Jayne (Feb 14), Caitlyn (Feb 21), Laura (Feb 28), Jenn (March 7) and Ron (March 14).

Our next meeting is January 23 and Judy will be leading. Hope to see you all then!
Diane