November 2023 Meeting Minutes

 Morning Moon on 28 November by Sheila Craft

High Town Writers' Workshop Meeting

Tuesday 28th November, 7.0pm in Peepo's Spirit Room

Chair: Adam

Present: Irena, John A-S, Ann, Jennie, Liz and Adam

Apologies: Stuart, Sue, Martin, Marie, Tony H, Kath and Andy

Adam opened the meeting by asking for updates for next Wednesday's Christmas Meal arrangements, progress on the anthology to mark our tenth anniversary in 2024 and changes to the blog.

1. Christmas Meal on Wednesday 6th December. 

Menu choices have been received from Irena&Andy, Sue, Alex, Adam, Stuart, Liz&Tunde and Ann&Dave. Marie&Ian and TonyH can't come and Kath and Andy hope to come other commitments permitting. John&Jane AS and Jennie&John are coming.  14 people confirmed + 2 maybes so far. Hopefully more will be able to make this meet-up.

Please confirm attendee numbers and send menu choices (see Peepo Pizza Bridgnorth | Cafe - Bar - Restaurant ) ASAP to hightownwriters@gmail.com by Monday 4th December to hand on to Peepo.

2. Write On. 

Martin has suggested a font change which works better with printed material.

He also suggested using an icon to distinguish the songs (from the poetry)

He is in the process of finalising the back cover.

The meeting voted 5:1 to adopt the cover which has a white back cover instead of a grey one.

Thanks were expressed to Martin for his design and for his back cover words which were unanimously liked.

Final contributions/updates/changes are being received for the book NOW.  Last date for final contributions is Wednesday 6th December.

We are waiting on Julia for clarification of the date of the first meeting - at present Liz remembers her first meeting being held on Valentine's Day 2014. Earlier recollections welcome! 

3. The Blog

Liz reminded new HTW members of the March 2020 origin of the blog - which was to share members' unedited writing when we were forced to meet online during Lockdown. 

Sarah Crook kindly agreed to share the poetry and the illustrations of her book 'Eliza's Book of Whimsy' and John gave us Val's poetry which have provided the backbone for the monthly publication of our writing since then. Sadly, Val's last poem is scheduled for publication this coming Friday, 1st December, and only five of Sarah's poems remain which have been scheduled for the end of this year and February, June, August and October 2024. 

When the blog started off the original intention was for members to post their own work but after a hiccup with Andy trying out the sharing and it not working, we settled into the routine of sending writing to Liz who then posted it on writers' behalf.

The meeting decided to try once again the option of members posting their own writing on the blog.

Members can still send Liz their work to be posted

OR

Members can post their own work. 

Liz will soon be sending out author invitation emails.

Those members who want to post their own work will

• need a google email address
• see their own names appear in the top RH corner of the blog where the 'About Us' information/photo box used to be
• be able to tag and edit their own work - but not the work already on the blog or the work of other authors.
• schedule when their work will appear. Liz suggests looking at the list of posts which authors will have access to and scheduling their work to appear on an 'empty' date to avoid too many pieces appearing on the same day.

Liz demonstrated how to make such posts, with pictures should the author so wish, at the meeting.

John A-S and Ann echoed Martin's previous enquiry about posting audio-clips on the blog. That will be investigated further in 2024.

 

After a break Adam moved the meeting on to workshop writing when he asked us to write a 'Beatles' themed piece. He had been inspired by watching a 60th anniversary of the Beatles programme on tv. That made most of us feel very old, but we did all enjoy his writing task immensely. 

    John A-S recalled his time at boarding school when transistor radios were forbidden, and pupils disappeared over the playing fields on Sunday afternoons to listen to Alan Freeman's 'Pick of the Pops'. 'If I fell in love with you' was John's particular favourite, reflecting the yearning of unrequited teenage love, crushes and imaginary girlfriends. 

    Liz took 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds' to acrostically collate her teenage 1960s memories of the Beatles and the new youth culture which grated on her elders. 

    Jenny's writing was a stream of consciousness recollection of Beatles memories from her first hearing them in the student room of Leicester Training College where she had gone for an interview through her thoughts about the individual Beatles. George was her favourite - and admired for his sitar playing and mourned for his premature death. John appealed, especially for his song 'Imagine there's no heaven' which chimed with Jennie's own feelings. Ringo seemed a happy go lucky outsider whilst Jennie never had much time for Paul, excepting for his wife Linda and their vegetarianism. 

None of the HTWs seemed very enamoured of Paul!

    Ann firmly stated that she wasn't a Beatles fan and had much preferred the Rolling Stones. Like John A-S she had suffered a ban on listening to pop music on contraband transistor radios which if discovered had been confiscated by the nuns of her convent school. Ann wrote a piece of fiction about a sixties teenager, Jane, who pushed her way to the front of a Beatles concert and along with her three friends screamed themselves hoarse in the presence of their musical heroes. 

    Irena was scornful of her sister's love and adulation of the Beatles, in particular John Lennon, and savoured her 'own special brand of weirdness' which meant preferring Glen Miller, Country and Blues music, classical music, and ponies! The only thing she really like about the sixties were 'kinky boots', although she later came to like Bootleg Beatles tribute concerts which she went to with her classical musician, violin-playing husband who is ... a great Beatles fan.

    Adam took John Lennon's 1977 song 'Free as a Bird' which was released by the remaining Beatles in 1995, long after Lennon's murder, as his inspiration to mentally travel and find freedom as expressed by various Beatles song titles ending with 'Ticket to Ride'. Amazing.

    We thanked Adam for his original task which took us all enjoyably deep-down memory lane.

Moving on to the writing topic of the month - to write on one of the 'Write On' themes, only Ann had come up with a new contribution for the book, a story entitled 'Crossroads' about the reunion of two cousins and their mothers after decades apart. Jenny shared a gardening poem, 'Contemplation' by Len Thurston which a friend had sent to her, knowing Jennie's love of seeing her 'garden at it's best now.' She also shared her 2019 'Beautiful Sabrina' poem which she hopes might appear in our second (the first is yet to see the light of day!) HTW publication focusing on Bridgnorth. Irena shared a poem she's working on, inspired by the Cambrian mountains but invoking her homesick love of the Howgill Fells in Yorkshire. Adam shared an astronomy poem, 'Breaking Up' about the rocky debris littering outer space. This led to an odd discussion about astrology and star signs and the revelation that two Pisceans, two Cancerians, one Capricorn and one Leo were winding up their meeting in the Spirit Room.

Next Meetings:

There will be two Thursday meetings chaired by Alex in the Crown at 7pm on Thursday 14th December and Thursday 11th January before the

Next main meeting of High Town Writers' Workshop on Tuesday 23rd January 2024 in PEEPO'S 

The writing theme for the January 23rd 2024 meeting is Lineage (all things ancestral)

 ANYONE WANTING TO CONTRIBUTE DECEMBER AND JANUARY SEASONAL WRITING (Christmas and New Year) to the blog can send it either to hightownwriters@google.com or post it themselves if they reply to the author invitation.