Chair's Report September 2024
Burton Monday Writers meet each week, excluding Bank Holidays every Monday at the Priory Centre, Stretton. Meeting times have recently changed to 12.45 pm until 2.45 pm to enable vacation of the premises before two children’s groups use the building. This is at the request of the Priory Committee. We hope our new meeting time will be suitable to members. Our membership holds at a regular ten members.
Firstly, Gill has been our Treasurer in addition to being our vice-chair and I thank her for looking after our finances and her cheerfulness at meetings. Also thank you Burton Monday Writers for your constant support, ideas for writing exercises and companionship.
Secondly, several members sent work to the annual National Association of Writing Groups (NAWG) competitions this year. The annual conference was again held online as the previous event at Yarnfield. Staffordshire, in 2022 was not well attended and lost £5000. Congratulations to Shelagh Wain who was runner-up in the short story section with her entry “Going Berserk” and for her villanelle “Life Cycle” and to Lynda Turner who was a runner-up with her monologue, “Finding Scarlett.” Lynda’s granddaughter, Emelia Kent won the children’s section with her poem “The Magic Box”. Certificates were awarded to the shortlisted entries and a book token to the winning entries.
Congratulations to Emelia, aged seven at the time of entry.
Our anthology “Cornucopia 2023” was also shortlisted. Many thanks to Bimal Jangra for copy editing, formatting and designing the cover. Also, to Gill and Bimal for organising the printing.
Congratulations to all those members who submitted work in the 2024 NAWG competitions. Burton Monday Writers’ flag was certainly flying. Our members continue to write and enter competitions. Copies of our recent anthology are currently available at £2 per copy information on our website www.burtonmondaywriters.co.uk
In March we welcomed tutor, Wayne Kelly, who delivered a workshop on scriptwriting writing. We enjoyed the workshop and have invited Wayne back in September 2024 to deliver a further workshop on Structure.
In July we welcomed local author and photographer Simon Elson, who delivered a workshop on Writing for Magazine Markets. He had numerous tips and suggestions about where to place our work mainly in the non-fiction market.
Our annual dinner was held in the Summer, when members and guests dined in a local Burton restaurant.
We maintain our website and are currently open to new members over the age of 19 years.
Lynda Turner
Chair
Chair's Report September 2023
Since last September Burton Monday Writers has settled into our new home at the Priory Centre, Stretton, where we meet every Monday afternoon from 1.30 pm onwards until 3.30 pm. excluding Bank Holidays. Our membership holds at a regular nine members.
Firstly, Gill has been our Treasurer in addition to being our vice-chair and I thank her for looking after our finances and her cheerfulness at meetings. Also thank you Burton Monday Writers for your constant support, ideas for writing exercises and companionship.
Secondly, several members sent work to the annual National Association of Writing Groups (NAWG) competitions this year. The annual conference was online as the previous event at Yarnfield. Staffordshire, was not well attended. Congratulations to Shelagh Wain who was runner-up in the historical short story section with her entry “A Life for a Life” and to Lynda Turner who was a runner-up with her ten-minute play, “The Best Christmas Present a Man Could Have.” Lynda was also a runner-up during the conference flash fiction competition with her 100-word piece, “Family Secrets”.
Our members continue to write and enter competitions. We have an anthology planned for the end of the year and are currently writing a pantomime, a modern version of Jack and the Beanstalk.
In June we welcomed tutor, Bead Roberts, who delivered a workshop on short story writing and agreed to critique a short story from each attendee. We enjoyed the workshop and have invited her back in October to deliver a further workshop on Characterisation. Also in the Summer we dined out in Burton, (see photo on opening page).
We maintain our website, www.burtonmondaywriters.co.uk and are currently open to new members over the age of 19 years.
Lynda Turner
Chair's Report 2022
Since last September we have made several changes at Burton Monday Writers.
Firstly, we realised that the Covid lockdown had taken its toll on our regular membership as we emerged a much smaller group than we previously had been. However, to ensure our survival, we began looking for an alternative venue for our meetings. It was with much regret that we left Burton Library in April 2022, as the cost of renting the upper room, although very convenient, proved to be too high for our depleted membership. We found an alternative venue at the Priory Centre, in Stretton on the outskirts of Burton, where we now meet every Monday afternoon, excluding Bank Holidays.
Secondly, illness has taken a couple of our regular members who now find themselves unable to attend meetings. We wish them both a steady recovery and thank them for their loyalty and support over the years. Gill has taken over the role of Treasurer in addition to being our vice-chair and I thank her for looking after our finances and her constant cheerfulness at meetings.
Several members sent work to the annual National Association of Writing Groups (NAWG) competitions this year. Congratulations to Shelagh Wain who won the historical short story section with her entry “Flying High” and was short-listed with her Science and Nature article. In October 2021, Lynda Turner won the Fosseway Writers flash fiction competition with her entry Blue Devils and Pink Elephants.
Our members continue to write and enter competitions. We have an anthology planned for the end of the year and are currently writing a pantomime, a modern version of Jack and the Beanstalk.
We have welcomed tutor Sue Johnson to our new venue and greatly enjoyed the workshop she delivered, “Beginnings and endings” to short stories and especially short stories with a twist.
We maintain our website, http://burtonmondaywriters.co.uk and are currently open to new members over the age of 19 years.
Lynda Turner
Chair
Chair's Report 2021
I do not think any of us could have predicted 2020. Our meetings were suspended from March 15 onwards and we were not able to open again until September 2021 and at the time of writing we are restricted to 15 members by Staffordshire libraries who hire us our meeting room. Throughout the closure, members kept in touch via a weekly newsletter and when restrictions allowed a drop-in tea/coffee chat session at the library café on Monday afternoons.
In 2020 Burton Monday Writers turned twenty years old and as part of our celebrations we gave members a completely free hand meaning we would accept prose, poetry, flash fiction and non-fiction pieces for our annual anthology which was produced entirely in lockdown. Many thanks to all those who contributed and especially to Gill and her husband Bimal for the formatting and overseeing printing. We opted for an open book policy regarding content to enable our group to be totally inclusive by including contributions from new and long-standing members. Some of the stories were written following a workshop by Celia Joy Anderson, a local author and Romantic Novelists Association member. We were delighted to welcome Celia to Burton and very grateful for the workshop she delivered.
Every year our members enter work for the National Association of Writers' Groups competitions. In 2020 Lynda Turner was short-listed in 3 sections – claiming runner-up in two separate short story sections and runner-up for the ten-minute play. It must have been Lynda's runner –up year as she was also runner up in the NAWG 2020 flash fiction competition.
In 2021 members also entered the annual NAWG competition and we were delighted when Afaf Sanders won in the ten minute play/monologue section. Fortunately, as covid restrictions were lifted, she was able to receive the Sir Alan Ayckbourn Trophy at the NAWG annual conference held at Yarnfield business centre, Staffordshire in September 2021. Afaf was also awarded the President's Trophy following a collective vote of the group's committee members.
We believe the strength of our writing group is the positive criticism we give when members read out their work at meetings and we hope the encouragement members receive will not only improve their work but also help them to write outside their comfort zone.
Good luck to all Burton Monday Writers – keep writing – you are good at it.
Lynda Turner, Chair
Chair's report 2018-19
As I hand over the chair to Lynda I am happy to say that we have had another good year.
We had more than one lunch together at ‘The Blue Posts, mainly to cheer us up in the Winter months. We extended our cultural horizons with a trip into Derby to see the Leonardo drawings, which were well worth the effort of working out which buses are still free! We also enjoyed a lovely hot day at Cromford Mill.
We have had enjoyable workshops with Alison Dunne and Sue Johnson, who was kind enough to judge our short stories and to offer a small prize. The work we produced formed the basis of our latest anthology, ‘Here We Go Again’, which has once again been entered in the 2019 NAWG competition, so let’s hope for another good result. We were sad to miss our yearly sessions with Bead Roberts, but we look forward to seeing her in the summer now she is recovered.
According to Bead we are one of the most active groups she knows, and it is because we actually write a lot that we do so well in the NAWG Competitions. Last Year we had two winners and three Highly Commended entries as well as the Anthology, plus a third Prize in the Novella Competition. Let’s hope we keep up the tradition this year. Ann Hodgkin has also been published both in ‘Women’s Weekly’ and ‘Derbyshire Life’.
In March we held our annual dinner in Tutbury. Despite minor problems it was an enjoyable evening. The Maggs Payne Award was presented to Betty Cope, for her work in recording all our official meetings and taking charge of cheques.
Some of our members have had sadness and problems this year, and we do our best to support them, where we can. We are looking forward to the first baby born to a member (at least we hope that she will be back before too long.)
Looking forward, one thing we need to work on is recruitment. After a period when we had to turn people away, we are now able to offer places to new members. If we are to keep going we need new people and new ideas, so we must all spread the word to anyone we meet.
Finally, my thanks to everyone who has helped to keep us on track this year. Number one is Josie, whom we rely on totally to look after our finances. Then Jenny, Gill and Julia who have organized our events, including this dinner, Lynda, who looks after the website, Mary for the Newsletter, Barbara who keeps us supplied with refreshments, Betty who has taken cheques for events and everyone else who has provided stimulating ideas for our writing. We also owe a special thank-you to Bimal who has given hours of his time to preparing our work for the printers.
We look forward to another good year in which we keep on writing!
Shelagh Wain May 2019
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