Every Tuesday, I run a writing group with a pal. Until eight weeks ago, the group was affiliated with National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo).
We broke away to form an independent group after we felt the organisation was not working in the best interests of its members. You can read a previous entry exploring the reasons for this.
In the weeks following the announcement, we fielded a few questions from members, largely to reinforce that the new group would feel as familiar as we could make it. Only a couple of people have left, but no more than would have happened anyway.
In short, it’s been something of a velvet divorce.
I’d been running the group for about nine years, while my pal came on board about two years ago. We feel we know what works with our members and what doesn’t, and this secession allows us to take our own actions without needing to toe the line of an umbrella organisation with their own differing priorities.
There are still aspects we need to work out. For instance, we have an outstanding question of how to attract new members without being overwhelmed by new recruits. This, however, is not an urgent problem and we’ll work it out in due course.