Tag: membership

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A Morning in the Library Archives

Thanks to an invitation from the Amps network at Creative Dundee, I was invited to explore the archives at the city’s Central Library on Saturday morning. This should have happened back in March, but plumbing problems forced the place to close for the day.

While there is a wealth of historical documents on public display, there is far more behind closed doors, viewable only by appointment.

It proved challenging to squeeze ten people around the tightly-packed shelves, and it’s just as challenging to describe the breadth of stored material. It spans three centuries of historical newspapers, self-published poetry, local maps, building plans, posters for pantomimes, &c. Each piece tells its own story and can’t always be slotted neatly into one category or another.

A narrow aisle lined with red shelves filled with historical documents and bound books at the Central Library, with a cart containing various bound materials in the foreground.
Some of the shelves at Dundee Central Library.

My pal Dr Erin Farley led the tour, giving answers to every question posed throughout the two-hour visit. When booking the tickets, Amps members were invited to request any special documents they wanted to see. I seized the opportunity to mention my interest in railway infrastructure.

In response, I was rewarded with the original proposal for the first Tay Bridge, bound in a booklet of broadsheet-sized paper and listing Thomas Bouch as the author. As we know from history, the structure collapsed in 1879. Meanwhile, another member enquired about whether there was an LGBT+ collection. Erin explained that efforts were actively underway to develop one.

After the visit, we were treated to coffee and an overdue catch-up with others. Since most Amps events take place during office hours, I’m rarely able to attend, though this scheduling suits many of the self-employed creatives with more flexible routines. I especially miss the wonderful virtual breakfast events at 9am on Tuesdays, so I was keen not to miss a rare Saturday outing.

There’s so much more I could add about the organisation, but I’ve written so much over the past there years that it’s easier to read the relevant back-entries. Indeed, if you’re local and you think this might be for you, here’s how to sign up.

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Eight Weeks of Writing Group Independence

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.

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Helping Novelists Through November

National Novel Writing Month is a not-for-profit initiative that encourages people to draft a 50,000-word novel during the month of November. In 2023, NaNoWriMo – as it’s affectionately known – celebrates its 25th anniversary. 

As the organisation operates globally, it relies on hundreds of volunteer co-ordinators around the world to welcome members, arrange meet-ups and raise donations. After joining the Dundee & Angus region as a punter in 2010, I’ve been running it since 2015.

During my time in charge, we’ve started additional weekly meetings during the rest of the year. As such, I like to have a co-organiser to help with tasks such as sending out bulletins, reorganising our Discord server, and covering for each other if we’re busy on a given week.

Even with this, November still remains our busiest month ahead of the novel-writing. By tradition, we organise a launch party in October, a Thank Goodness It’s Over party in December, and an additional weekly meeting on each Saturdays in November.

From our members’ point of view, NaNoWriMo will start on Wednesday 1 November. For us, those conversations need to start right now, and that’s what we’ll be doing over the next four weeks.

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Yet Another Class

Regular readers of this blog might know I already run two writing events: a weekly group for National Novel Writing Month and a monthly open-mic. I also take part in a monthly poetry circle. Each of these events is different in character from the others, but they’re all free to join and comprise at least a dozen members.

Some time ago, I took the decision to make a trial run of yet another class, and this would again be different from my current classes, not least because there would be a charge.

The format was adapted from classes I attended between 2011 and 2015, which were essentially improv but for writers rather than actors. These were run by a former teacher who would give us between five and ten minutes to write a passage inspired by a list of five words, a line from a novel, or a photograph found in a thrift shop. After each passage, we would then read our passages to each other for supportive mutual feedback.

In my class, I set a limit of four members to allow optimum time for writing versus feedback. It’s been something of a catch-22: it’s been difficult to attract members because it’s untested, but it’s untested because it’s hard to attract interest.

Nonetheless, I found two people willing to give it a go. Their initial feedback has been positive and I’ve already identified areas where the format could be tweaked. At the end of the first four-week block, I’ll make a decision about whether to run them on a more permanent basis.

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Refreshing the Roster of Raconteurs

I have a penpal in Wales who wrote to me last week. We’ve been in touch for nearly two decades online, and this has gradually moved into long paper letters. If you’d asked me last week what my blog was going to be about, that would have been the topic.

But I’ll come back to that next week because I finally carried out an overdue task on Sunday.

Regular readers will know I run an open-mike night called Hotchpotch. When I took over in 2015, I inherited the passwords for the Twitter account, the Facebook page and the e-mail bulletin list. In the case of the first two, users can self-manage their subscriptions, but the bulletins require manual intervention.

Additionally, some people on the list had moved away or not come along for years, but had never requested to unsubscribe. And recently, the server that hosts our domain name had been failing to deliver to otherwise valid addresses, which then needed to be re-sent in their own separate list.

On Sunday, I wrote to everyone on the list individually, explaining we were transitioning to an Announcements list on Dreamhost. This requires people to click a link to opt-in, and it’s much easier to remove members.

At the time of writing, the new list has 34 subscribers, which is less than a quarter of the old list. However, I’m satisfied we’re now sending to a shorter list of opted-in people than 130+ who don’t necessarily want to hear from us.

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The Fight Against a Bad First Impression

Every Tuesday, our National Novel Writing Month (NaNo) group meets virtually on a Discord server. This is software that was originally designed to allow users to chat while playing computer games, but the layout and features makes its useful for writers too.

By default, servers are not open to the public, so users have to receive an invitation issued by an administrator, namely me or my assistant. These can be generated or revoked easily, and we can change how many times they can be used and their expiry dates.

As part of our NaNo affiliation, we’re required to make the official website the first port of call for members, and we have a Dundee & Angus region page to make announcements. We can, of course, can cross-post links to other places like Discord.

Unfortunately, when I last refreshed the link a week ago, I posted the wrong one. Existing members could use the server as normal, but new users wouldn’t be able to join. I found this out because a new member had twice posted on the region page saying that she had finally worked up the courage to join the group, then found the link didn’t work.

It took 25 minutes to notice this because the official website doesn’t notify organisers of any posts to our region page. I also spoke to my counterparts in other regions about this incident, and it seemed this was also a source of annoyance among them.

Because we weren’t notified, the member probably thought we were ignoring her when we simply weren’t aware of her message. That frustrates me: first impressions stick, and it wasn’t our fault. What’s more, people also talk to each other about their bad experiences – and I would do the same – making it even harder to fight back the tide.

As soon as I realised what had happened, I immediately e-mailed out a corrected link to the whole region. I was able to send the member a private message, and the other region runners said it was likely she would have been notified of that. I also asked our region members whether anyone knew her personally, so we had another way of reaching out.

Happily, she responded about 24 hours later, and I was able to apologise for the mix-up and to welcome her to the Discord server. What’s even better is that we’ve attracted two other members in the last week or so, and we remain as active as ever.

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Four, But Not of a Kind

I’m a member of at least four literary groups. I would normally have perhaps two in one week, or have to miss one because another takes precedence. But in a rare alignment last week, they occurred in sequence from Monday to Thursday.

On the surface, it might seem unnecessary to be in so many groups, but each one has its own distinct character and role. I also run the first two groups, while the other two are held by others. Here’s a brief rundown of what happens.

Monday: Hotchpotch

Of all my groups, this is probably the one I talk about most as it’s open to the public, while the rest have a semi-closed membership. Once a month on a Monday, we provide a space for writers to showcase their work in an open-mike format. There’s a strong ethos of no judgement and no criticism, so members are never given a hard time even if they make a mistake or if their work is rather political.

Tuesday: National Novel Writing Month

Although National Novel Writing Month officially only takes place during November, our region has continued to meet up in a pub every week for the past three or four years. We work on our own projects and have a lot of banter, although it’s not specifically for feedback. We’re gearing up for November by providing extra meet-ups and more encouragement for participants.

Wednesday: Table 23

Table 23 is an offshoot of our Tuesday meetings, named after the table we normally monopolise. These are held roughly every month at a member’s house. Unlike Tuesdays, each of us talk through our current writing project and ask for feedback about how it might be improved or about how to solve a particular plot problem.

Thursday: Wyverns

Wyverns is a group exclusively for poetry, formed when the local university stopped providing a suitable evening class. The members write a poem to a theme each month, and it receives constructive feedback from the others. We’re also working on our second pamphlet; our first was about Frankenstein, while this one is themed around the River Tay.

It can be hectic keeping up with all these groups, but it’s so rewarding to have this support from other writers that it’s definitely worth the effort.