I hope you enjoyed the first post in the series! This post will discuss meetings, the jobs of each group member, and how to organize your meetings.
Meetings
The Qpk Society has several times when we meet up - Christmas, and other holidays where we are all together, the Family/Memorial Day weekend, and at the end of the summer. Sometimes we also meet over Skype. It is difficult to meet regularly because we don't live in the same city, but we keep in touch as often as we can, and often send pieces of our writing through email so other group members can read them.
When creating a group, if everyone in your group lives in the same area, it is ideal to meet once a week, or once every two weeks. Make sure you find a time when everyone in your group is available. On days when you don't meet, make sure that you work on your work-in-progress so that you can discuss it at the next meeting. The way we make sure we don't use up our writing time because of our meetings is to have two meetings a day when we are all together. Our first meeting takes place from 3:45pm until 5:00pm. At this meeting, we do writing activities and all the things mentioned in the meeting post. The next meeting time goes from after dinner until we go to bed. This time is called Reading and Writing Hour, where we spend time working on our novels or stories, or reading. At various intervals, we stop and read parts of what we've just written to entertain everyone, and to get feedback. It is a good idea to meet with your group to do a version of Reading and Writing Hour because it allows you to have an audience for your work. Plus, if you don't feel comfortable sharing your work, you always have the option of just working on your writing and not sharing.
Whoa thats a lot about meetings. Briefly, enjoy this picture of a cute cat in a box!
Meetings
The Qpk Society has several times when we meet up - Christmas, and other holidays where we are all together, the Family/Memorial Day weekend, and at the end of the summer. Sometimes we also meet over Skype. It is difficult to meet regularly because we don't live in the same city, but we keep in touch as often as we can, and often send pieces of our writing through email so other group members can read them.
When creating a group, if everyone in your group lives in the same area, it is ideal to meet once a week, or once every two weeks. Make sure you find a time when everyone in your group is available. On days when you don't meet, make sure that you work on your work-in-progress so that you can discuss it at the next meeting. The way we make sure we don't use up our writing time because of our meetings is to have two meetings a day when we are all together. Our first meeting takes place from 3:45pm until 5:00pm. At this meeting, we do writing activities and all the things mentioned in the meeting post. The next meeting time goes from after dinner until we go to bed. This time is called Reading and Writing Hour, where we spend time working on our novels or stories, or reading. At various intervals, we stop and read parts of what we've just written to entertain everyone, and to get feedback. It is a good idea to meet with your group to do a version of Reading and Writing Hour because it allows you to have an audience for your work. Plus, if you don't feel comfortable sharing your work, you always have the option of just working on your writing and not sharing.
Whoa thats a lot about meetings. Briefly, enjoy this picture of a cute cat in a box!
Awww...kitty :)
Now, back to the post.
The Jobs of Group Members
To keep our meetings running smoothly, each group member has certain jobs that they do in the meeting and to prepare for the meeting.
President - M
I'm the president of the group, which means I have to make sure everyone is prepared and on time for the meeting. I also have to plan out the order in which the meeting will go, and speak at the start of each meeting about what the goal of the meeting is. As you have probably noticed, I'm also the primary poster on the blog.
Vice President - S
S is the vice president of the group. She helps the President organise group events and makes sure the room where we meet is set up for our meetings. She also dicusses with the President what the goals for the group are, and updates we should make to the website.
Secretary - R
R deals with concerns related to people outside our group. She organizes when we have visitors, and makes sure the visitors are signed in and prepared for the meetings. R also does the words of the day at every meeting.
Assistant/Alternate - K
Whenever one of the other group members needs help with an activity or if they aren't able to attend the meeting, K fills in for them.
In addition to these jobs, each group member prepares an activity for the group to do.
Planning Your Meetings
Everyone has a preference about how things are organized, so you will have to discuss an order of events for your meetings with all the group members.
Here is a typical plan for the QPK Meeting:
Opening announcements - M - We usually just repeat the group motto and slogan and dicuss what we are going to do at the meeting.
Words of the Day - R - R chooses three words from Reggie and reads them to us with a definition so we can write them down.
*NEW* Writing News - Alternates Members at Each Meeting - This new part of the meetings, which we will start at the next meeting, is where we find articles about writing in the newpaper or online and share them with the group.
Free write - Find a pencil or pen and paper. Set a timer for five minutes. Write whatever comes into your head and don't lift your pencil from the page. If you think: eat to like the cookies and the bullfrogs that sing when the breeze goes the trees that are glowing red and orange, write that down. Write anything and everything that comes into your head. It doesn't have to be gramatically correct.
K - K does her activity with the group. The order in which we do our activities changes at each meeting.
R - Activity.
S - Activity.
M- Activity.
Extras - Anyone else who wants to do an activity can do theirs at this time.
Closing announcements - We generally talk about what we learned from the meeting, what our favourite parts were, and what our goal is at Reading and Writing Hour.
Your meeting can include any or all of these activities, plus anything that you want to add that we don't have. For the activities, you can use activities that we talk about in our meeting posts, or ones that we post on the activities blog. I'm sorry that there are not many up there right now, but as the summer progresses, we'll add some more.
In the last post in the series, I'll be talking about special activities that you can do with your writing group, and some other things to consider when creating your group.
In the comments, we'd love to hear some suggestions from you about what we should add to our meetings. We're always interested in new ideas!
Hope you got some great ideas from this post!
-M
Now, back to the post.
The Jobs of Group Members
To keep our meetings running smoothly, each group member has certain jobs that they do in the meeting and to prepare for the meeting.
President - M
I'm the president of the group, which means I have to make sure everyone is prepared and on time for the meeting. I also have to plan out the order in which the meeting will go, and speak at the start of each meeting about what the goal of the meeting is. As you have probably noticed, I'm also the primary poster on the blog.
Vice President - S
S is the vice president of the group. She helps the President organise group events and makes sure the room where we meet is set up for our meetings. She also dicusses with the President what the goals for the group are, and updates we should make to the website.
Secretary - R
R deals with concerns related to people outside our group. She organizes when we have visitors, and makes sure the visitors are signed in and prepared for the meetings. R also does the words of the day at every meeting.
Assistant/Alternate - K
Whenever one of the other group members needs help with an activity or if they aren't able to attend the meeting, K fills in for them.
In addition to these jobs, each group member prepares an activity for the group to do.
Planning Your Meetings
Everyone has a preference about how things are organized, so you will have to discuss an order of events for your meetings with all the group members.
Here is a typical plan for the QPK Meeting:
Opening announcements - M - We usually just repeat the group motto and slogan and dicuss what we are going to do at the meeting.
Words of the Day - R - R chooses three words from Reggie and reads them to us with a definition so we can write them down.
*NEW* Writing News - Alternates Members at Each Meeting - This new part of the meetings, which we will start at the next meeting, is where we find articles about writing in the newpaper or online and share them with the group.
Free write - Find a pencil or pen and paper. Set a timer for five minutes. Write whatever comes into your head and don't lift your pencil from the page. If you think: eat to like the cookies and the bullfrogs that sing when the breeze goes the trees that are glowing red and orange, write that down. Write anything and everything that comes into your head. It doesn't have to be gramatically correct.
K - K does her activity with the group. The order in which we do our activities changes at each meeting.
R - Activity.
S - Activity.
M- Activity.
Extras - Anyone else who wants to do an activity can do theirs at this time.
Closing announcements - We generally talk about what we learned from the meeting, what our favourite parts were, and what our goal is at Reading and Writing Hour.
Your meeting can include any or all of these activities, plus anything that you want to add that we don't have. For the activities, you can use activities that we talk about in our meeting posts, or ones that we post on the activities blog. I'm sorry that there are not many up there right now, but as the summer progresses, we'll add some more.
In the last post in the series, I'll be talking about special activities that you can do with your writing group, and some other things to consider when creating your group.
In the comments, we'd love to hear some suggestions from you about what we should add to our meetings. We're always interested in new ideas!
Hope you got some great ideas from this post!
-M
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