Minutes |17 March 2022

Minutes of the meeting at La Rosa Hotel on Thursday 17 March 2022.

Present: Adele, Pip, Peter, Kaz, Michele, Jenny, Fiona, Ian (chair).

Apologies: Jonathan, Lesley, Gill, Malcolm.

Topic: Members’ work-in-progress.

Matters Arising

Ian asked Adele to explain the casting and the script of her 3-act play: Sex, Lies and Baking Cakes, WWG’s forthcoming play reading scheduled for 31 March 2022. The last meeting (3 March 2022) delegated Adele to cast her own choice of members for the 5 parts, and she handed out copies of the script to Peter (“Ray”), Fiona (“Carly”), Pip (“Sybil”), Kaz (“Sandra”), Ian (Narrator).

Members’ Readings

Peter — We’ve gotta get out of this place!
Valentina, born in Leningrad, has been a Pioneer. She helps evacuate children from the Siege of Leningrad. Under fire from fascist warplanes, her party of children ends up in the monastery and orphanage of Soligalich.

Fiona — Finley the Explorer, a poem for children.
A little boy sets out on his first intrepid expedition into the wild. When evening comes he forgets his way home, but discovers he hasn’t strayed far from his mum.

Adele — used her spot to answer any questions about her play. Members asked if it was possible to record the 2 hour event on a smartphone. Adele will seek professional advice about it.

Jenny — House Under The Stars (the book has been published but Jenny is preparing a revised edition.)
Captain Ged tells Idina, the ship-owner’s daughter, a story of the landslide that destroyed his boyhood home in Whitby’s Henrietta Street on Christmas Eve, 1787. Hundreds of residents lost everything, but Ged’s mum presently came back from shopping on West Side, so at least they had food. They ate it all, sitting on the harbourside. Ged enjoyed his orange so much he thought he’ll try a lemon.

Michele — distributed a map of the Boer War, plus a genogram of the Pretorius family (an augmented family tree showing emotional as well as family relationships).
She continued her novel – The Undesirables.
We see a family idyll set in the context of a close-knit community, a scene of peace in stark contrast to what will follow. Anna and Eloff fall in love.

Kaz — continued her first-person novel about a pregnant unmarried girl who has escaped to the Irish countryside. The heroine moves out of a caravan into a loaned cottage. The local nuns, led by Sister Angelica, descend on her garden to tidy it up. Her 26th birthday is approaching. She rescues a stray black kitten, which is too frightened to be grateful and scratches her badly.

Pip — read another chapter of Caicos Moon, her memoir of formative years spent on a tropical island.
It is Christmas on the Island, followed by Pip’s birthday party, with some 100 attendees. The family fly to Grand Turk to stay with the Administrator of the Caicos Islands and his wife. There is a boisterous party at the oceanographic naval base on Grand Turk. Last of all comes the “Pauper’s Party” on 29 December, at which the poor of South Caicos gather at the DC’s house to be waited upon by Pip’s mother.

Ian — Karma, a poem with topical resonance.
The Million Year Old Man explains how karma (destiny/retribution) is really the Law of Love in disguise.