A Torrent of Talent

There were 14 members in attendance at today's meeting which considering the weather the past few days was good. Rob was in the chair and proffered apologies on behalf of a number of members.

Before the meeting started the following announcements were made:
(1) Further details of the poppy appeal charity night were given,
(2) Maureen detailed a social occasion at her home to which everyone was invited,
(3) Glyn announced the date of his get-together, 21st October, and
(4) Rob provided details of TJ and Rita's exhibition at Procomobel.

This week's themes were "Would Love To Meet" (WLTM) or Must Love Dogs.

Maureen started proceedings with her fantasy dream based on the theme WLTM. Her future world and life were to be spent with what she regarded as her perfect man. At the end of her reading the consensus of opinion from the female members was - Dream On! Whilst the reaction from the males was that we had to spread ourselves around as there were so few of us left.

Douglas also used the dreamworld to tell of a horror attack on a young maid by her employer's son, her retribution and the consequences to her. As it turned out it was hallucinatory following an experiment with LSD. The piece was well received although it was felt that it could have done with more dialogue. A discussion took place on the use, or not, of dreams to tell a story as many publishers do not like this method and are loathe to publish "dream" stories.

Alan also took WLTM as his theme and had written a tongue-in-cheek piece about the placing of adverts in the personal columns of newspapers and magazines. This gave an insight into the mind of a man looking for his perfect woman. Needless to say it was a totally different aspect to Maureen's.

Christina read a story that she had written before but fitted the theme WLTM. This was titled "Lemon Tree Club" and told of a patron of the club who meets what seems to be her perfect man only it turns out that he is no Prince Charming and leaves her battered and bruised at the end of the night.

Rosemary chose the alternative theme of dogs to tell her tale of murder or should that be murders? - as the dogs also murdered rabbits. There was considerable discussion on this one as members thought that while the idea was good there was something missing, possibly passion or perhaps frustration to make it more believable. Several suggestion were made that might give the story more impact.

Chris's poem on WLTM described what she wanted in her man. This was not altogether different from Maureen's wish list except that Chris has what she described as "a brooding Swede".

Mary departed from her usual contribution of poetry to tell a true story as told to her by a man who was looking for his "perfect" woman. This gave a totally different insight to the man's way of thinking. Needless to say the names in the story were changed to protect the innocent.

Ian explained that his item had started off as a piece about dogs but he had become distracted as it progressed and he had ended up with something completely different which he called "Tinker Child". The members' reaction was that this was a very visual piece which everyone enjoyed. There was then a discussion on blank verse against rhyme and the fact that comments are usually given to those who write prose but feedback to those who write poetry is limited. It was suggested that we consider inviting an English speaking poet to one of our meetings.

Last but by no means least, Glyn gave us the latest version of his competition entry, "To Be Honest". Those of us who had heard it before thought the latest version had improved and those hearing it for the forst time thoroughly enjoyed it, not guessing the main character's profession until well on in the tale.

As I stated at the beginning - a torrent of talent.

Ian