I've got back from a fabulous
writerconuk weekend away! It was truly fab and interesting and only slightly spoiled by a fire near the station I needed to travel from in London on the way there.
Also I have goodies in the form of goodie-bag swag and incredibly generous donations from the raffle. Plus a crafty calendar which meant only using scissors and glue to make (brilliant!!!).
I set off from home on Friday and caught the fast train from my local station which whizzed me up to London. A hop onto the tube then took me to Euston station where things started to get complicated. The last leg of the journey from Euston to Coventry is only an hour, but unfortunately there had been a HUGE fire in a nearby warehouse which involved gas cylinders, so as a precaution Euston was closed. Also unfortunately this information had not been very well publicised otherwise I would have found an alternative route before I'd got as far as Euston station *sigh*
There were alternatives though which was OK, but meant I had to travel back on the tube to an alternative starting point, and that only got me tantalisingly close to Coventry, so yet another short train journey would fill in the gap from there. I ended up accompanying another inconvenienced traveller travelling home to Coventry which was nice, especially as he also had some ideas regarding our route. We managed to get a seat on what became a very busy train North from London which stopped off at Leamington Spa. So I emailed the committee members to warn them about the Euston closure and as luck would have it
hab318princess was attending a meeting close to that station and offered to pick me up and drive us to the Coventry hotel which was only 10 minutes away by car. This was extremely welcome! So in the end I managed to get to the hotel an hour after I had planned and very hungry.
Of course the Ramada Coventry serves food all day so I was able to catch up with some of the attendees in the bar (our usual starting point for the weekend!), and have some scrummy lunch. The hotel had even rearranged the bar area seats to accommodate our group. This year we totalled 18 which was a really good number and gave us lots of chances to catch up with newbies and 'old' friends in the breakout area and at our various dinners.
The Event started officially at 6.30pm with introductions, goodie bags (which were outstanding as usual and full of sweeties - yum!) and then I facilitated the quiz. This year I was particularly fiendish with quetion design but it seemed to go well and two of the three groups tied in the end which was fun. After that I went to my room to unpack and have a quick shower after my travel adventures and the majority of us met up again at 8pm to wander next door to Aqua, the Lebanese restaurant we went to last year. As before they were super organised and the food was piping hot, delicious and the waiting staff were great at managing to serve the large group pretty much at the same time for each course so that no-one was waiting forlornly for food while others were eating (a feat in itself!).
Nom (hummus in Lebanese flatbread and vegetable mousakka and rice - also wine *g*):
Aqua has pretty lights which are hard to photograph with a phone.....
It was cocktail time on our return to the hotel - held in the breakout area which is pretty much 'ours' for the duration of the weekend. After much chatting I wandered up to bed around 11.30pm.
Saturday started when I woke up at 6.45am *sigh*. I never seem to have a lie in no matter what time I go to bed! I had spent an extremely comfortable night in my newly refurbished room (the whole hotel has been given a face lift since last year), so once I was up and dressed I wandered down to the restaurant to enjoy some breakfast. The restaurant area now has nifty seating...
I was joined fairly quickly by
lilachigh, then
spikereader followed by
enchantersnight and
hobbituk and many others as they wandered downstairs. We reconvened at 10.00am for the start of the talks which began with my talk about Music and Storytelling. I covered a very brief history of music and the telling of stories and plays and the use of different instruments to influence mood and help with the atmosphere in TV and film. I finished with the way fandom has adopted music to produce fanvids with examples. I was pleased that the talk was well received as I had really enjoyed putting it together.
Coffee break (and Danish pastries) was followed by
gillo's talk about Finding Inspiration without Plagiarm. This included an exercise using words and thinking of how they can be a springboard to a story by using word association which I found really interesting. It was then time for a leisurely lunch (yum!) afterwhich it was
tlanti's turn to speak about Finding Inspriation in What's Around You. I must admit I do enjoy it when we get an opportunity to work together in small groups during a talk and this was no exception as my group of three ended up putting together the beginning of a story using photos and material
tlanti had provided for inspiration. I was actually surprised how much I enjoyed it as I'm not a writer, but that really didn't matter! As usual it was fascinating how other groups had interpreted the prompts when we fed back.
The afternoon refreshment break (with scones and cake!) preceded
speakr2customrs talk on Writing the Perfect Line. A short talk with examples of how words and phrases can influence feelings - often stimulating powerful emotions in the viewer or reader. I'm so glad
speakr2customrs came as
curiouswombat wasn't able to attend this year *waves*, and his talks are always very thought provoking. This was followed by
hab318princess talking about Feedback which prompted a lot of discussion from participants about how feedback is delivered constructively. Thought provoking.
Next came
hils talk about Social Media and Fandom. I enjoyed this as
hils went through advantages and disadvantages of various sites in relation to fandom and there were lots of interesting comments from the rest of the attendees. I realised I have accounts on many sites, but don't really use them and I definitely must look more closely at Instagram!
By this time it was 5.30pm and time for more cocktails. I plumped for a non-alcoholic but very refreshing Sea Breeze which was lovely. At 6pm we went back into our conference room for the craft session led by
hobbituk who had once again come up with a really fun calendar project. You can see my finished calendar front cover in the photo above the cut, but what is even better is that when you flip that open you have the dates and photos separated so that if you fancy having a particular photo for more that one month you can just flip to that one - see.....
So clever! Next year though we will definitely allocate more time to the craft session as unfortunately we had to vacate the room by 7pm so the staff could set up our banquet and for many this wasn't quite enough time to finish the project. It is a great opportunity for chatting to everyone though while we are crafting!
At 8pm we all gathered again for the banquet. Some may remember that last year this didn't go very well as for the first time since we have been in Coventry the banquet was disappointing and just not up to scratch. However this year the overall feeling was that the staff were determined that we were going to get 5 star service to make up for it, and goodness me they delivered! A choice of starters, main courses and desserts were set out in an adjoining room and really were tasty and catered for our diverse group (who have a few allergies and dietary requirements that need to be catered for). We also had a staff member who stayed nearby to help with keeping the tables clear and make sure everything was OK. I had a wonderful butternut squash and parsnip soup to start with fresh bread, a vegetarian 'Wellington' (basically flaky pastry wrapped vegetables which was really scrummy), lots of choices of additional vegetable (including locally sourced heritage new potatoes which I HAD to have a second portion of as they were delicious!). Finally there was a sublime fresh fruit individual pavlova for me, but only good sense stopped me also having the chocolate gateau.... With our own alcohol courtesy of
gillo's husband's trip to the local supermarket (which was very good!) I certainly enjoyed it and I think everyone else did too!
More chatting and more alcohol afterwards and eventually I disappeared to bed having been introduced to an addictive iPhone game called Tap Tap Fish, which is silly but cute and will clearly waste too much of my time....
lilachigh is a bad influence...
I was up with the lark again this morning, but not the first one down to breakfast as I got a text from
lilachigh saying there was a cycling team having breakfast so I went to investigate (because athletes...). More chatting, more food *groans* - my waistline needs a diet starting tomorrow.... then back up for the final talk of the weekend by
ningloreth who explained the concept of 'Theory of Mind' in her talk Why we love fictional characters so much. I really enjoyed it - so much to think about now when I read or watch something!
Then there was the raffle! So many gorgeous things donated by the attendees! I came away with a 'birdcage' of bath products which is fantastic and shall house a stained glass bird in the near future, AND a bottle of fizz, AND a Dr Who book. Wow!
This was followed by the final refreshment break (more Danish pastries!) and then the AGM where there was good news in that the current committee will stand again next year, there WILL be a next year (numbers permitting) and this will take place on 7th September-9th September 2018 at Coventry Ramada Hotel. There will once again be crafts (yay!), and goodie bags (although
bogwitch is stepping down from organising this after 11 glorious and imaginative years), and talks (ideas were being discussed afterwards already!), and a banquet and an evening out at Aqua, and socialising with fandom peeps .... and.... and.... if you have avoided coming in the past, now is the time to put the weekend on your calendar and come next year!
Why? Because it's fun, and fandom (but not just fandom), and not just about writing (despite the name!) because the talks are about all kinds of aspects of fandom and you don't need to be creative to enjoy them; and it's about being with people who think like you do and are friendly and fun and who keep coming back, but welcome newbies and newbies become returnees, and returnees come back again and bring friends..... and who wouldn't want to be part of that? Hmmm?
Also my journey home was simple and swift and easy *bonus*.
:)