Hello everyone,

General:
For the Future:
Thank you all for your responses to my questions about next season. It seems that many of you want to continue - as I do myself. Generally it seems that the idea that each of us is responsible for one challenge - right through from setting it to collecting in the entries and dealing with the judging. But that would be their contribution for the season. That accounts for 10 members, but there are other things, like the Log, which Christine is now responsible for, and perhaps someone who collects the anthology contributions should also be excused.

As it seems likely that we will progress into another year, then I will make a more determined effort to get two or three new members. I would like to put a cap on the number as 18 - is that about right? I will also make an effort to get members from overseas, too, especially New Zealand, Canada, U.S.A and South Africa as these are English speaking countries, but as long as a person can write in English, then there is no bar.

Judging:
The judging is an area which is causing some debate. Putting the entries in order is difficult, but I believe that with everyone voting, it should provide the best overall assessment. I know that we will all be biased because of our own disposition towards the subject matter, but with everyone voting, it won't all be in one direction. If we just have one external judge, he/she will still have a bias. I couldn't see Andrew Taylor being smitten by a love-story (I might be wrong, of course), but he would be interested in a crime tale.

The other thing to remember is that we are all readers as well as writers. It should be readers who judge, not writers. If one writer is used as a judge, then there will always be a tendency for him/her to recognise a style which they identify and associate with: if it's a completely different style, will he/she back it? In other words, is there a danger that by using writers as judges, will writing have a tendency to become inward looking? Perhaps we should use readers who are not writers. On the other hand, by taking the voting of a group of judges, the result will always tend towards the conventional. It won't matter much with us, of course, but that's a general observation that I have with writers always doing the final judging of competitions.

Regular Challenges:

Challenge 6:
I have sent out the results for Challenge 6.

The points awarded for the on-going totals were:

Sally 3 pts

John, Zena, get a * and 2 pts, while Christine and Margaret get 2 pts without the star.

All other entries get 1 pt, while Clare and Di also get a *.

Totals of leaders so far (after 6 challenges)

	Points	Stars
Zena	12	4
Christine	11	2
Sally	11	2
Chris	10	3
Clare	10	2
Margaret	9	1
Geoff	8	1

and there are several with 7 points

Challenge 7:
Sally is collecting the judgements, and you will hear shortly.

Challenge 8:
Many apologies (again) for writing "phatic" as "pathic" - but as most of you had never heard of either word, it wouldn't have made much difference, except for the time spent in trying to put a better definition on it. Early entries indicate that it has now not only been spelt right but also been well understood.

See the Challenges page for details of Challenge 9, and the results of previous challenges.

Group Projects:
Click here for more details of the group novel, and of another idea from Chris for a group writing project.

Discussion:
I'm not putting the next topic for discussion up for discussion this time, because as I write this, I don't think the Child Write has run its course, and there are still possible thoughts about next season. There will be another topic next time.

Best wishes to you all

- Olaf