Hello everyone,

General:
We’ve had a few days away to the Yorkshire Dales in glorious weather. Somehow, even though I’m there for the walking, I still can’t escape from the ideas that words can prompt. I’ll give you two examples.

(1)The first follows from Christine’s comments on ugly words – although I’ll extend it to phrases. We went to Appleby (atlases out for those who don’t know where it is) and there are two churches there. On the one on the hill there is a lych-gate erected sometime in the middle of last century. It bears and engraved message over the entrance “To the Glory of God and the Memory of Maggie Woof”. I just think that the memory of Maggie Woof lies awkwardly with the Glory of God. I didn’t have time to explore who Maggie Woof was - I thought perhaps a dog, but I discovered later that Woof is actually a surname in those parts.

(2)Wherever I go, I like to read the local newspaper to get the feeling of the locality. The local paper (which has the wonderful title of the Craven Herald and Pioneer had a small column about a plaque being unveiled to a Grassington businessman, Peter Wallbank. He apparently ran a haberdashery store in the village for many years, and was a member of the local Chamber of Trade and the Dickensian Society. So far, so good, but then it went on to say that Mr Wallbank had lived in the Dales for nearly 60 years and earned the honour of selling the most knicker elastic in the North in his shop.

Considering that Grassington is just a small village, why did all those people (women mostly, one supposes) make the journey from all over the north, just to be served by Mr Wallbank? The mind boggles with ideas!!

Challenges:
I am grateful to David (and Dianne) for sorting out the marks for Challenge 8: it was a very unfortunate set of circumstances that led to the problem.

Points for Challenge 9:

Clare 3 pts.

Tara and Christine get 2 pts and a * each

Geoff and Sally get 1 pt each

- and of course every entry gets 1 pt in addition to any of the above.

That makes the leaderboard

Clare 23 pts and 3*
Sally 20 pts and 2*
Geoff 20 pts
Christine 18 pts and 5*
Chris 18 pts and 3*
Zena 18 pts and 1*
Celia 18 pts

We have now finished our writing of the last challenge for this season, and all (!!) we have to do now is the judging. I am looking forward to reading the entries. I’ll send round the up-dated leader-board as soon as I have digested the results of challenge 9.

Members asked if we could have comments from an experienced writer of judge. I think we must continue with our system of judging, but getting additional comments from an external judge would be valuable. I’ve now spoken to one writer, and she’s agreed to look over a set of entries and pass her comments on them: the problem is that she and her husband have only recently moved to the area, and they are working flat out to get their property right for their horses. But I’ll pass her the set of entries for either Challenge 9 or 10.

Members:
We’ve had several members with health problems of one kind or another, but I’m pleased to note that Margie and Dianne are definitely making progress. I hope Betty is recovering, too, and any others who have had problems. That includes David, of course, but he has recovered so well –at least on the surface – that it’s difficult to think of him in any other way.

However, Dianne’s comment about her left hand is impatient for her right hand to catch up is a problem I have. In my case, I think it’s more to do with age – and arthritis – that anything else though, but it does lead to a number of mis-spellings which I have to go back and correct. As I’ve got a very light-touch keyboard for my desk PC I need all the spell-check facilities.

Promotion of Alpha:
I’m planning to get a further mention in Writers’ News in the September issue. I think it always pays to keep any group in the general public eye, at least

Because Alpha is so successful – I think we all love it – one of my aims is to encourage other groups to form such a group. It’s difficult to get coverage to promote it, because it isn’t just simple online promotion: what is really needed is either to explain what we have achieved to a bigger audience, or to get one of our ideas accepted on a wider scene.

That’s why I tried to get the Winchester Conference to accept the idea of a talk. Barbara Large at first seemed enthusiastic by the idea, but I’ve now had a reply saying that the committee didn’t think those attending would be very interested! - and anyway, how could the hour’s lecture be filled adequately? I have replied, accepting the decision, of course, pointing out that Conference organisers should not only satisfy their routine audiences but also be prepared to look outside narrow horizons to something different. Anyway, as far as my talk was planned, apart from explaining Alpha, the discussions we have, our marking system and the Writers Log, I have on file from the last 3 years alone, over 100,000 words from 400 entries on 30 challenges from which to select about 25 minutes content of the talk.

But I’m never daunted by one refusal. I have several other ideas which I intend to follow up. I have had an encouraging response from my approach to my former school in Taunton, but I have to wait for the teacher concerned to return from a visit to New Zealand.

Best wishes,

- Olaf