Committee Meeting 26-Feb-2026 Minutes
Minutes of the Committee Meeting held on 26th February 2025 by Violet Rook
- Present: Chris Huck, Liz Ashcroft, Henry Curry, Violet Rook, Vanessa Lester, Gary Carr, Kevin Machin, Susan Cartwright-Smith, Ellie Stevenson, John Grieve, Gill Scholey.
- Apologies: Jennifer Margrave, Elle Stevenson, Louise Courtney, Henry Curry (was on holiday).
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Minutes of previous meeting: The minutes were sent out the previous night. Need to go through them for accuracy and matters arising. These were accepted.
LA indicated she had not received the documents.
VR asked those present if they had received the minutes. Everyone indicated they had. KM said he would put them on the website in future too. VR indicated she would read out the topics for the benefit of LA.
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Matters arising: Secretary indicated she had made an action list. KM and HC had set up a page on the website to include the books of members. VR, HC and others had sent their work to be included on same.
VL had setup a schedule of monthly meetings for individual members plus an online page for members to upload their work. GS and VR had attended.
SCS organised the Valentine flash fiction competition and the judge for same.
LA had obtained the signature for the bank from CH. VR had sent the said form via post. She had received documents from the previous Treasurer by post.
KM and VL to analyse and work on database/spreadsheet.
CH to send information to committee in regard to the Wentworth weekend.
- Chairman's report from Chris Huck: This report was read by LA. 16 members have said they will attend. Maximum number for the event could be 18. Eight have paid already. Cost £255. Northern College indicated they did not want payment immediately. Those attending were from many areas of the country.
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Treasurer's report: Liz Ashcroft provided a verbal update regarding the financial balances.
Deposit Account: £10,301.99.
Current Account: £5.478.17.
Credits: Amazon Media 29/1/26: £2.07.
2/1/2026 and 9/1/2026 T. Baldock and A. Humphrey paid £15 by BACS.
Expenses: Penny (previous Treasurer) 16/2/2026 £15, Postage - £10.25.
Ionos £9 and £17.99.
18/2/2026-Emily Dickson £25 first prize flash fiction.
No access to Paypal.
Received 9 payments for flash fiction.
5 payments for Wentworth £1,275.
She indicated she now had her acknowledgement from the bank as the Treasurer. But indicated the difficulty of the online form regarding the two other bank signatories. She would contact the bank and get advice on other method to allow these applications.
Members indicated their difficult experiences regarding similar situations. It was agreed that there should be a time limit to ensure the bank provided the necessary information. The Treasurer said she would contact the bank again within the week.
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Membership Secretary's report from Violet Rook: This report had been sent to the committee. Details were provided about actions undertaken between 6th December to 10th January 2026. These included the setting up a WhatsApp group. Also, the sending of emails providing the new password for the members website page. Examples of the emails sent to advertise the special individual membership offer. Vanessa Lester drafted the email. This gained five new members to that date. These had been sent a welcome letter, newsletter and a copy of the Link magazine.
Vanessa Lester added to the conversation regarding the structure of the monthly meetings for the individual members which she indicated she would facilitate, but committee members could attend. She would provide a schedule and send it to the committee, and a Zoom link would also be provided. The Membership Secretary said she attended the first meeting which was on 26th January at 6.30pm.
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Competition reports from Liz Ashcroft and Susan Cartwright-Smith: SCS indicated the information about the Valentine flash fiction competition. The usual judge did not reply therefore she had asked Jude Davison a member of her group. He had an extensive background in the music industry, and in writing. His selections were sent to the members of the committee and put on the website and on social media. A total of £29.67 profit was made from the competition.
There was a discussion regarding online submissions and the problems of a member of SCS group. Also examples of filtering in regard to entries. It was agreed that LA and SCS did not shortlist entries just checked them for word count and correct rules of entry.
LA indicated the number of entries for the members' competition so far. There had been 13 entries who had submitted 34 entries between. Open poetry and memoir having 5 each being the most popular. But no entries for romance or the category for children.
- Secretary's report from Violet Rook: A report had been sent to the members which indicated the work done during the time period since the previous meeting. Discussions had also occurred via email with KM and VL regarding the database/spreadsheet.
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Technician's report from Kevin Machin: This report was put on the website and copied and pasted into a word document by the secretary. KM indicated three points:
- The website was getting to a point to enable switching from the old one to the new one.
- Work had started on the writing group directories, but was not fully connected to the database.
- The database needed attention to ensure information was not lost. KM proposed he and VL should work together to make the database more user friendly.
VL said it was not accurate enough, and that she KM, LA and VR need to join together to further discuss these issues. LA indicated the large numbers in some group. VR said it would be helpful if groups provided the names of their members.
The discussion indicated that HC had established a new membership file recently and archive other database files. This new file had been added to by VR with new member details. She had also had to send the database to LA on occasion so LA could download it or open it.
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Newsletter report from Violet Rook: The newsletter for January had been sent out. It had included information on the anthology The Write Path. Also details of the members' and the free competition which began in December 2025. Plus some general details of writing events in the country, also the flash fiction competition for Valentines day.
The edition in March would include information about Wentworth and the new members' open competition starting in April. Also information about the individual members monthly meetings.
VL said she did not want details about the work page for this to be mentioned in the newsletter. She might be on holiday on 30th March, therefore GS and VR would attend the event.
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Link magazine editor's report: No written report was received. Henry Curry was on holiday. The deadline for submissions for Link magazine would be 28th February. This would give time for SB to send the copy to HC who is the compositor of the magazine.
KM asked about the position of Steve Bowkett the magazine editor. It was indicated he was an honorary member of the committee and there was an open invitation for him to attend at any time. LA said she would indicate this to SB.
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Online events & courses 2026: Gary had provided written reports on the sub-committee to date. These had been sent to the secretary a few hours prior to the meeting. Since she had been on two teams meetings during the afternoon, the only 5 of the documents had been forwarded to the committee. The other 3 would be sent after the meeting.
They had discussed a "distributed festival", where events take place in various locations on the same day. GC spoke to the reports he had sent indicating the need for a number of events in differing areas. Also that groups should be encouraged to run these "festival" events.
He had costed these events and all the information was in the reports sent by the secretary to the committee. Details also needed to be indicated in the forthcoming newsletter.
LA indicated she had not received them. The other members concurred that they had received the attachments. VR asked whether the problem might be concerned that LA was using an IPAD. KM said he would put the attachments from GC on Dropbox. HC would be asked to give GS permission to login to Dropbox. VR mentioned that KM had provided a good guide paper about Dropbox which everyone should download.
(CG had to leave the meeting due to a family emergency. JG also left the meeting at the same time.)
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Any other business: A general discussion. GS said there had been mention of a monthly workshop for members. VR suggested CG might do a workshop about Sonnets. She would ask him. Others mentioned topics such writing books on history, and also Simon Whalley he might do a workshop on crime thrillers.
KM asked about ES and a workshop on self publishing. It was said the time schedule had prevented this, but she might be still keen to be involved. VR indicated Linda France did a writing hour wherein individuals wrote to a prompt and that could be used as a model for a workshop too. SCS could also do a workshop in regard to poetry.
LA mentioned acquiring items to advertise NAWG such as pens and note books. VR said these could be acquired from Amazon quickly and cheaply.
There was also a discussion concerning the lack of members in Scotland. SCS said JG lived in Moffet but was a member of her group in Carlisle.
There was also a comment about patrons such as Julian Fellows and others attending the future events and festivals or recording talks which could be used at future events. Mention was made of the writer Mike Craven who might be encouraged to be involved in further festivals. It was agreed this was a good idea and needed further discussion and research and a plan needed to be formed.
- Date for next meeting: 26th March 2026 at 7 pm.