The Pulse Café 29 Park Road Sittingbourne
our guests will be

Emma Wiggins Head of Economy and Community Services
for SBC and
Cllr John Wright Cabinet Member for Regeneration
and Economy (including Learning, Skills and Culture) SBC

Emma and John will be speaking from 6.15-7pm about the recent arts budget cuts and how it will affect us.
This is a question and answer session.

Please join us, this meeting is open to anyone who is interested in the Arts here in Swale.

Followed at 7pm by an update on What the SAF have been up to and what we want to do!
A tour of the New Pulse Café and networking.
Light refreshments will be available.

Parking is in the car park just behind the Pulse entrance in Avenue of Remembrance. You can access the Pulse through the back gate in the corner of the car park.

We will be doing this for a while, setting tasks for meetings to stimulate writing and eventually we will no doubt have a larger body of work and increase our expertise.  Should be fun.

The Sheppey Writer’s Group met at the Ship on Shore as usual and discussed the booklets we produced for the Forum Shop and listened to work presented and read.  The next meeting at the Ship on Shore in Marine Parade will be on February 2nd. 

We look forward to a year of writing and moving forward with publications.

The theme was ‘My Place’ and although it narrowed the subject down a little it was dealt with effectively by most of the entrants.

Just a few comments before we move down the page on the poems and our choice: We looked at the subject of each poem, and the way it scanned and the use of any poetical devices. The poems were voted on by each member of the core group and, bearing in mind that apart from considerations of poetic quality, our judgement was subjective as well as objective. The winner was selected by all but one of the group as being the best expression of the theme. However, other choices did not reflect merely the theme but also ideas that were attractive and well presented.

Highly recommended were: Opening of the Swale Arts Shop by Valerie Tyler whose poem Solitude took the next place out of six chosen. Last in line was James Tipp with his A Journey Through Many Places That Were ‘My Place’.

Third place was taken by Jean Roberts for her Angel From Above with a theme that suggested divinity and divine benevolence.

Second place was chosen because it addressed the theme perfectly adding a gentle, winsome look at the poet’s home; the place she lives. The Place by Jean Clarke is a poem well deserving of a place in our competition.

Finally First place goes to Gillian Moyes for her poem The Bargeman bringing the sense of place to the heart of Sittingbourne, an icon perhaps of the towns and waterways close to the Medway and Thames estuaries; part of our local history captured in verse. 

To all writers in Sittingbourne and on Sheppey

For Sittingbourne scribes there is a new writer’s group beginning this year

and going on into 2012 and hopefully onwards. Writers from Sittingbourne

and Sheppey are invited to come along.

Next meeting in Sittingbourne:

13^th December 7pm

Contact James 01795 660 853

OR

Valerie Tyler

01795 410 794

We meet in Valerie Tyler’s home so please call for directions and to introduce yourself. 

Inaugural Meeting!

The Day – 16th November 2011

The Time – 7 pm – 9pm

For details call James on 01795 660 853

- or -

 e-mail cat-person@live.co.uk

- or -

let us know your name and contact at The Forum Shop

This is the first meeting of a new group in Sittingbourne especially for local writers.

Beginners welcome, and writers who would like to take part in a local group to

share experiences.  Poets, prose writers, family history, drama or any other writers welcome to become the hub of a

local writers group with no obligations to perform in public although we will support local public readings.

The organisers, the current Sheppey and Sittingbourne Writers Group, have experience with public readings, and have published writers as part of the core group

who enjoy listening to others and know what it is like to be a beginner, a lonely writer  sitting in that garrett. Our aim is to encourage local writers to share work, learn from

others and to help others learn.  We believe that constructive criticism (proper critique) helps writers enjoy what they do and improve their work.

We have a website for our member’s work and to post event.

We use e-mail contact to pass on news of events  and links to other writing groups, news of competitions and news of local writers.

We look forward to meeting new members.

The inaugural meeting will be a Getting to Know You meeting – your chance to tell us who you are and what you like!