HISTORY
This are being a brief walk-through of the writers group/z from which I'm blagging material for these pages.
ROBIN WOODS CREATIVE WRITERS: A long-established mob, formed in 1988. Now meets (as of May 5th 2005) at Norton Community Centre, Kempton Way, Norton, Stourbridge, West Midlands, on Thursday mornings between the hours of 10.30 and 12.30. (Allegedly...)
All very informal; it's a group not a class, and there's much chit-chat and banter - also slurping of coffee and munching of Penguins. Writing is perpetrated during the proceedings, mainly by means of set "exercises," though spur-of-the-moment ideas sometimes take over.
Membership is in the region of 16 to 18, but regular attendance is about nine to a dozen per week. The group is open to all comers, and costs are minimal; meeting in daytime tends to preclude working people, but all are united in a love of writing, and conversation can take off in amazing directions.
As a well-established group, there are communications from organisations nationwide, offering the opportunity to enter a variety of competitions or informing members of publications/projects of interest.
The group, over the years, has produced anthologies of work produced by the membership.
THE NIGHT SHIFT HAD returned, meeting on a Wednesday evening in a real pub: the Royal Exchange in Enville Street, Stourbridge. Sodly it faded recently, and now awaits, dormant, until someone applies fresh impetus...
Like the Robin Woods group, it wasn't a formal class, but - unlike the R.W. - there is an amount of beer consumed (hoho) by very uncertain members.
A loose affiliation indeed, who visit poetry events in the area, regaling all and sundry with a range of material, some of which makes sense. More details can be obtained via the "Contact" thingy on the front of this doodad - you know.