This page is for feedback and ideas about the group and the blog. Please use the comments below to provide feedback.
Revamp
I (Captain Black) posted an article suggesting that the group and the blog undergo a revamping exercise. Here are the ideas that have been collected so far. They have come from many members, only a few of them are my own.
- I believe that we should all have a say in how the group is run. I prefer a collaboration by the whole membership to a "central government". Where there are differences of opinion, we can vote if necessary.
- We should have another meeting. Time and place to be arranged.
- We can give the blog a facelift. There are lots of new templates available. Does anyone have any particular preferences about this? Personally I prefer readability and usability over flashy styling, but that's just me.
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Clarification of membership.
There have been some departures and some new joiners recently.
It's probably worth asking everyone about their levels of participation. For example:
- Who is willing/wants to be a coordinator? I don't just mean having admin access rights to the blog, I mean willing to help out with the organisation of the group and its activities.
- Who is going to be active versus passive? No stigma attached to either but it might be useful to know for the purposes of coordination.
- The accomplishments page needs to be updated.
- Our published books should be listed somewhere. Probably with cover pictures.
- Are we still "racing"? The details are probably out of date. If not, shall we change the name of the group?
- How a regular public face writing exercise here, say once every other week. A micro short story, five hundred words, theme set and hosted by a different racer each time?
9 comments:
The lack of comments here worries me. I'm willing to be a coordinator - I'll do anything to help this group. We need active members, regular-ish members.
I'm not sure if we are racing anymore so maybe a name change would be best. That would be the ultimate revamp.
About the new template, I'm with you Captain B. Being readable is more important than flashy styling. Just a nice subtle template maybe.
I don't want the Novel Racers to fold. I would like to see it going from strength to strength. How can I help??
I've been thinking about this for a few days and my thoughts are:
The race does seem to have faded a bit. It's a difficult thing to maintain since people will be starting at different times, so aren't really racing each other anyway. I do like the name novel racers though, and does it matter if there's not an actual race?
Template wise I agree readability is the most important, given what we're writing about!
I'm happy to help organise things. I'll put a new post up linking to this page, as people may have missed that it's here.
Writing exercises might be fun, but I doubt I'd contribute short stories as I find them too hard/time consuming to do on a regular basis. Something shorter or the type of thing you did last week with a 'what next/why' theme might be fun.
I'm still thinking and will try to put a few more ideas here in the next couple of days.
Thanks Denise! Good ideas there!
To be honest, i like the name Novel Racers too. i don't think it would be the same if we changed it.
I don't really know if I'd have time to be more active on here -- I have several forums I'm very active on already plus my own four blogs. I have to say I've stopped 'racing' and just plod slowly onwards.
Thanks Kev for starting the discussion.
I don't think I'd be able to commit more time here either at the moment. The day job and my other writing commitments are taking up too much time and energy, and I wouldn't want to offer to do it and then not stick at it.
I will try to be better at attending coffee mornings though.
Wrting exercises like the one Kev did last week are fun and I'd be happy to see those appear in coffee mornings from time to time just as a way of getting people thinking and maybe generating ideas they can use in their own work. I probably wouldn't be able to find time to actually write anything substantial as a result of an exercise though.
I agree with Denise about leaving the name unchanged.
I like the idea of keeping the name, whether we're racing or not. Maybe, we could start the new race at the beginning of 2011?
I'm happy to host coffee mornings, but don't think I'd be any good with any other admin. Also, I don't think I'd really have the time right now, with my other writing committments.
I like the idea of readability too, and don't want the Novel Racers to fold. I've loved being a part of this group and enjoy taking part each week.
I love the community spirit of the Novel Racers, and am happy for the name to stay the same even if no-one's racing as such. Maybe if all members were able to update their word count regularly on the blog in some way that everyone could see, it would inspire a 'race to get finished first' mentality and bring out our competetive streaks!
A new template would be nice and I thought the brainstorming session last week was great, though everyone got there before me, and wouldn't mind seeing more of that in the future :o)
If we're still hosting coffee mornings it can be hard to come up with new topics, so maybe whoever's hosting could come up with a little exercise that the rest could take part in or not, depending on other commitments?
I do hope we keep going though.
kev - can we have a post on the main site to get everyone over to the private blog to discuss a meet? i know i'm not a member anyone so am a bit shy of posting on here but would love to attend a meet if someone is willing to arrange (and i'm sure someone will!).
B: Your wish is my command.
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