officers meeting – Catholic Writers Guild

After a break for the summer (though we did meet), the officers are up and Skyping again, catching up on the past and prepping for the future. First thing we want you to know:

Officer Elections are in November! We discussed it and we will stay on as your officer cadre if you wish (though Karina would like to be committee coordinator and Dave would be secretary). However, that’s if no one else wants to run. Check out the forums for a list of duties and to nominate yourself or others.

We only have a couple more days to get registrants for the retreat. We have 12 so far. Register by September 26 (Monday). This is a terrific opportunity and a great price. All members and CWG website guests got an e-mail about this Wednesday; for anyone else interested, check out the press release on the homepage, http://catholicwritersguild.com

Ann Lewis, our intrepid Madame President, met with our advisors at the Archdiocese of Indianapolis about how they want to be involved. They’ll attend our annual board meeting and keep an eye on our doings via the minutes. Monsignor Schaedel also wants to help out with the Seal of Approval and blog once a month. What a treat! They’ll also send out notices of CWG events to the Catholic education heads in the diocese.

We have about $950 for the website–half our goal–and have sent out the spec documents, and will let you know more about the website rebuild as the bids come in.

We have hired a new treasurer. Diane Guay was a great help to us for the first six months of incorporation, but she’s moving on, and we are hiring Mark Rhodes of Indiana. He came recommended by the Archdiocese and has already given us some great advice on simplifying the accounting–a real relief for us non-financial types!

We’re gearing up for the online conference! Anne McNesby will be working to get our awesome presenters, and Laura Lowder our much-needed and appreciated volunteers. More on this later!

We may be changing the date and location of the live conference. The Catholic Marketing Network gives us the conference space, so we follow them, and they are looking at Dallas and later in August. Thanks to those who took the survey on the dates. (We have no input on place, though we recommended Indianapolis.) We’ll let you know.

Our publicity committee has been doing an awesome job. Thanks.

We have a new Sunday Chats Coordinator. Susi Pittman is taking over this month and will be working to line up some terrific folks to chat with us. We have a guest chat once a month; the rest are open chats. Theresa Henderson and Lisa Mladinich will stay on to help. Welcome, Susi!

Sarah Reinhard has a new right hand for the Seal of Approval. Welcome Carol Ann Chybrowski, and thanks for stepping up!

Michelle Buckman will take over the Catholic Arts and Letters Awards Committee. We still need more volunteers to help with this, but thanks to Sharon Pickrel, Carol Ann, and Bobbi Sheahan for volunteering!

We toyed with the idea of a facebook group, but decided to stay as a fan page.

We are moving slowly with the CWG essay contest. Maria Rivera now had two volunteers to help (Joan Kelly and Ann Costa), and needs to coordinate with them on everything from rules to judging. We had a pro-life group offer to help judge and had suggestions for a couple of others, so stay tuned for further details!

Karina has at long last gotten all the minutes loaded onto the member forums, so if you are a member and deathly curious about the minutia of an officer’s meeting, check them out.

That’s the highlights of the summer. Thanks to all who are pitching in to make the Guild a terrific organization. We can’t do it without you!

Blessings,
Karina Fabian
Secretary

Hi, Members! Karina Fabian here with the behind-the-scenes scoop on the happenings in the Guild (or at least in “officer country”):

* We are having an essay contest! We’re still working out some of the details with the coordinator, Maria Rivera, but I can tell you the topic is “How to Create a Prolife Culture” and the deadline for submissions will be December or January. Start thinking, but DON’T SEND ANYTHING until we get the rules out. We’ll publicize, promise! This will be open to non-members, too.

* We’re still hashing out some details on the October Writer’s Retreat. This is different from a conference in that it will be smaller, more intense, and more writing focused. I can tell you it’s in Michigan, and that we’ve got shuttle service from the airport to the retreat center. More later!

* We’re talking about increasing dues, but “grandfathering” everyone who is a current member on the subscription program, meaning those members will stay on the the current rate of $24 a year. We’re going to ask our accountant (Diane Embry, the Detail Diva) do an analysis of the Guild expenses to see how much/how little we need to raise it. We have a lot of expenses, and with the increase in activities, we expect more.

* Speaking of activities, we have a lot of great stuff going on. The newest development is the Catholic Writers Guild Wiki, which will be a special showcase just for Catholic writers. Dave Law is going to get the coding worked out in the next couple of weeks and import as many Catholic writers as he can from Wikipedia. Then he’ll start adding other authors.

* The volunteer drive has been a success so far, and has taken the pressure off some very busy committees. However, we still need some help. Here are the most urgent needs:

–We need someone with some basic knowledge of HTML or BBC code to code the Inside the CWG newsletter.
–We need writers for the CWG newsletter.
–We will need editors and helpers with the Catholic Writers Wiki, a project which should start up in a couple of weeks.
–We may some assistants with the Essay Contest
–The Live Conference needs helpers

That’s the gist for this month. Stay tuned for more exciting news from your Guild.

Blessings,
Karina

Tag Archive for: officers meeting

What’s Up, CWG? (September 2011)

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