The Writers 2000 held its first meeting of 2016 on January 26.
It was also the inaugural meeting for the new committee that was elected in November 2015.
The group is run by a voluntary committee, with members holding office for a period of two years.
Ms Nicolette Bosman has another year in office as the chairperson, Mr Michael Cordes was elected vice-chairperson and Mr Jan Venter took over as treasurer. Ms Burgie Ireland will continues as editor of the group’s magazine and Mr Garth Coetzer will also continue as marketing coordinator. Ms Antoinette Reis will remain membership coordinator while Ms Meggan Preuss was elected secretary.
In addition, Ms Tessa Whelan volunteered to oversee the catering needs of the group, while Mrs Sue Guthrie took office as trustee. The group relies on the services of volunteers and is grateful for the willingness of all who assist.
In the morning, W2000 member Ms Jill Jacques, a retired English teacher with an MA in English and Life Line counselling qualifications, ran a workshop on Mindfulness – Living in the Moment. Ms Jacques has been running Living in the Moment courses for more than 10 years. In response to repeated requests from her students, she wrote her book, Living in the Now.
“The present is what we have right now, and in an ideal world, we would enjoy and relish it. However, in our busy world we are so caught up in demands for our attention, such as email, the internet, our cellphones, work demands and our daily schedules that we are rarely able to just enjoy being in the now. Mindfulness is the art of quieting the mind to enable yourself to be in the now,”she said.
The workshop included some practical exercises. Copies of her book were also sold at the meeting. For more information about her courses and the book, contact her on jillmjacques@gmail.com.
In 2014 Ms Jacques attended the Jaipur Book Festival in India and during the afternoon meeting she kept members intrigued with her accounts of the festival and the interesting country it took place in.
W2000 is an interest group for people who have a love for writing. They meet on the last Saturday of the month at the Inyoni Creek Clubhouse, Rand Aid Complex, corner of Wordsworth and Modderfontein roads, Lyndhurst. Meetings start at 1:45pm for 2pm. There is a door fee of R15 for members and R20 for non-members.
The speaker at the February meeting on February 27 will be Mrs Marietta Lombard, the editor of Bedfordview and Edenvale News. She will be speaking about how community journalists today are becoming multimedia practitioners.
Contact chairperson Ms Nicolette Bosman for more information about this function or the group at w2000@telkomsa.net/082 924 5735.
