P.W.G Minutes of the Meeting on 16 July 2020

Venue: Neo’s Sports Bar, Peyia and Zoom

Present:

Jennie Rook Caroline Harman Smith Richard Powell Mike White David Greensmith Yvonne Ackrill Gina Angeletta (n)

Apologies: John Goodwin, Dee Leigh, Nikki Burrows, June Megennis.

Greetings Scribes,

As always, we hope that you and your closest are healthy and safe.

It’s super warm here now, with lots of swimming and long cool drinks to be had. We had plenty of readings this week. Thanks to everyone who has contributed with homework and other readings.

We greeted our newest member, Gina Angeletta. Gina is from the UK and has been in Cyprus for 18 months running her Air B’n’B. She plans to continue travelling with her husband, who also writes. Gina would like to complete her memoirs and hopes to start a travel log, telling stories from the countries she’s visited in the past and in the future. Gina is passionate about motorcycles, rescuing dogs and life in general but probably not in that order. Welcome, Gina.

Readings:

Caroline: Based on a previous week’s homework – 'Silent Witness' – a body is found and the story ends with a historical note. Caroline noted that what she really enjoyed about writing was the research involved. Research is vital to make the story authentic.

This led to a discussion around the use and differences of the English language in US, Canada and UK. Where there are some words which have completely different meanings in another country or area.

Here are some fun links on the above topic:

· ‘10 words with very different meanings in England and US’ - https://bit.ly/3je7y06 From Reader’s Digest

· ‘An A-Z list of US English idioms and phrases’ - https://bit.ly/32nHYQ1

From www.usingenglish.com

· ‘Language humor’ - https://bit.ly/32oDwAD

From the US ‘Alpha dictionary’ site.

Rick: Based on this week’s homework: RuPaul (pictured above) – a descriptive piece around the Drag Queen’s American reality competition. For those not acquainted with him, check out this link: https://bit.ly/3j5Vf5X

Yvonne: Based on a previous week’s homework: ‘Choices’ – a different piece around Yvonne’s personal TV choices, having worked in the industry.

This led to a discussion on political correctness on TV and how comedy is changing because of it.

Coffee Break: 12:00 - 12:15

Readings:

Mike: ‘Lockdown Surprises’ – the life in lockdown of 2 open-relationship, neighbour couples.

Yvonne: A previous week’s homework: Word of the month – ‘Woke’ – the lesser known definition of the verb ‘woke’, to be excited or stimulated by something.

This led to a discussion on race, with the term being used recently with the ‘Black Lives Matter’ events happening around the world.

Homework:

‘The phone rang…’

Use the following prompt to write a story or scene, in any genre:

‘The phone rang. ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Hello.’ No one was there. I hung up. All the lights went out…’

(Up to 500 words)

For those attending the call or meeting, please send your piece to Jennie to upload to the PWG Zoom Group, or any other you would like feedback on.

Next meeting will be on: Thursday 23 July at Neo’s Sports Bar and on Zoom.

Term times:

We will run until Thursday July 30th 2020, for the summer.

We will return on Thursday 10th September until Thursday 17th December 2020, for the autumn.

For those interested and want to know more about Zoom, please go here for details: https://zoom.us/meetings