2013
In January 2013 Chairman Tony Flood emphasised how successful many members had become; a number were now well published authors, joined this month by Emmy Yoshida’s new book ‘Corrupted.’ In February he stated: “Anderida Writers reached a new landmark when the number of published authors amongst our members moved into double figures. Gary Tulley had written a detective thriller, ‘Once upon a Spook,’ which was launched in January at Chapter 12 Wine Bar, Hailsham, joining a list of published authors including Mike Fleming, Liz Wright, Emmy Yoshida, Jill Rutherford, Diane Brookens, Phillippa Drake, Brigitte Sumner, Harry Pope, Heather Flood and myself. Dave Wells and Francis Wait are hoping to be published soon.”

Two local bookshops were being very supportive of writers, The Bumper Book Shop, in Grove Road, and Tome Books, in Terminus Road. Heather Flood signed copies of her new book ‘Mousey, Mousey and the Witches’ Revenge’ whilst Tony Flood’s fantasy adventure book ‘The Secret Potion’ would also be available at Bumper Books. A number of Anderida authors gathered at Tome Books for a ‘Mini Book Festival’ of readings and signings.

Members of the Creative Writing Group, from the Eastbourne Seniors Club for the Over Fifties, run by Tony and Heather Flood, have had a new book published called ‘Twist in the Tales,’ a collection of 16 intriguing short stories by the ‘We’re Not Dead Yet’ writers. These include Anderida members Christine Dudley, Francis Wait, Tony and Heather Flood and guest members Ernie Richardson and Elizabeth Gibbs.

Dorit Oliver Wolff was writing her story as a survivor of the Holocaust who became an international singing star. She spoke at Holocaust Memorial Day Services in Hastings and Eastbourne, to honour those who were persecuted and killed by the Nazis.

The Club was invited to take part in the Club’s and Societies Open Day, at the Enterprise Shopping Centre.

At the February meeting Chairman Tony Flood passed on tips from website designer Gareth Thomas on how to improve websites and get higher Google ratings. Rex Sumner of My Voice Publishing gave advice on increasing book sales with good marketing techniques.

Eastbourne Hospital Radio had recorded eight short stories and four poems donated by Anderida members to be broadcast to the patients. Ian Clegg and Sue Long read for the recordings and volunteer Richard Barnicoat did the voice mixing etc.

Liz Baker stepped down from Newsletter Editor and was thanked by all for her hard work in compiling, editing and distributing copies to all members and guests. Future editions would be edited by Tony Flood and formatted by Maria Louka.

At the AGM in March there were proposed changes to some of the Club Rules as follows:
1/ The annual subscription should be increased to £26 a year.
2/ Guest fees should be increased to £4 a visit (up to 5 visits during the 12 months from the date of the first visit.)
3/ Changes to the Constitution;
a/ Section 3 ‘Membership’, addition as follows: The maximum period in which a person can attend as a guest member for up to 5 visits is 12 months from the first visit. After that they need to take out a full membership. The amount they have paid in guest fees during the club’s current membership year for subscriptions (from April to March) will be deducted from the subscription fee they need to pay in that year.
b/ Section 12. Competitions. Addition as follows: Guest members are eligible to submit one entry per person for each in-house ‘closed’ competition, provided they have attended at least two meetings in the year of the competition up to the closing date.

OFFICERS ELECTED WERE:
Chairman – Tony Flood.
Vice Chairman – Jenny Jewiss.
Secretary – Liz Baker.
Treasurer – Roger Hardman.
Membership Secretary – Liz Wright.
Competition Secretary – Mike Fleming.
Joint Newsletter editors – Tony Flood and Maria Louka.
Website Editor – Liz Baker.
Press Officer – Mike Fleming.
Librarian – Francis Wait.
Catering Officer – Heather Flood.
Liaison Officer – Dave Wells.
Auditor – Mike Smith.

Award winning speaker, author and publisher Rob Palmer gave a talk on How to Write and Publish Best Selling Books. He said, “There has never been a better time to be a writer.”

Arrangements were in hand for the 2013 in-house writing competition on the theme of ‘Reflections.’ Short stories up to 800 words, poems up to 40 lines.

Tome Bookshop hosted a book launch in April for “Twists in the Tales”, from the ‘We’re not Dead yet Writers.’

Mike Fleming was short-listed for the 2012 H.E.Bates Short Story Competition.

Elizabeth Wright was invited by Lightwind Production of Haywards Heath to take part in a short informative film about Beachy Head, entitled ‘Two White Flashes Every Twenty Seconds,’ while Jill Rutherford had an amusing piece in the April issue of Writing Magazine about the ‘Perils of Book Signings.’

Russell Gibson, of Gibson Publishing, who produced Emmy Yoshida’s and Gary Tulley’s books, was the guest speaker at the April main meeting. Eastbourne Seniors Club increased the fees for the hall hire. The Anderida Accolade for services to the Club went to valued joint winners Jenny Jewiss and Michael Fleming. Tony Flood made a presentation to retiring Newsletter Editor, Liz Baker. The number of published authors reached 15.

Anderida member Brigitte Sumner organised the Eastbourne Writes Festival, where a competition and various writing related activities were held at the Enterprise Shopping Centre, Tome Book Shop and the Towner Art Gallery. There were several guest speakers, including crime writers Tom Beale and Ellie Griffiths, and workshops throughout each day. In the competition the first six winners in each category and each age group would have their short stories and poems published in ‘The Word is Out,’ a paperback as well as an e-book for Kindle, courtesy of My Voice Publishing. Ms Sumner said, ‘The writing competition is open to everyone, not just those living in Eastbourne. This is a golden opportunity for all authors, both new and old, to overcome the difficulties associated with getting published because we will be fast tracking them.’ Heading for inclusion were Mike Fleming, Tony Flood, David Wells, Roger Hardman, Lena Bowling, Maria Louka and 93 year old Harry Bankhead.

A group of Anderida members travelled to the Gatehouse Theatre, Highgate, London in August to see the Club’s Patron, Jeffrey Holland, appear as legendary comedian Stan Laurel in the one-man play ‘Mr Laurel.’

The August meeting, held at Tony and Heather Flood’s house, now a popular annual social evening with a BBQ, followed by poetry session and amusing limericks.

At the meeting at Alice Croft House, American best selling author James Lovegrove gave a talk about his science fiction/fantasy novels, and mentioned his latest project, a Sherlock Holmes book.

Heather and Tony Flood were featured in ETC magazine, while Liz Wright and Dorit Wolff had mentions in the local press. Dorit hoped to get a publishing deal for her memoires after being one of the runners-up in a Memoire Writing competition run by national magazine ‘Woman and Home.’ Part of her prize was being introduced to a literary agent.

At the May meeting author Leslie Tate stated that it was now much harder to be accepted by mainstream publishers; authors needed to produce startling, shocking and powerful story lines, containing strong, original characters and excellent visual images that could lend themselves to a film or TV drama. Self publishing might be the answer for many writers.

Diane Brookens, a member of the actor’s union Equity, and an experienced speech and drama teacher, was willing to give Anderida members lessons in public speaking.

Liz Wright suggested that, as many Anderida Writers members were producing excellent short stories, perhaps they could be put together an anthology and submitted to the Writing Magazine’s annual ‘Writers’ Circle Anthology Award.’ Having researched previous winners, she felt that the Club members had the writing talent, and with team work and rigorous editing the end result could be a professional production worthy of submitting for judges’ consideration and the £250 prize. Due to her heavy workload she was unable to see this through, but no one felt they were able to take this project on.

July saw the Annual Members’ writing competition. Patron, professional actor Jeffrey Holland, and his wife Judy Buxton, read 21 excellent entries on the theme of ‘Reflections.’ Chairman Tony Flood won the competition for the second successive year with his short story, ‘Reflections on a Sexual Fantasy,’ while Jill Rutherford’s entry, ‘Reflections on Childhood,’ and ‘I never won the Lottery,’ were second and third. Equal fourth were Dave Wells, Jenny Jewiss and Lena Bowling. New member Hazel Elrick won the poetry competition with ‘Reflections on Elections,’ with liz Wright‘s ‘Am I really like that?’ was second and Heather Flood’s entries ‘The Empty Beach’ and ‘Death by Spud,’ were joint third. Prizes included a grand afternoon tea for two at the Langham Hotel, gift voucher from hair and beauty salon, ‘Dynamics,’ a £20 Waterstone’s Voucher, two tickets from the Devonshire Park Theatre, two cinema tickets for the Curzon, a book voucher from Tome Books, a bottle of wine and books by authors Leslie Tate and Sue Hampton.

New member Josephine McCauley joined the list of Anderida’s published authors with her book, ‘Romano-British History’ which tells the story of how the Romans invaded Britain.

Francis Wait launched his recently published book, ‘The Survivalists- Getting There’ at Tome Bookshop, Terminus Road, Eastbourne. Although fiction, it is based on the fact that the Yellowstone Caldera in America is threatening to explode again and cause global devastation.

Josephine McCauley suggested that Anderida Writers may wish to be involved in a planned Bookfest to be held at the Beachy Head Hotel.

By August website designer Gareth Thomas had put together an impressive redesigned website and Chairman Tony Flood said: “This has received some favourable comments and should help us further improve our image as a go ahead, friendly writing group.”

The guest speaker at the September meeting was 82-year-old actor and writer Anthony Chamberlaine-Brothers, who also talked about his role as curator of Eastbourne’s Heritage Centre.

Liz Wright had a successful book signing at the Hampden Park Sainsbury’s. She sold a good number of copies of ‘Belle Tout-the Little Lighthouse that Moved’, as well as a few of her other two books, ‘From Fancy Pants to Getting There,’ and ‘Made in Sussex.’ This was quickly followed by an invitation by BBC Radio Sussex to visit their Brighton studio for a recorded chat with popular broadcaster Danny Pike.

Heather and Tony Flood went to W.H.Smiths at Brighton for book signings of ‘The Secret Potion,’ ‘Twist in the Tales,’ ‘My Life with the Stars,’ ‘Giant Sticker Monster,’ ‘Mousey, Mousey and the Witches’ Revenge’ and ‘Mousey, Mousey and the Witches’ Spells.’

The ‘Anderida Writers Forum,’ set up by Tony Flood on Facebook, quickly gained 19 members, and contributions produced responsive lively discussions.

Changes were made to the Anderida Constitution at an Extraordinary General Meeting at Alice Croft House on Tuesday November 12th, including switching the AGM from March to April to coincide with the club’s subscription year. The changes are underlined as follows:

PROPOSALS BY ROGER HARDMAN, AMENDED BY MIKE SMITH, SECONDED BY MICHAEL FLEMING:
SECTION 6 – MANAGEMENT
An examiner to inspect the accounts shall be appointed at the AGM.

SECTION 7 – MEETINGS
Regular meetings shall normally be held on the second Tuesday of each month. The Annual Genera Meeting shall be held in April of each year, for which the necessary notice of at least 21 days shall be given to members.

SECTION 11 – FINANCES AND FINANCIAL YEAR
The financial year ends on 31st March. A balance sheet, as at 31st March, and profit and loss account, showing all the income and outgoings for the year to 31st March, shall be provided by the Treasurer to the examiner of these accounts, together with a bank statement, in time to allow the examiner to approve these. These relevant papers shall be given to the secretary and chairman in order for them to be submitted to the AGM. The treasurer will then present the inspected accounts up to the end of the club’s financial year, to the AGM, normally on the second Tuesday in April, seeking the approval of members.
Monetary assets should be kept in the club’s own bank or building society instant access account, which should be subject to two signatures being needed for withdrawals from two out of the four following officials: Chairman, Treasurer, Secretary, Vice Chairman or Membership Secretary. Monies paid to the club should be banked within seven days. The treasurer will normally keep some cash in hand in the order of £20. This will be accounted for in the cash account.

PROPOSALS BY TONY FLOOD, AMENDED BY ROGER HARDMAN AND SECONDED BY MICHAEL FLEMING.

SECTION 12 – COMPETITIONS
Competition rules shall be drawn up by a Competition Committee of at least three members, including the Competition Secretary, and be approved by the club Chairman. Entries for competitions must be submitted to the Competition Secretary by the deadline given.

Members Laura Crean and Hazel Elrick shared a table at the Christmas Craft Fair at the Ventnor Centre in November. This event showcased Laura’s Rainbow series of children’s books and Hazel sold individual poems. Past member Lyndsay Crawford-Jones, having done a proof reading course, offered her services to Anderida members. For professional editing, Tony Flood, Jay Dixon and Jacq Malloy were also available.

Welcome and valued tips on blogging were offered by Lynne Hale and Mike Wallagher, and author Leslie Tate was willing to help members improve their poetry or prose.

Liz Wright pointed out that if any Anderida members had books for sale through Amazon, they could now have a free ‘Author page,’ which would give web visitors more information on individual writers. This could include a biography, a list of published books, book signings, reviews, and pictures. Once registered, writers would then have personal access to ‘Author Central’ (free) where your books are listed with their sales information; A recommended useful tool.

The year ended on a ‘high’ with 17 members going to the annual Christmas Dinner, which was held at a new location, ‘Michelangelo’s’ in South Street. Good food, good wine, good company, and a highly amusing selection of limericks.

Elizabeth Wright with radio presenter Danny Pike at BBC Radio Sussex studios, Brighton.