We meet every Thursday at 7.30pm to give feedback on each others’ work, but there is no obligation to come every week and some people only come occasionally. There is also no obligation to read out – members are welcome to come just to listen and give feedback.

We switched to Zoom meetings during Covid and  they work so well that we have continued to run them. We find they enable more people to attend, including members who have moved away from the Island, those with family responsibilities and those who find driving at night difficult or have no transport. In addition, we still have occasional face-to-face meetings and social events in members houses and social events.

Thursday evening sessions start with a general chat and sharing of writing news. Then everyone who has brought material along is then invited in turn to read to the group for about 10 minutes. This is generally sufficient to give a flavour and to find problems. After each piece the other members take turns to give friendly, constructive criticism. To make the best use of everyone’s time, the reader is encouraged not to comment until all the criticism has been given. In this way we can generally read between 4-6 scripts per evening. If there is time left over when we have finished all the readings, we discuss more general writing issues.