Wellington City Council Literary Hui

Wow - 2 posts in one week. Dangerously like regularity.

I spent yesterday participating in a consultative arts hui run by a very experienced facilitator, Lawrence Green, for the Wellington City Council. Most of the time I felt completely out of my depth (nothing new), but my skills at creative mind-mapping came in useful, and I'm pretty good at putting things up on walls with drawing pins, so it wasn't a complete waste of time. The day essentially resulted in reminding Wellington writers of how hard it is to get the resourcing and information we need in order to thrive. There was a variety of suggestions for actions that could be taken to assist writers, and some of them were quite exciting (literary tourism, for example). Overall it was interesting to take part, but it was probably significant that a day that started with about 50 participants ended with around 20. Does this indicate that it wasn't interesting enough to stay till the end? That those who left had more important things to do? That those who left have no confidence in the possibility of an improvement of the artist's lot? I don't know. I stayed because I'm a persistent little devil, and I can't bear not to see how things turn out. In the event, I can't really remember what if anything I learned from the day, other than that others seem so much more in touch with things than I am.

So this weekend I'm off to the Mensa Annual Gathering and AGM, being held in the exciting city of Lower Hutt. The benefit of hosting this event is supposed to be that you get to attend without having to miss the comfort of your own bed, but as the venue is near Silverstream, and there's a bit of drinking involved on both Friday (cocktails) and Saturday (dinner and wine) nights, I'm biting the bullet and doing the sensible thing of living in. Sylvia will take care of the animals, and Wally and I won't have to fight over who gets to drink and who gets to drive. And, much more importantly, I won't have to get up early on Saturday morning to get there for Wally's talk at 10am. (Who was the idiot who scheduled such an early start? Oh, that's right - it was I.) Should be a fun weekend; it usually is.