Greetings, fellow wordsmiths! I hope the writing is going well!
I’d like to invite all of you to our August meeting. Besides having an awesome panel discussion, we are going to review the changes that the Board has agreed on to help KWA continue to thrive.
KWA has been around for 16+ years. It hasn’t changed much since its inception. This is a problem – it means we’re no longer serving our members. Publishing has changed. Researching has changed. Writing has changed. Even the ability to meet and interact with other writers has changed. The world we live in today is not something anyone could have envisioned 16 years ago.
We had several Board meetings in July to discuss how to make KWA relevant. We kept several questions in mind: What would best serve our membership? How do we offer our members even more opportunities to interact? How do we promote our members – and help them learn how to promote themselves? How do we best utilize our resources? We took a hard look at all of our offerings to decide what to focus on for our future.
Effective immediately, we will no longer have an Adult Contest and will take an indefinite hiatus from the Scene Conference. However, we will continue to offer a Youth Contest, as that is unique to our organization. Samantha LaFantasie is now Youth Chair.
Starting in September, the newsletter will become a weekly email with links to articles on our website and member news (book release parties, signings, blog tours, etc.).
In 2014, we will change the monthly meetings. We will still have monthly meetings, and the majority will remain open (anyone can attend). However, we will host special members-only meetings with special guests and/or featured topics. More critique meetings will be added. We are also going to rearrange the Board, and have only four Board positions (President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer). All other Board positions will become committee chairs.
A lot of change, yes? But wait, there’s more!
K.R. Bartelheimer, our Treasurer, is going to host a regular write-in every two weeks. Location and time are currently TBD. Gordon Kessler, our current Ambassador and founding member of KWA, is going to start an affiliate program in the Kansas City area. We’re not quite sure what that entails just yet, but we are excited to be able to reach more of Kansas.
We do appreciate your patience as we strive to incorporate these changes, and we look forward to hearing from you.
Keep writing! Lisette