Minutes of First Tuesday, held on 3 November 2009 at Carr’s Irish Pub

Minutes taken by Pamela Lake

Present:
Gregor Dallas
Pamela Lake
Graham Tullis
John Kirby Abraham
Stanley Lover
Anne Morddel
Paul Francis
Bill Clarance
Annabel Simms

1. Penguin /W.H. Smith 'monopoly'

Gregor reported on the latest developments in the campaign against this monopoly. The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) will discuss the action to be taken at their Annual Delegates’ Meeting (ADM) next week. W.H. Smith’s are, in fact, among the most author friendly bookshops in Paris and Hannah Robin, the store’s Marketing and Events Manager, confirms that the store makes their own selection of travel books. She has offered to arrange a meeting for representatives of SOAF and the NUJ with the Direction.

2. Chat Room/Self Publishing

A number of knowledgeable members have shown interest in a collective approach. Gregor has written to Mark Le Fanu, Secretary General of the Society of Authors in London, about this but has received no reply so we will have to take the initiative.

Anne said there were two issues - a chat room and self publishing.

It was agreed that Graham would register the domain name SOAFrance and also make a recommendation as to whether we set up a web site or a restricted forum.

Stanley suggested that Gregor send out a questionnaire to members asking if they are interested in self-publishing and whether they have already self-published.

John said there were many writers’ groups in Paris who would have useful information available on the subject.

Anne showed the meeting a copy of a helpful book called Le Guide pratique de l’auto-édition, published by Les Editions Universelles at 15€.

Beautiful Soon Enough @ the Village Voice Bookshop, Thursday, 12 November at 7 pm.

A VILLAGE VOICE BOOKSHOP INVITATION, 6 rue Princesse, 75006 PARIS. All readings at 7 pm sharp.

Margo Berdeshevsky returns to the Village Voice with a new book: Beautiful Soon Enough.

"A thrillingly cutting-edge work of photos and short-stories flowing together into an extended erotic dream that limns the inner lives of women deeply yearning for connection and authenticity. This is a splendid book.." Robert Olen Butler.

"So much verbal beauty, with the eternal quality of the tale or fable." 
Marilyn Hacker
A lifelong voyager, Margo Berdeshevsky is currently living in Paris. She will be introduced
 by the American poet
, Jerome Rothenberg.

Did you put a flower on your calendar for Thursday, 12 November? Hope you can be there.

Beauty is the purgation of superfluities"
— Michelangelo Buonarroti

pls visit my websites: http://www.redroom.com/author/margo-berdeshevsky
http://margoberdeshevsky.blogspot.com/


"Beautiful Soon Enough"(Fiction Collective Two /2009)
http://www.uapress.ua.edu/NewSearch4.cfm?id=136017

Minutes of the Annual General Meeting

Carr's Pub, 6 October 2009

The meeting was chaired by Gregor Dallas and the minutes were taken by Pamela Lake. Nine members were present.  The meeting opened at 6.16 pm.

 

1. Apologies for absence were received from:

Rod Brockway

Anna Brooke

William Clarance

Alison Culliford

Janet Edsforth Stone

Natasha Edwards

Martin Gregory

Jim Pollard

Noreen Riols

Gill Smith

Emma Vandore

Mark Whitcombe-Power

2. Approval of Minutes of AGM held in October 2008

The minutes were approved, proposed by Gregor Dallas, seconded by Gwyneth Hughes and carried unanimously.

 

3. Matters arising

(a) Regional committees

Gregor had sent out a circular about SOAF membership.  There are approximately 180 members, scattered throughout France.  Many of them feel isolated and would like to be able to meet with others.  Several of them would be willing to set up committees but at present the only group in existence outside Paris is in Nice.  It is run by Carol Howland  and is very active. The second largest number of members in France after Nice is in the South-West and Nick Inman would like to set up a group there but it is a huge area and the logistics are difficult.

It was suggested that in Gregor’s next circular, he should suggest the possibility of having a chat room   Shelley Power said that we could buy software for such a forum for around £100.  Another route would be via the Society of Authors and Gregor said he would write to Mark Le Fanu. Graham Tullis suggested that we could use a chat room that is already hosted and Gregor said that perhaps we could use the Society of Authors web site.  Graham said he would also send an email to the Society of Authors. 

(b) Blog/web site

Gregor said the blog doesn’t attract many comments although there are a lot of hits and he receives a great many emails from readers of the blog.  However, when we had a round table on a definite topic at a First Tuesday meeting, it did generate discussion on the blog.  People will react on specific issues.  

It was agreed to encourage members via the blog and circular emails.  It was suggested that the Society of Authors web site could have a special section on the Paris group.  Gregor and Graham will look into this.

 

 

(c) Social Security

The talk on Social Security which had been proposed at the last AGM had not taken place because at least fifty people were needed and there had been insufficient interest.  In any case, most members were already settled and there was also plenty of information available on this subject on the web.

Gregor proposed that we consider the subject closed, seconded by Pamela Lake and carried unanimously.

 

4.  W.H. Smith deal with Penguin

Gregor explained this deal, by which Penguin have a monopoly on travel guides on sale in W.H. Smith stores in airports, railway stations and motorway service stations.  W.H. Smith in Paris, which is author friendly, has refused to take part in this deal and John Toner has become involved in a campaign to stop it. Moreover, the Guild of British Travel Writers has succeeded in getting W.H. Smith to admit that the deal with Penguin is only an experiment. It was suggested that we could have pickets outside Smiths’ Paris shop to explain the deal to customers.

The Office of Fair Trade, as a result of the Competition Act of 1998, has rarely if never found a monopoly in the book trade. The public are being cheated and authors’ livelihoods are being put at risk. After considerable discussion, it was agreed that Gregor would send the following resolution to Mark Le Fanu, proposed by John Kirby Adams, seconded by Shelley Power and carried unanimously:

The Annual General Meeting of the Society of Authors, Paris, is pleased that the National Union of Journalists is playing an active part in the protest against the deal by W.H. Smith and Penguin on travel books and appreciates the support of members of the National Union of Journalists and SOAF. The meeting regrets that it is the opinion of the Head Office of the Society of Authors ‘that nothing more can be done in the light of legal advice’ which appears to derive from the Competition Act of 1998.  The meeting believes that the nature of genuine competition and the problem of monopoly and the distribution of books should be further investigated. We also believe that strong action and protest should be organized against this deal.

 

5, 6, 7, 8  Setting up authors’ cooperatives,  help with authors’ web sites,  multi-authors events,  subjects for discussion at First Tuesdays 

As time was running out, it was agreed to group all these topics under Item 8.  It was decided as a first step to send out a circular email appealing for members to volunteer their expertise in various fields - setting up web sites, editing, design, etc.

 

9. Election of officers

Gregor Dallas, Pamela Lake and Gwyneth Hughes were elected to the committee, proposed by Stanley Lover, seconded by Graham Tullis and carried unanimously.  Pamela Lake was re-elected as Secretary, proposed by Graham Tullis, seconded by Gregor Dallas and carried unanimously.  

As he had come to the end of his three-year term office as Chairman, Gregor had to stand down. However, as there were no other candidates for the post, according to the statutes, he could be co-opted for another year.  Gregor was therefore co-opted as Chairman, proposed by Pamela Lake, seconded by Gwyneth Hughes and carried unanimously.

Gregor proposed that we revise our statutes during the coming year and he will write to Mark Le Fanu.

 

Any Other Business

Shelley Power said she would try to find out whether the Society of Authors has a committee of authors.

Stanley Lover said he did not think our present meeting place at Carrs’ was satisfactory.  It was pointed out that we had tried out a number of locations and Carrs was far and away the best.  Put to the vote, five people said they were satisfied with Carrs and two were hot.  Three members thought we should look for another location and three thought we should not.

Date of Next AGM

The first Tuesday in October 2010.

The meeting closed at 8.31 pm

Chairman Jim’s blog

Those of you who like to keep up with the hot news of what is going on with our affiliate, the National Union of Journalists, Paris Branch, will be delighted to know that Branch Chairman Jim Pollard has just started up his own blog, announcing these events as they happen. I have just looked through it and it is surprisingly readable! I recommend it to all members of SOAF.

Jim explains himself in his first entry, of 17 October 2009: ‘I’ve decided a blog may be the easiest way to keep members up to date with what’s going on with NUJ Paris – at least as far as I’m concerned. It will include relevant links to the website and give you all a chance to send feedback and share it with each other. Even if nobody bothers to read it but me, it will mean that I have a chronological record and don’t have to keep trawling past emails ahead of meetings to see what has and hasn’t been done. Hope you find it useful – especially if you can’t make meetings.’

It takes a lot of courage to keep up a blog. Jim Pollard is to be congratulated.

The direct link to the blog is:
http://nujparisblog.notlong.com

Author needed for Les Soeurs Anglaises, Dordogne

Les Soeurs Anglaises invites one of our authors to oversee a writing course/workshop in the Dordogne next year. The Soeurs Anglaises are an organization running creative and dance workshops, and they would like to add a writing course over a 3-5 day period to their arts programme. Ideally, the workshops take place between April and October 2010. A fee will be paid daily, and food and accommodation will also be provided. All travel expenses are paid and partners are welcome.

The organization’s website is www.lessoeursanglaises.com.

If you are anyone you know might be interested, please contact either Susie Bolton Nash, susie.bolton@homecall.co.uk or Katie Armitage, katie@elliotarmitage.com.

Village Voice Bookshop invitation to Margo Berdeshevsky reading

Tél. : 01 46 33 36 47
Fax : 01 46 33 27 48
6 rue Princesse
75006 PARIS

Our New Readers' Series: all readings at 7 pm sharp
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12th
Margo Berdeshevsky
returns to the Village with a new book:
Beautiful Soon Enough
' A thrillingly cutting-edge work of photos and short stories flowing together into an extended erotic dream that limns the inner lives of women deeply yearning for connection and authenticity. This is a splendid book’ Robert Olen Butler.
'So much verbal beauty, with the eternal quality of the tale or fable.' 
Marilyn Hacker
A lifelong voyager, Margo Berdeshevsky is currently living in Paris.
Margo Berdeshevsky will be introduced 
by the American poet 
Jerome Rothenberg.

"Beauty is the purgation of superfluities"
— Michelangelo Buonarroti

please visit my websites:
http://www.redroom.com/author/margo-berdeshevsky
http://margoberdeshevsky.blogspot.com/

Stanley Lover, Chronicles of a Timid Lover

Review by Pamela Lake

At our last ‘First Tuesday’, on 1st September 2009, Stanley Lover brought in a copy of his memoirs, Chronicles of a Timid Lover, self-published, which we all admired. The minutes of the meeting and the on-going debate on self-publishing are reproduced in several articles below. Here Pamela Lake, our Secretary, reviews the book.

SOAF member, Stanley Lover, has recently self-published his memoirs, Chronicles of a Timid Lover, in an attractively illustrated hardback edition. It is the story of a life filled with rich and varied experiences which began in considerable hardship.

Stanley was born in December 1925 in a basement flat in Blackheath, the youngest of eight children - five boys and three girls - and grew up during the Depression. His father, who drank heavily, earned little and his mother struggled to feed the family but always managed to put a meal on the table - a favourite dish was bubble-and-squeak pie. Life was hard: Stanley’s parents had frequent rows about money, punishments were harsh and the children were beaten with a leather strap or locked in the coal hole if they were naughty. But in spite of this, there were some compensations. Stanley discovered football, which became a lifelong passion, and there were regular trips to the cinema to see cowboy films, musicals and Disney’s Fantasia. Although they were short of cash to buy tickets, he and his brother discovered a way of sneaking in without paying and they also succeeded in seeing X certificate Boris Karloff horror films which were in principle forbidden to children under sixteen.

At the age of only fourteen, in January 1940, Stanley left school and began work, first as a machine hand in the turning shop of Siemens Wireless and Cable Factory in Woolwich and afterwards as a salesman in a Dolcis’ shoe shop. He did fire fighting duty during the Blitz and narrowly escaped death when a cluster of incendiary bombs fell close to his home. His dream was to be an RAF pilot but he was too young, so he became an ATC cadet and learned to fly. In 1944, when he was eighteen, he was at last able to join the RAF and, although the war ended before he saw active service, he received a training which was invaluable during his subsequent studies in Mechanical Engineering.

After his work in the shoe shop, Stanley worked as a technical drawing office junior and later as a draughtsman. It was there that he met Jessie, who was a secretary with the company. They fell in love but there were difficulties - because she was married. When her husband returned from the war he refused to divorce her and became violent. She left him and set up house with Stanley and they had two sons, but it was only after twenty-six years that they were finally able to marry. Sadly, just as they were moving into their first home in 1946, Stanley learned that he had tuberculosis. Streptomycin was still in its infancy and so he spent long months in a sanatorium having the usual treatment at that time for a collapsed lung. During his time in the sanatorium, he discovered a talent for drawing and painting and thought of taking up commercial art as a career rather than mechanical engineering. Eventually he was persuaded that it would be an unwise move as work was hard to come by and instead he qualified as a mechanical engineer.

Stanley’s work as an engineer has taken him to many parts of the world, including Malaysia, Latin America, Africa and China. His experiences negotiating contracts in Peking during the period of Mao’s ‘Great Leap Forward’ make fascinating reading, but during his time there he was also delighted to be able to study the state of Chinese football. For not only has Stanley travelled widely in his capacity as a mechanical engineer; he has been a football referee in many countries. He is passionate about football, has written a number of books on it and is also a keen golfer.

In 1974 Stanley’s first marriage was virtually over and he spent a holiday alone in Tenerife. It was there that he met his adored second wife, Gilberte and he moved to France. They married in 1977 and live in Neuilly where they met Nicolas Sarkozy on a number of occasions when he was Mayor. There is a charming photo in the book of Gilberte with a young-looking Sarkozy in 1992 when he awarded her with a career medal.

Stanley is something of a Renaissance Man. Apart from his passion for sport, he is a gifted painter and sculptor and the cover painting on his book of the West Lake in Hangchow is by him. In his youth he also sang in amateur productions of Iolanthe and The Pirates of Penzance. He loves classical music and regrets that he never studied the piano. In fact, he did begin having lessons as a child in 1941 and the story of them is a poignant moment in the book, which sticks in my mind.

Stanley wanted to learn the piano, but money was a problem until finally he found a Mrs Digby who agreed to give him a one -hour lesson each week for three months for a sum of twenty-five shillings. He practised on the wreck of a piano in his parents’ flat and after six lessons he had made some progress. Mrs Digby said that she would give him a test the next time he came, to see if he was ready to start playing real pieces. He had five days in which to prepare and he worked hard at his exercises. The great day arrived and he set out for his teacher’s house. When he arrived, he saw a gaping void: Mrs Digby’s house and the adjoining terrace houses had been completely destroyed by a bomb. Stanley never played the piano again.

Minutes of SOAF First Tuesday meeting at Carr’s Irish Pub on Tuesday, 1 September, 2009

Minutes taken by Pamela Lake

Present

Gregor Dallas
Pamela Lake
Gwyneth Hughes
Stanley Lover
Anne Morddel
Jim Pollard
Annabel Simms
Pierre Tran
Emma Vandore

Three subjects were discussed at this meeting. The first was W.H. Smith’s deal by which Penguin Books will become the sole supplier of foreign travel guides in Smith’s airport, motorway and railway station outlets. This is a very worrying development which is harmful to authors and so far the Society of Authors in London has not made any protest. However, John Toner, Freelance Officer of the National Union of Journalists has launched a campaign and has written to the Office of Fair Trade. Gregor has written to him expressing his support.

After a lively discussion, the following decisions were made:

1; Check whether Which has taken the matter up.

2. Find out how John Toner’s protest is progressing via the NUJ

3. Write to Head Office, SoA, London, to ask what they intend to do about the matter

4. Check whether there is a travel writers’ association

5. Consider what other bodies could be consulted - for example, the European Commission on the legality of the W.H. Smith/Penguin deal.

The second subject was who will be chairman of SOAF after Gregor Dallas’s three-year term expires this October. An appeal for candidates was made in Gregor’s August email; so far no one has applied for this exciting, unpaid job. A second appeal will be launched this September.

The third subject discussed was self-publishing. Stanley Lover produced a copy of his memoirs, Chronicles of a Timid Lover, which he has self-published in hardback with the firm M.C.T. Biddles. The book is very well produced - good paper, several pages of photographs and an attractive cover design. Stanley ordered 100 copies, intended for family and friends, and they were delivered within one month at a total cost of £946.81p. He may now consider going into paperback and trying to attract a publisher.

Everyone remarked on the excellent quality of the book which was vastly superior to that of other self-publishing firms members had used. Anne Morddel had used Lulu, but only to train herself, before self-publishing entirely on her own. She said that with Lulu she had had to do all the work herself and that they used poor quality paper.

One of the major drawbacks to self-publishing is that it is virtually impossible to get the national press to review one's book. The general feeling of the meeting was that authors should consider getting together in some kind of consortium and creating a joint publishing venture. It has been done before and could be again.