| We began our meeting writing a prompt (share one thing about yourself no one else here knows) and sharing the results. I announced there would be no meeting on December 22 due to the Christmas holiday. We’ll return to our regular schedule January 12 at the Beanery Coffee Shop. I announced that in February the Beanery Coffee Café will begin charging us $5.00 per meeting for the use of the room. The owner said they have charged this amount for the use of the room by non-profit groups for a while. Members discussed options for other meeting spots---Valley Dairy and Barns & Nobel were suggested. They agreed, however, it was a low amount and we should continue meeting at the Beanery’s location and quality of its meeting room. Congratulations to Joe, whose item was chosen to appear in the Ligonier Valley Writers Group publication, the Loyalhanna Review. It was developed from a prompt at one of our earlier meetings. At the last meeting we decided to support new writers groups as requested (we have two requests), to continue the www.ProBlogs.com/beanerywriters blog, and to do more critiquing (that means we must do more writing!). Members also favored of creating a booklet of our writings, but want a committee to explore the idea, its pros and cons, to investigate styles and costs of production, and share the information. Since our members have different interests it was suggested and agreed upon that we accept all those directions. The blog is very successful, making us all wonder what people are visiting the site. There are few answers to that question as there is no record. I will post an item on the blog about the blog. Members more competent in running about the computer than she is can post items on their own. Members not yet comfortable using the blog can E-mail items to me and I’ll post them for you. I’m willing to sit down individually with members to help them learn blog use. The group lesson isn’t always enough---I need more than a group lesson when learning new procedures on the computer! I’ll contact the local newspapers about regularly listing our meetings and about their doing a story. We discussed inviting authors to speak to our group. The author of the Archie and Mehitible book is willing to speak. Another author lives in my community and we could possibly meet at my home for a social event. Perhaps we could combine with other writers groups and do a local author presentation. Dr. Morgan, who wrote Remembering Your Journey, was suggested as a guest author. Each group member can participate in activities at their own level. The object is to move forward, to learn a little more, as you are ready. We wrote on a second prompt---rather, a choice out of two prompts---and shared the results. Prompts: You are applying for a job as Santa Claus. Prepare a resume, or You are asked to be Jesus or Mary in a live Nativity scene. Explain why you would or would not agree to do it. We went to a lesson on tightening our writing, and ended with a critique on Lois’s writing, Hiring Older Employees. Claudette gave several people a Christmas story bound in book form for critique. Carolyn | 
