The T Party

Members' privileges and obligations

Objectives
The T Party is an informal writing group with the following objectives:

- To inspire and encourage its members to write.
- To provide members with useful feedback and constructive criticism on their writing.
- To provide a pool of resources and contacts to help members find a market for their work.
- To offer writers a forum in which to converse and socialise with like-minded people.

Meetings
Meetings take place once a month, on a Saturday afternoon.  Meetings start at 2pm promptly and finish by 6pm or earlier.  Please note that we start on time.  If you arrive after 2pm come in quietly and find a seat so you don’t interrupt the meeting. Our current meeting place is the downstairs room of the Bountiful Cow, Eagle Street, Holborn, London.  This is subject to change.

The structure of meetings is as follows:

- Each person attending the meeting should have read beforehand the stories to be discussed and be ready to offer feedback at the meeting. The stories are not read aloud.
- Members take it in turns to offer their comments, suggestions and thoughts about each story. It’s OK to say that you don’t like a story, but you should be prepared to say why and to suggest what the writer could do to make improvements.
- Please note that due to the size of the group, each person has five minutes to give their critique.  This will be timed. It is very important, therefore, to think about what you want to say beforehand, and be concise in your critiquing.  You should write all your critique points clearly and concisely on the manuscript, and just select a few points to mention aloud at the meeting.
- No one should interrupt someone giving their critique (including the author).
- After everyone has given their critique, there will be a 15-minute period of interactive discussion.  During this time the author may raise any particular points s/he wants to make, and workshop participants may ask direct questions of the author.
- The Chair Person chairs the meeting.  If she cannot attend a meeting then the Vice Chair Person will chair in her absence.

Submitting stories to a workshop
Story slots are allocated in advance.  Most meetings have three story slots available.  Slots are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, though priority may be given to someone who’s not sent something out for a while in favour of someone who’s recently had a story critiqued.  Sara Townsend keeps the list of slot allocations, and members should contact her in order to book a workshop slot.

To submit a manuscript for a workshop, you must send it as an email attachment in both Word and Rich Text format to each member of the T Party.  Every member receives a membership list containing all member email addresses.  Do not send stories via the group e-list, as not everyone can receive attachments this way. Authors should ensure that their stories are sent out at least two weeks ahead of the meeting at which the story is to be workshopped.

Stories submitted to a workshop should be less than 10,000 words.  If someone has a longer manuscript they wish to workshop, they should advise the group of their intention.  The decision on whether or not the longer story can be workshopped will be based on the majority opinion of the members.  If members decide they are happy to workshop the longer story, the author should ensure that s/he sends out the manuscript as early as possible, to give people as much time as possible to read it.

Each member has an obligation to send out for critiquing one manuscript per 12-month period.  This can include a novel workshop.  Generally this 12-month period will begin with the July workshop.  The committee will review, on a case by case basis, any situation where a member has not submitted a piece for workshop during the 12-month period.

Receiving submissions for a workshop
As all stories are submitted by email, it is each member’s responsibility to print out all the stories and bring them to the workshop.  If you wish to change the format and font size of a manuscript in order to save paper, that is fine, but do remember that you need space to write your comments on the manuscript.

Some members use the back of unwanted pages from their work place to print off manuscripts.  If you work in a place dealing with confidential case files, police records, legal cases, etc. and you use pages from such reports to print off your manuscripts, you are effectively placing confidential information into the public domain.  Please ensure that all pages used to print off manuscripts do not contain any confidential or sensitive information.

Members should write all their comments legibly and concisely on the manuscript.  At the end of the critique they hand the manuscript back to the author.

Please remember to write your name on the manuscript, so that the author knows who the critique came from.

Critiquing novels
Some of our members write novels as well as short stories, but it has proved to be difficult to incorporate these within the normal meeting arrangements. Consequently, novels are dealt with in the following manner:

Only the first three chapters and the synopsis of a novel are discussed with the whole group.  This should be enough for the group to get a feel for the story and offer useful comments to the writer on how the plot and characters are developing, how marketable it is, and so on.

After the first three chapters, it is up to the writer to find volunteers in the group who are prepared to read the rest of the novel and offer feedback. This must be done outside of normal meeting time, and the writer must arrange to receive the volunteers’ comments independently. They could, if they wish, organise an extra workshop dedicated to their novel.

Please see the separate rules on workshopping novels for further information.

Non-attendance of meetings
We hope that members will attend as many meetings as possible.  If you can’t attend a meeting, it is your responsibility to ensure that everyone knows you won’t be there. The best way of doing this is to post a message via the e-group stating that you are unable to attend the next meeting.  You should not tell another member in passing that you will not attend and assume that this message will get passed on to everyone else, because it may not.  Non-attendance – without prior notice – of more than four meetings in a row could result in membership being cancelled.

If you cannot attend a meeting, you are encouraged to read the stories that have been submitted to the workshop and send your comments back to the author (by email is acceptable) within a week of the workshop date. Many authors start their re-writes soon after the workshop and therefore are keen to receive all critiques as soon as possible.  If you are not attending a workshop and it is not possible for you to read the manuscripts, you should contact the authors concerned with your apologies, and let them know that you will not be submitting a critique.

If you have submitted a story to a workshop, it goes without saying that you need to be present. If, under extenuating circumstances, you are not able to attend, you must let members know as soon as possible that you will not be attending the meeting.  This may be done as an email to the e-group.  If an emergency crops up on the Saturday morning and you don’t have time to send an email, you should contact the person chairing the meeting immediately.  Your story will then be removed from the list of manuscripts to workshop, and members will email their comments to you separately.  To submit a story and then not turn up without notice is considered to be a serious breach of the rules and could result in membership being cancelled.

Website and publicity
The T Party web site’s address is http://www.t-party.org.uk.  It is maintained by Sumit Dam. The site includes members’ biographies, announcements, dates of meetings and general information about the group and its activities.  Members should take the responsibility of sending information on their activities, and news of acceptances, to Sumit directly for inclusion on the website.

We are seeking to maintain the reputation of the T Party as a writing group incorporating serious writers and quality writing.  In order to assist the T Party gain maximum coverage, all members should take the responsibility of ensuring that any biography they supply to editors upon acceptance of their work mentions that they are a member of The T Party.

Email
The group has a Yahoo! discussion group called tp-general that is used to post information. All members should join this e-group, as information pertaining to the T Party is posted here, as well as information on competitions and potential markets.  Notifications of meeting dates are also posted through the e-group.  You can choose to receive emails sent to the tp-list direct into your inbox, or you can choose not to receive emails and view all messages on line (an option that might be preferable if you can only access email at work).

As Group Secretary, Gary Couzens administrates the membership of the e-group.  New members should contact him to ensure that they are added to the membership of the e-group. 

It is the responsibility of each member to ensure that they inform the Group Secretary of any change in contact details, so that he can ensure the list is up to date at all times.  This is particularly important if your email address changes.

Please note that manuscripts should not be sent out via the e-group.  They should be sent to members’ email addresses individually.

Subscriptions
These are due on 1 May of every year.  There are two types of membership – Full and Associate Membership.

Associate membership:
Associate membership is available at £5 a year.  Associate Members get:
- A regularly updated list of group members (both Full and Associate).
- Invitations to all social events, outings and speaker events organised by the group.
- The right to attend the T Party AGM, and participate in its discussions.
- The right to have their details published on the web site if they wish.
- Membership of the e-list group (if they wish it).

The purpose of Associate Membership is to accommodate those people who enjoy socialising with T Party members but who are not, for whatever reason, doing any writing themselves.  Consequently, Associate Members will not attend workshop meetings or receive other members’ stories for comment.  They will, however, be invited to all non writing-orientated social events organised by the group.

Associate Members who have previously been full members of the T Party may renew their Full Member standing upon payment of the outstanding subs and notification to the Committee of their desire to become full members.  Former T Party members who are currently not writing are encouraged to become Associate Members to maintain their ties with the group, and then if at some point in the future they start writing again, they can resume their Full Membership status.

Full membership:The subs for full membership currently stand at £10.00 per annum. Full members get:
- The right to attend all group meetings.
- The right to have manuscripts workshopped at group meetings.
- A regularly updated list of group members.
- Notification of all meetings.
- Invitations to all social events, outings and speaker events organised by the group.
- Invitations to participate in writing weekends or other non-workshop writing events organised by the group.
- The opportunity to vote for committee members annually, and to stand for a post if desired.
- The right to attend the T Party AGM and participate in its discussions.
- A listing on the T Party web site.
- Membership of the Yahoo! group.

Payment of subscriptions should be made to the Treasurer, preferably no later than at the first meeting after 1 May.  You can pay either in cash or by a cheque made payable to The T Party Writers’ Group.  It is also possible to pay by Paypal – speak to the Treasurer for further information on how to do this.

 Please note that anyone who has not paid their membership two months after the due date, and has not had any contact with the group to let us know they intend to pay, will be taken off the membership list, as it will be assumed they don’t want to remain members.

New Members
New members are not expected to commit themselves before having a chance to decide whether or not they like us (or indeed vice versa).  Any potential new member will be invited to come to two meetings before they need to decide whether or not to join us.  At the first meeting, they are expected merely to ‘observe’.  At their second meeting, they should be prepared to join in with the discussions.  They may send a workshop out for critiquing at their third workshop.

 It is a requirement of the T Party that all potential new members should have had at least one previously published story in the professional or small press (a competition win will also qualify).  Any potential member who does not meet this criterion must submit an ‘audition piece’ of their writing to the committee.  

The Committee
The committee exists to make the group more efficient and keep administration matters separate from workshop meetings.  It usually meets once a year.

Members (apart from the Chair) stand for re-election annually on 1 May.  The current committee posts are as follows:  Chair Person, Secretary, Social Secretary, Treasurer, Publicity Officer and Web Master.   One member of the committee also takes on the role of Vice Chair Person, to chair group meetings in the absence of the Chair Person.

The committee is also responsible for reviewing applications made by potential new members.

Nominations for the committee are invited prior to the AGM.  Any full T Party member may stand for a committee post.  If there is more than one person wanting to stand for a particular post, there will be a vote to decide the final result.

The post of Chair Person is held permanently, or until she chooses to relinquish it, by Sara Townsend.