Newsletter Winter 2013
Dear OCBG Members
Day Conference
What a great time we had at our Autumn Day Conference this year! A host of wonderful speakers gave us fascinating and thought provoking talks around our theme of Ways into Reading. To get a flavour of the conference do look atthe following Blogs:
Author visits to schools
We are always delighted to be able to facilitate getting school students and authors together - these visits are always popular and great at enthusing young readers. On Thursday 6th November, Year 7 pupils at St Gregory the Great School, Oxford and Marlborough School, Woodstock welcomed Alex Woolf, author of Soul Shadows and Aldo Moon to talks at their schools. Alex shared with the children his path to becoming an author and the obstacles he overcame on the way. Alex has written more than 80 books, many of these non-fiction, and is very involved with Fiction Express, an exciting on-line project which enables readers to help map the path of the story. The children responded enthusiastically to the talks and had many questions to ask. A very enjoyable day was had by all.
We are planning several more author visits to schools in 2014 - if youwould be interested in having one of these events at your school please do get in touch.
Federation Conference 2014
This will be held 11 - 13 April at Worth, Sussex. As a member of OCBG you can book at the discounted members' rate. Keep an eye onthe Federation website at for more details as they are uploaded.
Comic Drawing Workshop
More of these are being planned for 2014, following a very successful workshop in 2013 with Neill Cameron, author illustrator of graphic novels and comics, including The Phoenix.
OCBG COMMITTEE
At our AGM on October 23rd we once again voted on a full Committee, including two new members. The Committee is as follows:
Kathy Lemaire (Chair)
Fay Sinai (Treasurer/Membership Secretary)
Jo Steele (Secretary)
Moira da Costa (Mailings Co-ordinator/Scrapbook Keeper)
Louise Stothard (Federation Liaison)
Jodie Brooks (Press/Information Officer)
Mary Roberton (Researcher)
Erica Davis
Jo Edwards
Barbara Hickford
Jackie Holderness
As you can see we are already hard at work planning next year's programme for OCBG - we hope all our members will find something for them in 2014!
We'd like to apologise for a few hiccups on our new website - we hope these will be fixed very soon! Also we are increasingly sending out information by email about events, so do make sure that you give us any change of address.
With best wishes for a happy book-filled Christmas and a New Year full of reading.
Kathy Lemaire
Chair, Oxford Children's Book Group