Welcome to an unexpected late-May newsletter with word of tonight’s Zoom session and a look ahead to our online events in June.
Follow these four familiar simple steps to join us on Zoom:
- Tap or click the ‘I’m attending’ button in the meeting listing below (find the button on this newsletter’s webpage). A panel headed ‘I’m attending on…’ will appear.
- In the ‘I’m attending on…’ panel, tap or click the PayPal logo and follow the instructions to contribute your £2 subs using your debit or credit card.
- When you’ve made your payment, check your email inbox for a message from Southwest Scriptwriters titled ‘Thank you for your subs payment.’ If you don’t find this email with PayPal’s payment confirmation and you’ve checked your spam and junk folders for it, please be sure to get in touch using our ‘Email us’ form to let us know it hasn’t arrived.
- The ‘Thank you for your subs payment’ email includes the Zoom meeting ID and passcode. If you’re unsure how to use these to log in to the meeting, follow our handy guide.
Wednesday, 26 May at 7.30pm on Zoom: Longshot by Carole Boyer
Continuing with Carole’s satirical stage story of 13th Century spin following its positive reception at our meeting on 31 March: The Sheriff of Nottingham has hired a pair of scribes to do a hatchet job on Robin Hood…
Wednesday, 16 June at 7.30pm on Zoom: So you’re thinking of writing a drama podcast…
Having reached its twentieth anniversary last year, the podcast now offers writers a way to reach audio drama audiences previously restricted to BBC Radio. Adrian Harris explores the opportunities and resources out there for the aspiring drama podcast writer.
Wednesday, 30 June at 7.30pm on Zoom: Open Workshop
Get in touch using our ‘Book a workshop slot’ form to air your idea, pitch, treatment or script extract at tonight’s meeting.
A blended future for Southwest Scriptwriters
The team behind Southwest Scriptwriters (Bruce Fellows, Adrian Harris, Tim Massey, Briony Pope and Stephanie Weston) met last week to discuss the group’s upcoming activities in the light of the progressive lifting of the government’s COVID-19 restrictions.
The team agreed that face-to-face activities have an important place in the group’s future as they are an essential way in which to build collaborative, mutually-supportive relationships to share scriptwriting skills and experience.
It’s also important to avoid throwing away the benefits of the fresh approaches we’ve needed to take while restrictions have been in place.
Thanks to its partnerships with Watershed and Bristol Old Vic over the past decade, Southwest Scriptwriters was able to meet regularly in accessible, city centre spaces. We’re committed to keeping our activities as accessible in future, but meeting places of this kind are at a premium and in high demand.
With the above in mind, we’ve decided to take the blended path of continuing to meet regularly on Zoom and scheduling special face-to-face events. The latter will feature work from our online sessions and might include rehearsed readings and other showcase activities similar to those we’ve offered previously.
Mixing online meetings with feature in-person events gives us the flexibility to schedule workshop sessions in response to your scriptwriting output and allows us to use funds on special events rather than on our core meetings.
We look forward to achieving the perfect blend of online and in-person activities!
Stun us with your sitcom!
A reminder that we’re including a session centring on sitcom scripts in our September programme, so if you think you can do funny, now’s the time to get cracking!
BBC writers room and Industrial Scripts have some hot tips to get you started here and here, and we look forward to seeing if you can conjure a few gobsmacking guffaws by the autumn!