Now that the short story club has been around for a while, I wanted to see if you guys had any feedback/suggestions. Is there something you want changed? Any ways it can be improved? Also, if you guys have any suggestions about improving participation, that would be great as well. We usually have a handful of members participate each time, which is nice, though it would be great if we had even more. Finally, I was thinking about having a poetry discussion club, but I'm not sure how many of you would be interested in this sort of thing. Let me know what you think.
I really like the short story club as it is. The only thing I'd change is the story nomination process. Right now, we nominate new stories each time. Each time, therefore, we have three or four "losing" stories - those that didn't get voted in. Many of these stories are very worthy of reading and discussion, so maybe, rather than nominating new ones each time, we could choose among the three or four most recent losers. Another idea would be to get rid of the voting process completely, and allow a member of the club to choose a story we all would read. The next week, another member gets to choose. Etc. That would reduce the workload for you, thirdwind, and might expose us all to a wider range of stories. Incidentally, that might help increase participation, because each member could essentially require the rest of us to read a story near and dear to his or her heart. I would definitely be interested in a poetry discussion club. Count me in!
That's not a bad idea. It would certainly make things a bit easier since I wouldn't have to put up a poll each time. How would we decide who gets to choose the story?
I don't know; it's going to take a bit of thinking. I guess we'd have to get a list of participants and just cycle through them: first member picks first story, second member picks the second, etc. New members who join would go at the end. Once all members have picked a story, and we've read and discussed it, we start over again with the first member. Does that make any sense to you?
Yes, that makes sense. But there's always the issue of new members coming in and/or members dropping out, so it might be a bit complicated in practice. That being said, I'm willing to give it a try. What do other people think?
I read the story and the subsequent discussion. But I don't feel up to contributing just yet. So, I just wanted to encourage you guys to keep it up -- it's very informative to someone still learning.
Please feel free to contribute, no matter your age or level of experience! The more voices in the mix, the better, and we like lively discussions.
Since no one else has posted their thoughts about minstrel's idea, I'm going to keep using the voting/nomination system. I'll be sure to recycle the stories that we don't read for the next round of voting. Also, if there's a close vote between two stories (there usually is), we'll read the winning story one week and the other story the week after. That way, members will only have to nominate stories and vote every other week. I think that would make things easier on everybody. Any additional feedback is welcome.
