A Guild Update on COVID-19 (Coronavirus)

Post date: Mar 19, 2020 3:30:12 PM

Future Meetings, Coronavirus, and the Guild

Everyone else is sending out Coronavirus updates, so it seems appropriate to send one for the Hannibal Writers Guild.

For those of you that did not attend our March meeting on the 14th, attendees and I discussed our thoughts on the Coronavirus and if it would impact the guild at all. At the time, we were all in the "wait and see" opinion. As of now, we're still sticking to that.

However, we at the Hannibal Writers Guild take guild health and happiness very seriously, so we are planning for the worst anyway. Better to have a plan, even if you hope not to use it!

Virtual Meetings

With businesses and stores shutting down, it very well can impact if we can meet at all, whether we want to or not. If our normal venues (Riverside Restaurant, Elks Lodge) will not be open on near-future meeting dates because of quarantine, then we will not be meeting in person. If the bans on gatherings continue, we will be unable to meet in person. Several little things will just literally make it impossible.

With that in mind, we are looking into virtual meetings. These meetings would likely take place live on our facebook page in the form of video. Our April speaker, David Lucas, has already contacted me about the possibility so he is prepared and willing to do the meeting virtually. We'll let you know if we will go this route a week or so ahead of time so you can prepare for the meeting. We'll also send out a link and instructions via these newsletters so you can easily join in.

If we end up not going with virtual meetings, we will probably just cancel the April meeting and reschedule. Come May we'll see if anything changes. A lot can happen in a month - for better or worse. We can't predict the future, but we can try and anticipate it. We'll figure it out a month at a time.

April Camp NaNoWriMo Meetings

We were going to try and do weekly write-ins during April for Camp NaNoWriMo like we did in November for NaNoWriMo, but with the current bans and closings we're just going to cancel that. It's a bummer, but hey, Camp comes back in June, and hopefully (cross your fingers) things will be back to a semblance of normal by then.

However, I do have an alternative. There is a program called Discord that is a more streamlined (and better) form of Skype. It's tailored towards gamers, but it's also a popular app for writers, small businesses, and more. With it, you can create multiple chatrooms dedicated to specific topics. I've used it myself for years for both work and play. I'd be more than happy to set one up for members to use to encourage each other, brainstorm, and all over have a fun time.

Best part is, you can use it in a computer browser too, so you don't have to download anything to go online. There's also a computer program version and a mobile app version. If I end up making one, I'll share it with you guys. In the meantime, you can find out more Discord here: https://discordapp.com/

Once More, With Feeling

It's been said a thousand times, but it's because it's true. Take proper precautions in this trying time. Practice safe hygiene habits. Wash your hands, don't touch your face, and be aware of your surroundings. Pay attention to reputable news sources, and be on the look out for fake news.

We'll get through this, together or apart.

Write on!