Wish I was in Charleston

It’s Friday in Charleston, so things will be just getting started over there. I so so so wish I could be there 🙁

But at least if I can’t be there, my powerpoint presentation is 🙂 There was a bit of a panic earlier in the week when Sonora and MrSonora couldn’t get it working on their computer, and quite a few emails flew back and forth across the Pacific offering helpful and not so helpful advice, but on Thursday I got a triumphant email telling me they’d tried it on their laptop, and it was working perfectly. And this morning Sonora emailed me to say she’s sitting on the registration desk showing the presentation to everyone who comes up to register (but if everyone’s already seen it, what’s Skyring going to do when it comes time for the actual presentation???), and had some good responses. And as far as I know, we’re the only serious contenders (although several people have suggested cities where they’d like the convention to be, last I heard nobody from those cities has stepped forward to volunteer), so it’s looking good for Christchurch! (Eeek!)

In other news, I finally this week got round to doing something I’ve been meaning to do for ages, which is PM some of the new members in Christchurch to tell them about our meetups. On Tuesday I sent a PM to about 40 new members, and so far have had 3 responses: Enchante said she can’t come to today’s meetup but would like to be kept informed of future events, lemurkat has joined the Yahoo group and is keen to come to meetups, and Waveweaver turned out to be someone I know! Something she’d said in the journal entry she’d made on a book sounded familiar, so we exchanged a couple of “do I know you?” type PMs, and it turns out she works for the same place as me, and we’ve served on a committee together. She’s another person with more commitments than time in the day, but is really keen to get involved, so hopefully she’ll be able to come along to meetups sometimes.

Actually, I’ve had a pretty good week for making contact with people, because I finally managed to get in touch with my ESOL-HT learner, and we’ve set up a time for our first lesson! It’s not until 2 May, but at least we did manage to find a time when we were both available – I was thinking for a while that I’d have to ask the organisers to find her a new tutor with a more compatible schedule. Now I’ve just got to start planning my first lesson…

Got a catch on one of the books I released last week: The Love Songs of Phoenix Bay by Nisa Donnelly. The finder is on their way to Belgium, so hopefully that means the book is too!

Currently reading: Samurai William by Giles Milton
Currently listening to: Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett