2006-2007 Reports

~ In Christ, Eunice Matchett, InScribe President 

Current membership stands at approximately 151. We encourage our members to tell others about Inscribe. Cost of membership is comparatively low and benefits are huge. For conferences or other gatherings, Inscribe can supply brochures as well as other information.

~ Gwen Mathieu, Membership Database

FellowScript was published four times last year, three times with 32 pages and once with 36 pages. The format varies from two columns for feature articles to three columns for regular columns. The executive suggested a new department, Inscribers' Write! , to showcase members' writing, which has been fairly successful and pays regular rates for submissions. I’d like to see more submissions from members for this department, the Book Page (promoting members’ books), and general feedback – if you have an idea, a suggestion, a tip, etc., to share with me or with other readers, I’d love to hear from you! Joanna Mallory continues to review submissions, make decisions on their suitability, contact and work with writers, edit some submissions, and help with changes to newsletter policies. Currently, we have a number of regular feature writers and are booking articles for a year in advance. Most of our writers are Americans and nonmembers, and we’d like to encourage more submissions from Inscribers. I am still doing the newsletter layout, general editing, and getting the final copy to the printers. Gwen Mathieu does the labels and mailing and Elsie Montgomery has continued to produce the flyers for the newsletter, manage the mail room, and provide advice when needed.

~ submitted by Bonnie Way, Newsletter Editor

The InScribe website continues to grow. Some changes have been made to make things easier to find. We still receive from it requests for membership, submissions to InScribe, contest entries, invitations to exchange links and other positive feedback. A major change this year includes a page of contests sorted by genre. If you write fiction or for children or poetry, you don’t have to wade through all the contests to find the one you want to enter. Also, new markets and publishers, with links to their submission guidelines, continue to be added every week.
We still host web pages for our members, giving them a personal Internet address and web presence for only $25 a year, including maintenance. While these pages help reduce our Web expenses, we enjoy being able to feature our writers and give them a boost to their ministry with words.
   I do both member pages and updates to the InScribe site. This past summer, Shannon Cherry has offered to make this a team effort. She is presently learning how to use MS FrontPage 2003. Pray for us as we work on this large resource for writers.

~ Elsie Montgomery, Webmaster & Graphics

We currently have fourteen groups functioning across Canada. Five are in AB, two in BC, two in SK, two in MB, one in QC, one in NS, one in ON. Others have expressed interest in forming a group and have been sent the start-up packet which is full of suggestions and good information. If you would like to receive this packet, don't hesitate to get in touch. We are pleased to see the growth in these satellites.
   The essence of the satellite groups lies in growing and supporting one another. Every successful writer can point to a group of people who aided and encouraged him/her along the way. We cannot do the task God has given us alone.
   To encourage members of our groups to become individual members, we launched a contest last year for members of groups who are not members of ICWF. The first prize was a one year membership in Inscribe. A second prize (a book) was also awarded. Both were announced at the Fall Conference. We look forward to more entries each year as this contest takes hold.
We continue to offer seed money to the satellite groups if they want to organize a one day event to promote their group and garner new members. Several of the groups have taken advantage of this with great success.

~ Respectfully submitted, Marcia Laycock, Member at Large

Publicity is a vital need in our organization. The past two years it has, for one reason or another, fallen through the cracks and our membership has suffered for it. This year we decided to do some paid advertising and were greatly encouraged by the support of Living Light News, who ran a color banner ad at the cost of a much smaller one, and City Light News who also gave us a good rate for an ad and ran a paragraph about Inscribe in their Arts and Culture Issue. Good coverage was also given by Maranatha News in ON.
   Faxes and press releases were also sent out to various newspapers and radio stations, advertising the conference as well as the organization. Listings were placed in many ‘coming events' columns.
   We are still in need of someone who will take on the role of publicity chair. It is not a difficult job and does not take a great deal of time – mostly as conference approaches. If you are interested, please contact any of the executive.

~Respectfully submitted, Marcia Laycock, Fall Conference committee chair

2006-2007 Annual General Meeting Minutes

The Financial Report is available to our members by email

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