WordWorks December 1986

Page 1

DrcEIBER. 1986

lXE FEBATIOI| OF BR.TTISE q)LtlIBIA

!{aiIing Address: Office Mdress:

NRITTRS TGWSI,BFIR

P.O. bx 24624, Stn. C Vancouverl B.C. V5T 4E"2 126-736 Granville Street Vancouverl B.C. V6Z 1G3 Phone Number 583-2057

MESSAGB FROII

lUB

CEAIRTCN

Itrs been a fall full of travel. Itve been to all sorts of exotic places - to Fort St. ilohn and Campbell River in October, to Penticton in liftrvember. Although readings \'rere arranged so that the Canada Council and not our poor lir I ole Federation paid for most of the travel exlEnses, at each place I made the ror:nds of the school boards and Iocal newspaper offices, spreading the word about the Directory and getting writers into schools.

During my three days in ttre peace River area I really got to know GaiI Whitter, our representati-ve tiere vftrose enthusiasm for the Federationrs work is unbounded. It helped a lot. There were friendly faces at Campbell River and Comox, but no representative. Tom Unger, who has been doing such god work for r:s there, has left for the \â‚Źrmer climes of California - permanently. We are trying to get a replacement for h-in as I write this.

I

I

At Penticton I got to know Heather Glebe who works for ttre Penticton Herald. I am glad to report that Heather has agreed to serve as the Federation representative in the Okanagan area and she right away put together a piece about us for her paper. I also visited Kelowna, s;nke to people at the school board there and got myself interviewed by the local paper about the Directory.

The swing through ttre province has further convinced me that while the Federation should certainly retain its head office in

downtown Vancouver, it

must continue to concentrate on the outlying areas. For this purpose Irve proposed to the provincial Council ttrat 7rte Landale (our LovJer l,lainland rep and unof f icial coordinator with other reps), should have a small budget for phoning the regions ard collecting feedback about the Federationr s work. with the $15r00O grant received frorn Cultural Services in Victoria ard a ne\,r dynamic Executive Director on board in Betsy Warland, 1987 should be a year of exciting growth for t}re Federation. Herer s hoping it will be one for you as well. Cheers, Jan Drabek ETrcUTIVB DIRECrcR

The nesr D<ecutive Director of the Federation is Betsy Warland, wtro is a vriter with two published voltunes of poetry to her cred

it.

She is a former Vlestern Region ftlitor for and a mernber of the Writerrs Union of Canada, the League of Canadian poets and West Coast Wqnen and Vlords Society. HERIZONS

Last spring she did a reading ard lecture tour of Norway and Australia, then slEnt a couple of months as an editor at the university of Alberta. But now Betsy has chosen to settle down in Vancouver permanently - at least as prmanently as buying a house in Kitsilano makes it. Since October she has been hard at work in the Federationr s office and would love b hear from you if you have any ideas on how to improve the running of ttre Federation.


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