Tuesday, August 07, 2012

The KEYS, the Catholic Writers' Guild...

...which meets at St Mary Moorfields, is very proud of its links that go back to the days of the team producing GK's Weekly in the days before WWII. But it has never been as lively and thriving as now: we have excellent meetings with top speakers, and this evening's Committee session planning for 2013 was great fun, lots of talk and great ideas for the months ahead...We run the Catholic Young Writer Award - jointly with the Catholic Union of Great Britain - and the entries for this year have been pouring in and look promising. Judging takes place in Sept. The winner will come to a Guild meeting in the Autumn, at which the speaker with be Lord (David) Alton. By tradition, the winner gets not only a shield - to be kept for a year and duly engraved with his/her name etc - but also a cash prize of £50 and books donated by Guild members.

Recent Guild meetings have been addressed by Jonathan Aitken - telling of his experiences in prison -  Baroness Neuberger,     Mgr Keith Newton of the Ordinariate of OL of Walsingham, and our Guild Master Mary Kenny, who in January ( on the Feast of St Francis de Sales, our patron)  will hand over to a new Master and so the Guild story will continue...

Our speakers in the Autumn will include Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury. And the Guild was one of the founders of the TOWARDS ADVENT Festival of Catholic Culture, which takes place on Saturday NOVEMBER  24th at Westminster Cathedral Hall. This Festival is a MUST - open all day, admission free, includes glorious music, stalls and displays from a wide range of Catholic groups and organisations, a special guest appearance of Marcus Grodi of the Coming Home Network, and a celebration of Bl. John Henry Newman's "Second Spring"...

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