The Poetry Society Members’ Site
This is an independent Poetry Society site set up by and for Members. Non-members are welcome and encouraged to join. See the About page for a link to the Poetry Society’s official site, or click here. Subscribe to this site to get notifications by e-mail of new posts and comments. This can make it easier to keep track of what’s going on.
______________________________________
Latest –
5th October 2011 – An amazing National Poetry Day on the South Bank and all round the country. Here’s the main NPD site, the Poetry Society page is here, and for me the highlight of the day was the Foyle Young Poets of the Year awards.
26th September 2011 – The new Board had a long meeting last Wednesday – there’s an announcement on the Poetry Society website here.
20th September 2011 – a positive headline on the Guardian’s letters page: Peace breaks out at the Poetry Society
17th September 2011 – An audio recording of the AGM is available here.
15th September 2011 – AGM: In total there were 341 voters: 211 appointed a proxy to vote on their behalf, and 130 voted in person.
Following the AGM, the new Trustees are Shanta Acharya, Martin Alexander, Polly Clark, Robert Hutchison, Sir Stephen Irwin, Edward Mackay, Kona Macphee, Heather Neill, Paul Ranford, Michael Schmidt, Laurie Smith and Dr Stephen Wilson. Further information is posted on the Poetry Society website here.
13th September 2011 – The National Poetry Competition is now open for entries.
______________________________________
Further down this page –
Updates – for all news which is older than Latest …
31st August 2011 – Nominees’ statements in Wordle form…
Kate Clanchy on the AGM and proxies
26th August 2011 – AGM Proxies – all you need to know
2nd August 2011 – Signatures on the Petition for the reinstatement of Judith Palmer as Director
28th July 2011 – From Anne-Marie Fyfe, former Chair of Board of Trustees
27th July 2011 – A statement from the former Director of the Poetry Society, Judith Palmer.
22nd July 2011 – 11pm – First summary of the EGM
22nd July 2011 – 10:00am – Statement from Paul Ranford, former Finance Manager for the Board
______________________________
This site
is an independent forum and source of information for Poetry Society members. More on the About page.
To read the comments on any entry, click on the grey COMMENTS link below it.
For news of the latest updates, subscribe to the blog or read the Updates entry below.
________________________________________
Contact
the administrator directly by e-mailing Martin Alexander.
________________________________________
Poetry Society members 
An amazing National Poetry Day on the South Bank and all round the country. Visit the home page for links.
The new Board had a long meeting last Wednesday – there’s an announcement on the Poetry Society website here.
17th September 2011 – An audio recording of the AGM is available here.
AGM (from PoSoc): In total there were 341 voters: 211 appointed a proxy to vote on their behalf, and 130 voted in person.
The National Poetry Competition is now open for entries.
To get to St Giles’ Church for the AGM: from Tottenham Court Road Tube station take exit 5 and turn into Denmark St. http://www.stgilesonline.org/our-church/location.php
Well, the proxy deadline is long gone … if you want to vote at the AGM, you’ll have to be there. All the information you need is on the AGM page.
Just two days to go for proxies to reach the Poetry Society – if you won’t be at Wednesday’s meeting, read the statements on the the Nominations page and get a proxy!
How should Members decide which twelve candidates to choose? Fiona Moore has some advice on her blog here. Anyone else? Post on the Nominations page or e-mail the site administrator to add your thoughts or link your site.
Please note that Bryan Owen and Cary Archard have withdrawn their nominations as potential trustees.
I’m tickled that the Arts Council people were determined to uncover any plans for meditation.
New information on the Docs page (under Info) as well as updates on Nominations (under AGM).
See the Nominations page for updated information on candidates, and here
http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/content/membership/agm/nomination/
for the statements and other information on the REAL Poetry Society website.
Additional statements by prospective trustees are now posted on the Nominations page (under AGM). There is also some discussion of where individual candidates stand on some of the important issues.
Visit the WordPress site for an updated list of nominations to the Board, on the Poetry Society’s official website.
Proxy form and nominations – latest news here:
Martin – admin
The petition now exceeds 1000 signatories.
Please visit the Petition page if you’d like to sign, and please check that your signature has been verified.
New postings on the home page:
Message from Anne-Marie Fyfe, former Chair of the Board of Trustees
Article about the EGM by Niki May Young on CivilSociety.Co.UK – includes link to the text of the Board’s statement to the meeting, as read by Trustee John Simmons.
Go to the home page for a statement by the Poetry Society’s former Director, Judith Palmer.
Audio, video & comments now posted. It’s not over yet…
Go to the home page or Links to read Silkworms ink by Phil Brown – with a live Twitter feed for the EGM
Fiona Moore’s Displacement blog – link on the FAQ page.
Read our reply to Chair of the Board on The Mail.
Confused by all the drama? Befuddled by rumour? Read Conversation with a Perplexed Poet on the FAQ page and all will become perfectly clear.
Latest on Proxies – if you STILL haven’t done so, you may arrange your proxy by e-mail, so long as you use the e-mail address the Poetry Society has on file from when you joined.
However, please do not duplicate the correspondence if you’ve already sent your proxy in. It will be a nightmare for the staff to deal with doubled-up proxies!
Message to her readers from Anne-Marie Fyfe (convenor of Troubador Series and Coffee-House Poetry, and previous Chair of the Board of Trustees: on the Discussion page.
As of 8pm today, this site has had 9,773 visits.
Proxy Fiddles?
It has been suggested that we may be planning to get all the requisitioners to give their vote to a proxy in order to force a vote of no confidence, dismiss the Board and take over the Society. This is not the case. The people who organised the requisition and who have set up this website are ordinary members who started all this because we want to know what’s going on in our Society.
We urge you to attend or to choose a proxy who reflects your own views. We have no intention of harvesting your proxies for our own secret and dastardly schemes. Vote the way you want, or get a proxy who will do it for you.
New pages on the site – FAQ is a one-stop-shop for the whole thing in a two-minute read, and our Poetry page opens with a wise and moving new poem by Vicki Feaver.
Thank you for doing this blog – it is brilliant. You must have worked so hard to get it done this quick.
Thank you. But nah – it’s what I do for my job, so it wasn’t hard, and in doing this I’ve learnt a little more about blogs!
Dear Martin,
As I said previously, I appreciate the work you are doing to put up all these posts, but I don’t think you should sign yourself ‘thepoetrysocietyuk’, as if you are speaking for all of us. Considering the interim state the society is in, no one can speak for the whole body right now. That’s what all the dialogue is about, isn’t it? Please just sign your name when sending out releases. Thank you.
Cordially,
Leah Fritz
thanks
Headlines such as “Poetry Society lobbied by wheelbarrow” commit an unfortunate category error that is creeping into the discourse. The Poetry Society is not something other than its members. The Poetry Society is its members. It is not the Poetry Society that is being lobbied, it is the Board of Trustees of the Poetry Society. Let us be clear, the Board is not The Poetry Society.