VOYA Book Club

by Jose

Happy to report the first meeting of the VOYA book club was a success. We had a great time meeting everyone, hanging, and talking books.

Love reading and making new friends? We’d love to hear from you!

We’re seeking students in grades 6-8 who like reading nonfiction to join our VOYA book club. We’ll gather a few times this fall and winter for review sessions with food and drinks. The books cover a variety of interesting topics including: technology, nature, sports, poetry, biographies, history, and comics. Students will help compile a list of nominees for the top nonfiction books of the year.

Interested? Write to us at teens@icpl.org.

TAG Meeting Minutes 2/08/2011

by admin

TAG Meeting Minutes
2/8/11
4:30-6:00
ICPL Meeting Room B

Members present: Julian, Tamara, Azzah, McKinley, Kim, Sam, and Maddie. Read more…

TAG Meeting Minutes 1/4/2011

by admin

TAG Meeting Minutes
1/4/10
4:30-5:30
ICPL Meeting Room B

Members present: Anu, Julian, Yuxuan, Tamara, Azzah, Ellen, McKinley, Kim, Derek, Sam, Naftalia, Shecharya, Maddie, and Jason. Read more…

TAG Meeting Minutes 12/7/2010

by admin

sleekocean.deviantart.com

TAG Meeting Minutes
12/7/10
4:30-6:00
ICPL Meeting Room B

Who was there: Julian, Yuxuan, Darian, Azzah, Ellen, McKinley,
Antoine, Derek, Maddie, Jason, and we welcomed new TAG member Sam.  Thanks to Darian for inviting Sam!

Read more…

TAG Meeting Minutes 4/6/10

by admin

TAG Meeting Minutes
4/6/10
4:30 – 5:30
Meeting Room B

WHO WAS THERE
Darian, Emma, Rachel, Jason

RECRUITING NEW TAG MEMBERS
So, we now have a pretty amazing strategy for recruiting new TAG members this fall.  Here it is:

  • Make posters and fliers to hang up at school and give to friends:
    • The ICPL graphics department will start designing a poster now
    • TAG members will give feedback on the poster design in May
    • Graphics will finalize the design so the posters will be ready when school starts in August
  • Read more…

TAG Meeting Minutes 3/2/10

by admin

TAG Meeting Minutes
3/2/10
11:30 – 1:00
Meeting Room B

WHO WAS THERE
Darian, Zoe, Shecharya, Derek, Naftalia, David, Rachel, Jason, Brian

RECRUITING NEW MEMBERS
You had some great ideas for recruiting new TAG members! Here they are, in no particular order:

  • Make posters to hang up at school
  • Distribute fliers to friends & members of existing clubs
  • Flash Mob / Flash Freeze, followed by flier distribution
  • Wear banana suit on ped mall, followed by flier distribution
  • Make TAG bookmarks and distribute at ICPL
  • Give TAG applications to all Summer Reading Program participants
  • Bake sale:  make cakes and/or pizzas that say “TAG”
  • Create Facebook Group and invite Facebook Friends to join TAG
  • Advertise on local radio & TV (The Library Channel?)
  • Hire Skywriter / Blimp to advertise TAG
  • Invite existing ICPL Volunteers to join TAG
  • Word of mouth — invite your friends!

At the April TAG meeting we’ll decide which ideas we like best (and are most realistic :) )and start working on them.

UPCOMING EVENTS
YES, we are on for a gelato-making tour at Capanna in April!  This might be a registration-only event with limited openings — we’ll keep you posted.  We’ll try to make sure TAG doesn’t conflict with prom on 4/17.

In May we’ll have a ginormous party and play outdoorsy games such as tag, hide-and-go-seek, sardine, and kickball.

ECO SUMMER READING PROGRAM
Your eco give-away & event ideas:

  • Bike accessories (bells, water bottles, etc.)
  • Seed packets
  • eBook gift certificates
  • Gift certificates to erase library fines
  • Bike day!  Bike safety, bike repair, helmet decorating
  • Invite master gardener to give presentation
  • Produce “Horticulture Friday” teencast
  • Learn how to make handmade paper & altered (note)books

BLOG & PODCAST STATS
Some of you were wondering if anyone ever reads the blog or listens to the podcast.  WELL!  This month the blog has had 2621 unique visits by real people, and the most recent podcast has been downloaded, played directly from the blog, or picked up via RSS feed 113 times!

…AND OTHER STUFF

  • Brian is going to start planning and attending some teen events!
  • TAG members expressed interest in having a greater influence on library decisions.  We will explore ways to make this happen, including the possibility of TAG contributing input to the Library Board.
  • Someone asked if 18 & 19 year-olds can participate in TAG, even if they have already graduated from highschool.  We’ve never considered this before!  We’ll keep this in mind when recruiting for next year’s TAG.

TAG Meeting Minutes 1/9/10

by admin

TAG Meeting Minutes
1/9/10
1:30 – 3:00
Meeting Room B

WHO WAS THERE
Emma, Erin, David, Zoe, Kim, Rachel, Jason

ANIME FEST
Anime Fest 2010 is coming!  This year’s fest will be on Saturday February 13, and will feature anime film screenings, J-Pop music, DIY bento boxes, and books talks about our favorite manga (à la David and Kim).  Meanwhile, Emma has agreed to blog about anime vs. manga, and maybe Erin will even tell us what she thinks of Yotsuba… — thanks everyone!  Email teens@icpl.org if you have any other ideas to make this year’s Anime Fest the most amazing ever.

FAHRENHEIT 451
ICPL is launching The Big Read of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 on February 1st!  TAG’s contribution to this huge community event is going to be another one of our thoughtful and poignant podcasts (you know, the ones where we discuss G.I. Joe super powers and “Blawesome”-ness).  So get reading ASAP — it’s really short! — and come with your radio voices to February’s TAG meeting.  David is going to blog about upcoming Fahrenheit 451-ness in late January, and Kim will keep the blog posts coming in February.

UPCOMING EVENTS
So another year of TAG is halfway over :(   We are still going to try to fit in a movie night, gelato-making tour, and playground games extravaganza (including the game “tag.”)  We are thinking March = movie night, April = gelato-making tour, and May = outdoorsy end-of-the-year bash.  Stay tuned for more info!

ECO SUMMER READING PROGRAM
What are your ideas for Eco SRP?  We brainstormed a few ideas at the meeting, including a bike repair workshop, an ICPL community garden, and reusable water bottle giveaways.  Email teens@icpl.org with your Eco SRP ideas, or just leave us a comment!

TAG Meeting Minutes 12/1/09

by admin

TAG Meeting Minutes
12/1/09
4:30 – 6:00
ICPL Meeting Room E

WHO WAS THERE
Kim, Darian, Shecharya, Naftalia, Zoe, Alek, Jason, Rachel

PODCAST
Yesss, we finally recorded a new podcast!  Topics included:  New Moon, Life-Threatening Knitting Catastrophes, No Shave November, and Cheese Club.  Now that’ we’ve got the recording, it’s time to crank this puppy out.  Hop on over to Teen Tech Zone during Winter Break Dec. 21-23 and Dec. 28-31 from 1:00-4:00 if you want to get teched out and earn some volunteer hours.

“CRAFTY TEENS @ HOME EC. WORKSHOP”
December’s event is. . . felted soap?  OK, I didn’t know what that was either, but it looks pretty awesome! Meet in the ICPL lobby on Saturday Dec. 19 at 12:45 to head over to Home Ec. Workshop and get your craft on.  Registration is limited to 15, so sign up here, now!

“THE BIG READ”: FAHRENHEIT 451
The Iowa City Public Library is doing an awesome series of events about Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, sci-fi, censorship, and more in February 2010.  TAG is going to tackle this book with an amazing and creative project (we just don’t know what it is yet!).  Read it over break, finish it up by the January TAG meeting, and we’ll plan something crazy-fun and Fahrenheit 451-related for February’s event.

TAG Meeting Minutes 10/6/09

by admin

TAG Meeting Minutes
10/6/09
4:30 – 5:30
ICPL Meeting Room B

WHO WAS THERE
Kim, Darian, Shecharya, Naftalia, Jason, Rachel

VOLUNTEER HOURS
So I need to know how many hours you spent on TAG-related activities in September, as well as August. How many hours did you spend at TAG meetings & events, working on podcasts, and writing blog posts? Let me know by this Tuesday (Oct. 13) at the latest. If you don’t tell me how many hours you volunteered, then I can’t give you credit — and that would be sad. :(

“VIDEO GAME SHOWDOWN”
This is happening ideally some Saturday in November from 1-3:00 p.m. Keep your little eyeballs peeled for the official date, coming soon.  We’ll have our November TAG meeting before the tournament, at noon, with pizza. Shecharya has been dubbed the Tournament Master, due to his logistics expertise. There will be prizes! Snacks! And non-video games such as Apples to Apples! I think I also promised Kim that I would bring my cribbage board, so get excited.

HI, NEW MEMBERS!
New members Darian and Naftalia were at Tuesday’s meeting. It was so great to see both of you — you had great ideas for our upcoming events!

PODCASTS / BLOG POSTS
It’s official: Zoe and Shecharya are our Podcast Directors. Kim, David and Darian are our Blog Editors. Keep your eye out for info from them about upcoming podcast / blog projects.

Also, check out the blog for a super write-up by our Scribe, Erin, about the Banned-Books Read In. Emma took photos, which I hope she will share with us on the blog sometime very soon!

TAG Meeting Minutes 9/2/09, Part 2

by admin

Hey TAG members, remember those applications you filled out to be in TAG, once upon a time?  Thus revealing your deepest darkest secrets about your favorite books, movies, music, videogames and hobbies?  Well, I thought it would be cool to put all that info together in one place so you can see what each other are up to.  This is how we wrapped up our September TAG meeting:

Books we love
Artemis Fowl, The Book Thief, Harry Potter, Romeo & Juliet, A Wrinkle in Time, Raven’s Gate, Howl’s Moving Castle, Brokeback Mountain, The Other Boleyn Girl, Pride and Prejudice, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Shadow of the Red Moon.  Additional authors: J.R.R. Tolkein, Libba Bray, Mildred D. Taylor.

Movies we love
Donnie Darko, Billy Madison (2 votes!), The Longest Yard, The Illusionist, The Prestige, Braveheart, Phantom of the Opera, Eurotrip.

Music we love
Black Eyed Peas, Eminem, Akon, 303, T-Pain, Rise Against, Secondhand Serenade, Panic at the Disco, Cobra Starship, We the Kings, Radiohead, The Beatles, New Order.  Other genres:  Japanese bands, classic rock, Spanish rock, operas, hip-hop, rap.

Videogames we love
Rock Band, Final Fantasy, Super Smash Bros, American Idol, The Sims, Mario Kart, Guitar Hero.

TV Shows we love
Lost, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Six Feet Under, Japanese dramas on YouTube.

Other things we like
Sports, football, swimming, biking, Tae Kwon Do, tag, hide-and-seek, reading, writing, drawing, photography, singing, piano, saxophone, computers, blogging, refurbishing furniture, sewing, chess, fan-fiction, pizza, Magic: The Gathering, helping out at animal shelters.

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